I'm not going to quote the emails about company control and Red Hat's contributions in particular as I think it's gotten fairly heated and my thoughts are more easily generally expressed.

I think we need both to be successful - companies that are invested in GNOME technologies who are users and contributors and who care about it because it is useful to their business and individual contributors who are here because they are jazzed about our awesome mission.

We need to work on both now to try to figure out how to get wider adoption of GNOME and how to show that we're an important project that is worth a hobbyist's time and is fun to be a part of.

As Emily and Sri have mentioned, we really need to put a premium on encouraging people when they first show an interest, something I think we've gotten better at but still need a lot of improvement on. We need to go out of our way to take an interest and to be advocates for GNOME to new individuals and new companies. I've been scratching my head over this for a while. Speaking at conferences and being present where people meet and talk about important technologies have been the approaches I've pursued but I think there's a lot more that can be done. A lot of it involves promoting culture that is welcoming, which I think we were leaders of once upon a time and have gotten much better with more recently. We definitely want to make the companies already invested in our space feel good about their contributions while making sure the infrastructure is in place for no corporate control.

I'd love it if we could do something like put together a team of volunteers who are ready to help companies adopt GNOME, whether it's to go and talk to decision makers or to go and give an occasional demo or training session. I recognize that this is a lot of work and nontrivial to organize (we have to make sure the right people are representing us) but it's part of what I think GNOME has been missing. With the right enthusiasm from the membership this is something that can be done.

I also will say that the boards and foundation memberships that I've worked with have been more productive when everyone has a positive attitude. Being critical of the way things are and what other people say is necessary for insightful discussion and change but finding the core of what someone is saying and helping to find positive ideas for that change is essential. In general positive communicators are more persuasive and create a better collaborative environment. I've been a bit dismayed about the negative tone of a lot of the emails regarding candidacy, not just this thread. I want to be on a board that has differing views but can communicate in a way that inspires cooperation.

karen


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