Re: Reducing the board size
Hello all, I'd like to express my opinion. I've been following the messages and it seems clear why the solicitation to reduce the board it's been talking But I can't understand why this has to be chosen for the next election. I see that, as said before, if there was a clear definition of the actions and contributions expected for the members of the board we would know for sure that what really turns harder the board course if the inefficiency is a problem or if is the number of people or the missing engagement of some. With the actions clearly defined and a better accompaniment of the works that are being made in this question won't happen the risk of having in mind only the last contributions or the actions missed by some members. Who doesn't make part of the board would know what is happening and who is guaranteing that things are being done. I vote NO because I really believe that if the actions were better distributed we could have in another election the certain that we won't be keeping out interested people and it will be more sure if is needed the reduction or not. Regards, Izabel Valverde GNOME Brazil ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Minutes of the Board meeting 2005 Oct 26
Minutes of the Board meeting 2005 Oct 26 Attendance: === Owen Taylor (chairing) Tim Ney Jonathan Blandford Federico Mena-Quintero Murray Cumming Miguel de Icaza Christian Schaller Regrets: Daniel Veillard David Neary Missing: Luis Villa Jody Goldberg Actions completed: == ACTION: Federico to take the task to find documentation authors and get it done - Done, documentation author hired ACTION: Murray to provide a simpler english explanation of the trademark agreement meaning - Done, page mostly ok as is ACTION: Jonathan to investigate how to set up and encourage hacking sessions at the Summit - Done, went quite well ACTION: Tim to go though the trademark registration check with the user groups so they submit the licence agreement - Done, Bangalore resolving internally who will be responsible, GNOME-FR got needed answers ACTION: Owen check with the Election commitee for membership reminders and check - Done, they are on top of things Actions: ACTION: Dave to start looking for vendors to host the GNOME online shop - Almost complete New Action: === ACTION: Murray to get getting privacy policy online ACTION: Board members to add items to FoundationBoard_2fMoneyUses page ACTION: Owen will send out mail to full board requesting interest in representing GNOME on LSB Desktop group Agenda: === - LSB Desktop - Probably not to important group, but we might want to keep tab on them - Question on foundation-list about community service - Waiting on David for update - Status of OSF agreement about GNOME store - Waiting on David for update - Status of Shaun's work - is it underway? - Yes, will ask for report from Shaun on progress * next meeting Wed 9 November ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on how unimportant the board currently is.
On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 15:31 +0700, Ross Golder wrote: On ศ., 2005-10-28 at 15:07 +0800, Davyd Madeley wrote: Perhaps we should look at the idea of running training sessions where the trainers are not paid, but are given plane tickets and board in the city they are sent to. I'd rather we were all thinking about schemes like this, than trying to decide how big our board should be :) Let's just vote and get on with better things. Such efforts go a long way. The training Federico Mena Quintero's training sessions at Forum GNOME in Brasil http://forumgnome.com.br/ is a stellar example of regional GNOME developer training. Sponsorship from Novell, Friends of GNOME and others helped make the training and free distribution of GNOME 2 books possible. Local conferences and hackfests, such as those in Spain, Australia and Bangalore also brought new developers to the platform. Ross has looked into doing this in Bangkok and I am talking to potential local organizers for such training in China. tim ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: New rules for the elections [was Re: Nomination process should not be public until after deadline]
On Fri, Oct 28, 2005 at 03:38:15PM +0200, Vincent Untz wrote: On Fri, October 28, 2005 00:21, Olav Vitters wrote: I suggest to keep the official candidates and the amount of candidates secret until after the nomination deadline. Candidates can of course announce their candidacy publicly, but I hope that when the official list is not known, nobody will run just because we do not have 11 persons yet (or something like that). I also hope this avoids the not-so-known people from responding when they see the 'big names' on the list. This proposition makes a lot of sense to me. Is there an objection to this? Well, I would object on the ground that no democracy function that way and it's a strange precedent. Plus it somewhat oppose all free-speech principle you would find in democracies. Also, I would like to see a rule about Planet GNOME and similar sites: And blocking the media ? Damn I would not vote for you if you were candidating for a Grenoble's mayor position, that's frigthening... What do you think? I'm puzzled you don't realize how anti democratic a suggestion this is. Daniel -- Daniel Veillard | Red Hat http://redhat.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | libxml GNOME XML XSLT toolkit http://xmlsoft.org/ http://veillard.com/ | Rpmfind RPM search engine http://rpmfind.net/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on how unimportant the board currently is.
On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 12:12 -0300, Fernando San Martín Woerner wrote: Also i want to remember GNOME Hackers training meetings in Chile as for us is very hard to get some core hacker from GNOME in our country we started a small meetings just to show how to be involved in GNOME, actually we've made more than 10 meetings in the last two years. The work for GNOME you and others have done in Chile is excellent. I am sorry that I neglected to mention it in my previous e-mail. The fact that you, personally, got the GUADEC registration system up and running also deserves recognition here. tim ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on the relative importannce of the board.
Both Jim and Nat make very good points. I've been saying this all along - We're expecting things from this board that no other non-profit group in my experience expects - and I have worked with dozens of non-profit organizations. Boards of non-profits: -give legitimacy to the organization -provide an overall direction for the organization -liaise with other organizations -HELP RAISE MONEY I'm currently on two boards of non-profits here in SLC. As we're looking at adding board members, we're looking for people who are wired into the business and government sectors, because they will help us move our agenda further. We're looking for people who can call other top execs in town and get (a check, a commitment, involvement, etc.) On the one board we have someone from the Chamber of Commerce, a former city commissioner, head of a broad outreach program. We're all about to start making phone calls to add other politicians, business leaders, etc. My time committment is minimal - 3-4 hours per month. So why isn't GNOME following this extremely standard protocol? Why are we expecting that 11 people (who mind you, are people who do so much anyway) to do the work that we're all supposed to be doing? We also need a diverse board who can help with these missions - but if you're expecting that they're going to perform miracles - fuggitaboutit. We need to form committees, who then are charged with writing a roadmap and timeline for their efforts. Board members could be part of those committees, but not lead them. We have two that are very well run - elections and the release committee. They have timelines. We need to add: Education, Marketing (we have list, but no regular meetings, no timeline), Web site, government relations, etc. Committees would report to a board member, who gives reports to the entire board - those reports go into the minutes for all of us to see and monitor their progress. An additional benefit - committees give people coming to the organization a place where they can get involved. Right now we're pushing people away, because they have a hard time getting a handle on what to do, etc. Those miracles you're expecting? It's up to us - all of us together. --- Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In general, I think Nat's points are well taken. There is one other major function of the board Nat overlooks: liaison with other organizations and companies. When working with one of them, one often almost has to be a board member, as it may involve items that must remain confidential (temporarily, usually, if things go forward to a conclusion; permanently if such discussions do not make progress), and may involve speaking and negotiating for the foundation as a whole. An example was my negotiations with Bitstream over Vera fonts. How much of a burden this is, is an interesting question, though I bet as we gain more traction on the desktop, that the amount of this work will increase. I make this bet, as, just in the font case, I now know of four different organizations/companies involved in similar situations on fonts alone, that have come to my attention over the last 6 weeks. Part of why I'm recommending a bit more structure to the board while retaining its size is to hold officers to a higher standard on time availability, while acknowledging that some of the board has less time available, but may be able to bring wider experience, representation and viewpoints to the board. Regards, - Jim On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 09:32 -0400, Nat Friedman wrote: I should have written the subject as it is in the corrected version above. Nat On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 02:13 -0400, Nat Friedman wrote: The board of the GNOME foundation is populated by elected directors. These people are elected to make decisions. But, the board has almost no decision-making power. In fact, about the only power the board has is to spend money. For example, hiring Tim Ney. Or, firing him. Right now, Tim is already working for the foundation. So just about the only thing the board can do is fire him. In theory, another power the board has is to decide where GUADEC is. In reality, only one or two groups apply to host GUADEC every year and it is usually immensely obvious which one is better suited. Even so, this decision can take weeks and weeks. Why? Because the only thing the board can do is to decide to fire Tim Ney or choose where GUADEC is going to be hosted. And naturally, the board has to savor this power. Quick decisions would just ruin the fun! Besides, there's nothing else to do but argue over the one or two decisions the board can make. So we have an elected board of directors with a de minimus rationing of power. That what the *board* has. What the *foundation* has is work
Re: Why I voted YES
reduce the peer pressure effect - in passing the referendum, the community recognised that peer pressure was capable of playing a role in who people voted for. I believe that this referendum is a compliment to that one - it will require people to be more thoughtful with their vote. Another proposal (from Alan Horkan) last year was to use PR for foundation elections, rather than the multicast ballot without order of preference. Who's to say that Owen was not everyone's 10th preference I was informed PR (Proportional Representation) was an imprecise description we use locally (in Ireland) but the concept is better described as a Single Transferable Vote (STV). It is a little more complex to implement but in an automated system it shouldn't be a big deal and I have always appreciate how the system is designed to elect the least unpopular candidates. Perhaps it is something which will remain open for consideration in future, I hope so. - Alan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting 2005 Oct 26
Hey, On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 13:50 +0200, Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller wrote: Minutes of the Board meeting 2005 Oct 26 Actions completed: == ACTION: Federico to take the task to find documentation authors and get it done - Done, documentation author hired Oh, okay. Oh really - I wonder who that could be? [snip] - Status of Shaun's work - is it underway? - Yes, will ask for report from Shaun on progress I assume it's Shaun then? I guess I would have expected some sort of announcement. What is Shaun's work going to involve, etc etc? Glynn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on the relative importance of the board.
Boards of non-profits: -give legitimacy to the organization -provide an overall direction for the organization -liaise with other organizations -HELP RAISE MONEY This is all good, and right on the mark, except for one thing. The GNOME Foundation (and GNOME itself) is only accidentally a non-profit making organisation. They key point in the problems that we face is not that we are non-profit oriented it is: (ta-dh!) A loose collaborative effort of volunteers, or at best weakly connected network organisation. All our problems stem from this. All our strengths stem from this. We need to stop applying standard business logic to the organisation of ourselves. In particular, this relates to the planning function. The point, of course, is that we can (almost) never tell someone to do something. We have ask, cajole, wheedle, persuade, inspire and respect ourselves into getting things done. (As an aside, this is way cool in my book.) We do, however, need to start/increase applying standard business logic to the relationship between ourselves and our customers (or stakeholders, if you really want to go all the way). That is the function of the board, as outlined originally: to be the interface between GNOME and the rest of the world. And probably not much more than that? Oh well, that's enough abstract academia for Saturday morning. Back to the coffee! Ciao, John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on the relative importance of the board.
On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 11:22 +1300, John Williams wrote: Boards of non-profits: -give legitimacy to the organization -provide an overall direction for the organization -liaise with other organizations -HELP RAISE MONEY This is all good, and right on the mark, except for one thing. The GNOME Foundation (and GNOME itself) is only accidentally a non-profit making organisation. They key point in the problems that we face is not that we are non-profit oriented it is: (ta-dh!) A loose collaborative effort of volunteers, or at best weakly connected network organisation. That's the GNOME project. The foundation is an entity we created to help the project out in various ways. Nat All our problems stem from this. All our strengths stem from this. We need to stop applying standard business logic to the organisation of ourselves. In particular, this relates to the planning function. The point, of course, is that we can (almost) never tell someone to do something. We have ask, cajole, wheedle, persuade, inspire and respect ourselves into getting things done. (As an aside, this is way cool in my book.) We do, however, need to start/increase applying standard business logic to the relationship between ourselves and our customers (or stakeholders, if you really want to go all the way). That is the function of the board, as outlined originally: to be the interface between GNOME and the rest of the world. And probably not much more than that? Oh well, that's enough abstract academia for Saturday morning. Back to the coffee! Ciao, John ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: New rules for the elections
Le vendredi 28 octobre 2005 à 19:16 +0200, Claudio Saavedra a écrit : Hi, On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 17:23 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote: [...] I'm not saying we should block the media. I'm saying that we should try to let each candidate be able to use the same way to express themselves, especially on media that are closely related to GNOME (like Planet GNOME). That shouldn't be needed if every votant reads and participates in the discussions and debates that *should* take place in the foundation mailing list. Saying that exposition in Planet GNOME is needed, is almost saying that members are not subscribed to this mailing list or simply doesn't read the discussions... Exposition in Planet GNOME is not needed, but it will happen (and this is also a good thing since it will inform people not in the Foundation of what is going on). Not all members are subscribed to foundation-list. All members should be subscribed to foundation-announce, though. I don't have any statistics, so maybe in the end, nearly all the members are subscribed to foundation-list. ...by the way, does debate and discussion during elections really happen? I think that the past year debates came too late. Don't really know how was in previous elections (I wasn't suscrited and wasn't member either). Probably this 11-or-7 issue is generating more momentum for the next election, so I hope we'll have opportune debates in the list this time. We'll see. Ah, this is interesting feedback. Would you like to see more time for debate this year? The nearly-frozen timeline for this year is: November 2005 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 (4) 5 applications/renewals closed (4th) 6 (7) 8 9 10 11 12 list of candidates open (7th) 13(14)15(16)17 18 19 list of candidates closed (14th) list of candidates announced (16th) 20 21 22 23 24(25)26 ballots are sent (25th) 27 28 29 30 December 2005 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (9)(10) ballots must be returned (9th) preliminary results announced (10th) 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22(23)24 challenges to the results close (23rd) 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on the relative importannce of the board.
If the board's role were limited to raising funds, who would be responsible for important policy decisions? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting 2005 Oct 26
Hi, On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 18:37 -0400, Tim Ney, GNOME Foundation wrote: The doc project with Shaun McCance was announced at the end of the Summit, but everyone was probably too tired to blog it. Below is the draft outline of the project. tim SUBJECT MATTER DESCRIPTION: Introduction, The GNOME Family, Overview, Core Technologies, IPC and Network Support, Desktop Technologies, Language Bindings, Appendix Who's the target audience of this document? Seems like there is a lot of potential libraries that *aren't* part of our official platform stack that we're advertising, and even those libraries that are could be considered as very dubious ISV interfaces. Glynn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Some perspective on the relative importannce of the board.
On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 01:12 -0400, Richard M. Stallman wrote: If the board's role were limited to raising funds, who would be responsible for important policy decisions?] Depends what you mean by 'policy decisions' - but I'd certainly hope the GNOME Foundation membership had a large say in the matter. If it didn't, then we have problems. Glynn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
