Re: GNOME Foundation 2018 Annual General Meeting

[David King]

Hi Allan

On 2018-07-03 14:48, Allan Day  wrote:

As usual, this year's GNOME Foundation Annual General Meeting will be
taking place as part of GUADEC. The details are as follows:

  - Time: 16:30
  - Date: Saturday 7th July 2018.
  - Location: The Auditorium, University of Almería, Spain

The meeting will include an introduction to the new Board of Directors, a
report on the previous 12 months, and a Q session with the board.


According to the bylaws of the Foundation (Section 7.4), 30 days notice 
is required for an AGM, whereas this notice only gives 4 days notice. I 
suppose that there will not be any issues for the membership to vote on, 
so maybe it does not make much difference.


I am not sure of the best place to add this for future GUADECs, but 
maybe https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/HowTo/CheckList would be suitable?


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GNOME.Asia Summit 2017 Travel Sponsorship

[David King]

The GNOME Foundation  provides travel
subsidy to individuals who want to attend GNOME.Asia Summit 2017 and 
need financial assistance.


We are happy to announce the Travel Committee
 is ready to receive applications for
subsidy to attend GNOME.Asia Summit 2017. This year, the Summit is being
organized in Chongqing, at the Chongqing University on October 14-16, 
2017.


The instructions are detailed at https://wiki.gnome.org/Travel/Request

Please read them carefully.

*Deadline of travel application*: September 15th, 2017. You can start
sending in your applications now!
*Confirmation of travel subsidy*: September 18th, 2017.

Some extra comments:

* Any information you send to the Travel Committee will be private.

* Asking for sponsorship *does not* guarantee you will get sponsored.

* A good application with good information will be processed quickly.

* If you need help with accommodation, you should state in your 
application that you need lodging, and leave the cost blank.


* Always choose the most economical option when possible. People who 
need travel sponsorship, should look for the best price (for example,

through a service like kayak.com). If the Travel Committee finds a
cheaper price, that will be the price considered during the evaluation.

* Preference will be given to speakers, Foundation members, GSoC 
students, Outreachy interns and active contributors.


* If your country needs a VISA invitation letter and you are a GNOME
contributor, please let the GNOME Travel invitations committee know 
about it. 


* If you are selected for the Google Summer of Code or Outreachy (as 
student or mentor) you should mention it in your application.


* If your talk was selected for GNOME.Asia 2017, you should mention it 
in your application.


* The Travel committee should reply back about receiving your 
application within 2-3 days. After that we would accumulate all the

sponsorship requests and process them together. So please do not panic
(have any butterflies in your stomach) if we take some time to reply on
the status. Affirmative/Negative you will surely get a response.

* No personal emails to committee members. Please keep travel-committee
Cc’ed on all your replies.

Feel free to ask questions on the travel-committee list. You can also 
find us in the #travel channel at irc.gnome.org



Regards,

David, on behalf of the GNOME Travel Committee

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Re: More detailed team report from i18n team

[David King]

Hi!

On 2016-08-13 16:11, Alexandre Franke  wrote:

[0] I heard the coordinator for this language, a certain Bastien
Nocera, is present at GUADEC. You should go to him and encourage him
to get back in the list of supported languages!


I just pushed some updates to Nautilus, GNOME Software and Orca, so 
British English is now a hair over 80%. Only another ~9000 strings to 
go…


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Re: Question for candidates

[David King]

Hi Dave

On 2014-05-19 16:14, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote:

On 05/19/2014 04:31 AM, David King wrote:

Right now (taking into account the poor financial situation that the
Foundation is facing), I think that a candidate for the executive
director position would be someone who has experience of raising funds
for not-for-profit organisations. For GNOME, the board does not exert
strong control over the project, but tries to steer it in the right
direction by ensuring that funding is directed appropriately, making the
executive director role particularly challenging.


My follow-on question, then: raising money for what?


Initially, I think that much of the money raised by an executive 
director would go towards financially supporting the executive director 
role. If the Foundation's revenues continue to drop (as has been the 
case over the last few years), an executive director role would become 
untenable without increased funding from sponsors.


Once the executive director role is securely funded, I think that there 
would be more time to spend growing the Foundation, which is the more 
traditional role of the executive director. If there is an abundance of 
funding available, the board should work with the executive director and 
the Foundation to use the money effectively to further the Foundation's 
goals, such as by funding hackfests, outreach (possibly with a 
particular emphasis on local outreach, as this has come up as part of 
other discussions) and sponsoring contributions (such as with the 
accessibility and privacy campaigns).



I do not think that
technical proficiency is an essential quality for an executive director,
if by that you mean ability to code.


I meant understanding of the technology, ability to explain it, and
ability to be articulate about what the GNOME project needs to do to
stay relevant.


In that case, I think technical proficiency is of critical importance, 
as fundraising would be extremely difficult without an ability to 
explain on a technical and social level about the importance of 
sponsors' (and potential sponsors') support of GNOME. This is what I 
meant when I mentioned that an executive director would need to 
understand GNOME's position in the Free Software and wider communities 
in order to raise funds effectively, so thanks for giving me the 
opportunity to clarify.


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Re: Question for candidates

[David King]

Hi Michael

On 2014-05-19 18:48, Michael Catanzaro mcatanz...@gnome.org wrote:

On Mon, 2014-05-19 at 16:55 +0100, David King wrote:
I have a follow-up question (for David and incumbents): why do you want
(or not want) to hire a new executive director? What responsibilities do
you think the executive director role should entail? Can the foundation
afford to wait to hire a new executive director?


I partially answered this in my responses to Dave Neary:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2014-May/msg00030.html
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2014-May/msg00069.html

In short, the executive director needs to bring in enough money to fund 
the position, grow the revenues of the Foundation to keep its financial 
situation secure, and to grow the Foundation as a whole.


Much of the process for this will be administrative, such as helping the 
administrative assistant with accounting and other necessary work. Part 
of the role will be evangelizing for GNOME at conferences and to 
existing and future sponsors. Some of the role would be acting as a 
figurehead, answering questions about GNOME and making sure that GNOME 
is presented well in the press. Stormy Peters wrote a very useful blog 
post about what she saw as the role of the executive director when she 
was in that position:


http://stormyscorner.com/2009/01/what-do-i-do-as-executive-director-of-gnome.html

I think that is broadly true of the executive director role, just that 
the proportions differ depending on the needs of the Foundation at the 
time.



I'm asking because most of Karen's work was not highly-visible. I'm
aware that she worked on recruiting new advisory board members and spoke
at conferences, both of which seem important. But I'm sure there must be
more to the job that I am unaware of, to justify the significant
expense.


I think that, in future, the Foundation cannot afford an executive 
director who is more costly to employ than the income gained from 
advisory board revenues. I think that Emily Gonyer's proposal to scale 
back corporate sponsorship would make it more difficult to continue to 
employ an executive director in the traditional role.


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Re: Questions for the candidates: finances

[David King]

Hi Jim

On 2014-05-19 11:19, Jim Nelson j...@yorba.org wrote:

Aside from corporate sponsorship and personal donations, what area(s)
would you investigate to increase and stabilize GNOME's finances?  (Or
do you feel these two methods are the only or best way to achieve this
goal?)


I think that corporate donations are an effective way to raise funds for 
the Foundation, as they traditionally have dwarfed personal donations. 
While personal donations are secondary in terms of absolute value, the 
sheer number of individual donors is an indication of the high level of 
support from a wide range of people.


Perhaps there is room for a middle ground, where interested parties 
(individuals or companies) could contribute to specific goals, and 
interested maintainers or contributors could pick up tasks and work on 
improving GNOME based on the goal ideas. To me, this is somewhere 
between the current fundraising campaigns, such as those for 
accessibility and privacy, and the idea of bug bounties. I think that 
the idea might have too much overhead, but it could work well at getting 
both new contributors and donors involved in the project.


I am sure that there are lots of potential problems with it, but I hope 
the idea can spark some discussion.


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Re: Board of Directors Elections 2014 - Candidacy - Karen Sandler

[David King]

Hi Marina

On 2014-05-20 11:17, Marina Zhurakhinskaya mari...@redhat.com wrote:

In my view, having immediate feedback and ideas from someone with lots of 
experience during the board meetings is very valuable, and can't be substituted 
with occasional consulting. The board and the Foundation benefit from a 
diversity of skills and experiences of the board members. As both Karen and I 
mentioned, she has been dedicating her time volunteering on critical matters. 
Being on the board provides the best view into what these matters are, which 
she is able to help us with. I think the composition of the board and the 
skills and time commitments people can offer need to be considered together to 
create the best balance.


Indeed, and there is no reason that the immediate feedback cannot be 
gained from Karen as an adviser if she is invited to board meetings. I 
do not think that a board composed of some members who are able to 
devote time to taking on many action items and some who are not able to 
take on many is a good balance, and certainly not the best balance.


Karen, how much time would you have available to dedicate to board 
matters above and beyond your existing volunteering commitments? You 
mentioned elsewhere that you have been spending 5 hours per week on your 
volunteering efforts for GNOME. Would you be able to dedicate time above 
that to board duties, or would your board duties negatively impact your 
existing efforts?


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Re: Board of Directors Elections 2014 - Candidacy - Karen Sandler

[David King]

Hi Karen

On 2014-05-20 12:27, Karen Sandler ka...@gnome.org wrote:

On 2014-05-20 11:30, David King wrote:

Indeed, and there is no reason that the immediate feedback cannot be
gained from Karen as an adviser if she is invited to board meetings. I
do not think that a board composed of some members who are able to
devote time to taking on many action items and some who are not able
to take on many is a good balance, and certainly not the best balance.

Karen, how much time would you have available to dedicate to board
matters above and beyond your existing volunteering commitments? You
mentioned elsewhere that you have been spending 5 hours per week on
your volunteering efforts for GNOME. Would you be able to dedicate
time above that to board duties, or would your board duties negatively
impact your existing efforts?


I'm not sure Dave, it's a tough question. To be honest, if I'm not a
board member I probably won't regularly join the board meetings. For
reference, I was not invited to board meetings when I was just pro bono
counsel to GNOME (from my SFLC days) and I'm unaware of any pro bono
counsel being regularly invited to the meetings. While it's possible to
join it's not really part of that role.

I try to give the maximum amount of time I have free to GNOME (much to
the annoyance of my family, it's actually some weeks been much more than
5 hours since I left as ED but I wanted to give a more conservative view
of my time commitments).

The volunteer work that I've been doing is in part driven by the
momentum I've had as ED and being a part of the board meetings in the
past. I would expect that to diminish if I'm not on the board. On
helping to collect invoices and asking for sponsorship (I've done both
for GNOME even in the last 2 weeks), it will be much easier if I am a
board member, as I'd have the authority to represent the org.

As I said in an earlier email, being on the board is a lot of work - I
want to make myself available to serve, but am happy to leave it to
others if the membership so chooses. I think I'd be an asset to the
Foundation in this position which is why I've chosen to run.  It's also
hard for everyone to make promises about availability going forward.
I've seen a lot of people promise to do a lot during the elections
period and then fail to step up over the course of the term. I've
avoided other boards in the past (I've been asked to serve on a lot of
them) but I am making an exception this time as GNOME is special :)

The current board has been really great, and very active. I've been glad
to work with them. If elected, I will indeed have to readjust my
priorities and overall commitments. And it might mean that I miss a
marketing meeting in favor of a board meeting if I am very busy that
week. I think that's probably true for every board member though.


Thank you very much for the detailed response. I do not feel that my 
concerns have been completely addressed, but I think that everyone 
reading will be able to clearly understand your position.


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Re: Question for candidates

[David King]

Hi Max

On 2014-05-19 09:18, Max sakana...@gmail.com wrote:

* What's your plan for Promote / Growth GNOME in Asia
-- GNOME.Asia summit ?
 Central event management system for both GUADEC and GNOME.Asia?(  I
saw it last GUADEC but not start to use)
 Other idea?


I will be attending GNOME.Asia this year (as long as my visa is 
accepted, which I will find out today), and giving a training session 
for newcomers as well as a talk for more experienced developers. I hope 
to make an impression on the attendees by demonstrating the GNOME 
developer experience, and hope that this helps in attracting new 
developers.



-- Google Summer of code / Outreach Program for Women
 What's your plan for GsoC and OPW in Asia?
 How many country get GsoC / OPW in Asia? What's your plan for promote
it with more country in Asia?


I am mentoring a GSoC student from India this summer, but it is evident 
that there are not many GSoC applicants from students in south-east 
Asia. Is this because the GSoC timeline does not align well with 
universities in those areas, or are we simply doing a bad job at 
attracting those students? I do not know the answer, but I would like to 
hear any thoughts from Foundation members in Asia about what they see as 
a problem, and how the Foundation can work to solve any problems.



-- GNOME Foundation member in Asia?
 How do we know our other member in Asia?( I suggest tobi last year, if
they want to fill their country when foundation member renew or new )
 How do we get these member / resource together?


The only way that we have of doing this is by looking at names and email 
addresses of Foundation members. That gives us a rough idea of the 
location of members, but we could ask them directly when renewing. There 
are regional mailing lists hosted at gnome.org, but maybe there is a 
better way of contacting and organising Asian Foundation members (and 
potential new members).



-- Are you interesting to involve Asia event? and how do you involve?

-- Anything you plan with Asia.


As an idea, maybe a director could have a role to communicate with Asian 
Foundation members to drive outreach in those areas. I know that there 
are representatives who report to the board about GNOME.Asia and GUADEC, 
but maybe regional outreach could be delegated to members in those 
regions, and communicated back to the board so that funding could be 
directed appropriately. The Foundation could direct funding for 
promotion at Asian events, by sponsoring the travel of Asian Foundation 
members, or possibly by purchasing a local events box. 

As I will be attending GNOME.Asia, I hope to engage with many Asian 
attendees, and to learn their perspectives on GNOME, as well as how we 
can increase membership and participation in Asia.


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Re: Question for candidates

[David King]

Hi Emily

On 2014-05-19 23:16, Emily Chen emilychen...@gmail.com wrote:

I would like to ask below questions to future board:

1. For GNOME big event, call for sponsor is really important, what is your
plan to call for more sponsors for conference like GUADEC and GNOME.Asia ?


The advisory board has seen a shrinking membership over the last few 
years, and it has traditionally been the source of a large proportion of 
sponsorship for bigger events. The board could seek to grow the advisory 
board membership, which provides funding for GNOME as a whole.  
Alternatively, the board could seek out sponsors from organisations 
external to the advisory board, such as local sponsors which might have 
a connection to a location, but less of a connection to GNOME. This 
would be most effective if done by the local organising team, but the 
board should make sure that appropriate assistance is in place, so that 
the local team is not overburdened.


As you (and many of the GNOME.Asia team) are long-term local organiser, 
I would appreciate your input in acquiring and retaining sponsors.



2. What is the top 3 goals for GNOME Foundation in the next year, in your
opinion ?


Firstly, the board needs to return the Foundation to a state of 
financial security, by increasing the cash reserves to a comfortable 
level. Secondly, the board needs to grow the revenues of the Foundation, 
such as by acquiring new sponsors and examining new sources of revenue.  
Finally, and only once the financial situation is more clear, the board 
needs to find a new executive director. I anticipate that these goals, 
which in some ways amount to getting the Foundation back on track

will be challenging to meet over the next year.


3. How to raise and increase the fund for GNOME Foundation ?


I think increasing the value of being an advisory board member, with a 
view to getting more long-term sponsorship, would be a priority. The 
board may find it possible to seek out some one-off sponsorship 
opportunities over the next year, but I think that the biggest challenge 
will be retaining those sponsors over the coming year, and the advisory 
board is a good mechanism for that.



4. How many hours you work in GNOME Board related work each week?


Given the current lack of executive director, I would expect at least 10 
hours per week at the moment, dropping to 5-10 hours per week when an 
executive director is found to reduce the workload.


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Re: Current state of Foundation finances

[David King]

On 2014-04-13 02:20, Karen Sandler ka...@gnome.org wrote:

On 2014-04-13 01:43, Stormy Peters wrote:

Don't we have reserves though? We should have 6 months of operating
expenses as reserves.


I should leave maybe this to Kat and other board members but I'm
recently enough gone that I can answer - the Foundation has adequate
reserves for GNOME's ordinary operations but not for OPW, and the
program has ramped up really quickly while the Foundation is still very
small.


That is not correct according to:

https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ#What_is_the_problem.3F 

That section states The Foundation does not have any cash reserves 
right now.



For a rough overview, the 30 participants in the round that just ended
required around $170k in expenditures, and that's the smaller of the two
rounds per year. The two most recent rounds together should have
approached $400k. So OPW only accepts interns with confirmed funding for
each intern but if there are delays in getting that funding it adds up
to a big burden for the org to bear.


By writing that the OPW only accepts interns with confirmed funding, I 
would assume that you mean has a contract with the sponsor where the 
sponsor agrees to pay on time, with appropriate penalties in place for 
late payment. However, as you then go on to say that delays in funding 
are a burden for the GNOME Foundation, that does not seem to be the 
case.


You mention an estimate of $400k as annual turnover for the OPW, which 
(according to the most-recently available annual report that I can find, 
the 2012 one at https://www.gnome.org/foundation/reports/) is very close 
to the turnover of the Foundation as a whole ($418k income and $409k 
expenditure). Those 2012 numbers include $106k of Women's Outreach 
expenses, so the turnover of non-OPW Foundation tasks seemed to be 
somewhere in the region of $300k.


Additionally, the 2012 annual report states that The GNOME Foundation 
currently has approximately $274,000 in cash. Referring to my first 
point, if the Foundation now has no cash reserves I would assume that 
the current figure would be approaching zero.


Assuming that other items in the budget have remained the same (which is 
unlikely, but without a 2013 annual report the best information I have 
to go on), this means that the OPW has a greater turnover than the rest 
of the Foundation combined, and the unpaid invoices have reduced the 
Foundation's cash reserves by around $250k since 2012.



As the FAQ states, the board is
evaluating various solutions, including raising the admin fee already
charged and putting measures in place to assure earlier payments. I
think the program should also try to raise its own reserves, though this
is very difficult on a short term basis.


Given the popularity of the OPW, it would seem reasonable to expect a 
decent amount of financial support from sponsors. If this is difficult 
in the short term, what are the medium- and long-term plans to raise 
funding for the OPW in a way that does not negatively impact the 
traditional activities of the GNOME Foundation?



GNOME would never have been able to support the program to date without
the reserves it already had in place.


Those reserves no longer exist, according to the first point in the FAQ.  
How is it possible for the Foundation to continue fronting the costs of 
the OPW without those reserves?


Given that the budget of the OPW now dwarfs the rest of the GNOME 
Foundation, it seems that the Foundation is ill-equipped to support it 
in terms of both administrative effort and financial backing, unless 
major changes are made to the way that the OPW is funded and supported.


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Re: Exceptions to renewals / new memberships processing during elections

[David King]

Hi Andrea

On 2013-05-28 21:40, Andrea Veri a...@gnome.org wrote:

(ballots have been
generated and sent already, in addition the election rules are clearly
stating that Members of the GNOME Foundation as of 2013-05-22 are eligible
to vote in the elections)


It took me a while to find the rules for the 2013 elections, as the URL 
given in the bylaws:


http://foundation.gnome.org/electionrules.html

redirects to a 404 page. The URL for the current election rules is:

http://vote.gnome.org/2013/rules.html

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