GNOME Foundation Annual General Meeting 2022
Dear Foundation members, You are invited to attend this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the GNOME Foundation, which is traditionally co-hosted with our annual GUADEC conference. We’re pleased to be able to say that this year’s AGM is a hybrid event welcoming in-person and remote participants at this year’s GUADEC in Guadalajara, Mexico. About the AGM Every year, the GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors sets aside some time at GUADEC for the Annual General Meeting (AGM). Foundation and community members are invited to attend the AGM and hear updates on what has been happening at the GNOME Foundation for the last year, and also to get to know the new Board members and ask any questions that they may have. If there are any items requiring a vote by the Foundation membership to resolve, a vote can be conducted at the AGM. Why attend? Besides getting an update on what has happened at GNOME over the last year, and getting to know some of the GNOME Foundation leaders, there will be other fun things planned too. Hopefully we’ll be able to take our group photo for in-person participants, and you can learn who will receive our annual Pants Award (en_GB: trousers!) for a deserving community contributor - we’re currently accepting nominations for the Pants Award. Details for this year’s meeting * Time: 10:35am US Central, 15:35 UTC * Date: Thursday 21st July 2022 * Location: Guadalajara Connectory, Guadalajara, Mexico * Online attendees: Please register for GUADEC to receive online participation instructions. Agenda for this year’s AGM (subject to change) * Introduction to new Board of Directors, officers & committees * Reports on the previous 12 months: financials, updates from Executive Director & President * Upcoming strategy and priorities for the board * Q * Pants Award * Group Photo If you are a member of our community who has contributed significantly, we encourage you to apply to become a GNOME Foundation member as soon as possible so that you can participate more fully in events like our AGM, board elections and other member votes. See the Foundation webpage for more information on how to apply for Foundation membership. The Board is looking forward to seeing you at the AGM whether in person or online, and to celebrating our achievements over the last 12 months. If you have any questions before the meeting, please let us know and we’ll do our best to answer them. Thanks, Rob McQueen President, GNOME Foundation Board of Directors ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Nominations for 2022 Pants of Thanks award
Dear Members, Ahead of our AGM at GUADEC next month, the Foundation Board would like to invite you you to nominate people for the Pants of Thanks award that is traditionally given during GUADEC. We give this award each year to someone who has done outstanding work for the community. You can see more details and the history of the award recipients on the wiki (https://wiki.gnome.org/Pants). To keep everything a surprise for the nominees, please mail bo...@gnome.org with your suggestions for nominations. Many Thanks, Rob President, GNOME Foundation (on behalf of the Board) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Board of Directors Foundation Elections 2022 - Candidates
Hi Allan, On Tue, 2022-06-07 at 15:15 +0100, Allan Day wrote: > When I went to vote, I was uncertain how many seats were up for > election. I've dug into it, and from what I can tell, this election > is > uncontested? Board terms are two years, the board has seven seats, > and > last year we elected three directors (Thibault, Alberto and Philip), > meaning that four seats up are open this time round. > > Is that correct? Andrea has given the official answer already, per https://vote.gnome.org/2022/rules.html we are filling four seats in this election. However, this does not mean that all four candidates win automatically - we still have to elect everyone who will replace the outgoing directors. To be elected under STV, a candidate must meet a threshold number of votes (see https://vote.gnome.org/results.php?election_id=32 for example, the threshold is 28). So, if any of the candidates are not acceptable to you, you may submit your ballot without voting for them, and just vote for 0, 1, 2 or 3 candidates in your preferred order. Any candidate that does not achieve the threshold number of votes cannot be elected, so we'd fill fewer seats than are open, and I guess we will need to re-open nominations and re-run the election. Some election systems have a "none of the above" option that makes this very explicit, but it's probably timely to remind voters that not voting for a candidate does behave differently to ranking all four by preference. (Also, although I don't believe it's the case this year, in GNOME's bylaws the order in which directors are elected can sometimes have an effect. The affiliation and new non-member director requirements can eliminate a candidate and require the counting process to appoint the candidate with the next highest number of votes.) > Allan Thanks, Rob ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Consultation on bylaw amendment: allow non-member directors
Dear GNOME Foundation Members, The Board is proposing a change to the bylaws that will allow non- members of the GNOME Foundation to stand for election as Directors, provided their nomination is seconded by a current member. To amend the bylaws, members have 21 days to review the proposed changes, which will be adopted at 12:00 UTC on May 16th 2022 unless enough objections are raised. You may review the proposed changes here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/foundation-web/-/merge_requests/3 For more details, including the opportunity make comments, ask questions, and learn how to raise a formal objection, please use the GNOME Discourse forum here: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/consultation-on-bylaw-amendment-allow-non-member-directors/9560 Many Thanks, Rob President, GNOME Foundation Board of Directors ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Nominations for 2021 Pants of Thanks award
Ahead of our AGM later this week, the Foundation Board would like to invite you you to nominate people for the Pants of Thanks award that is traditionally given during GUADEC. We give this award each year to someone who has done outstanding work for the community. You can see more details and the history of the award recipients on the wiki at https://wiki.gnome.org/Pants. To keep everything a surprise for the nominees, please mail bo...@gnome.org with your suggestions for nominations. Many Thanks, Rob President, GNOME Foundation (on behalf of the Board) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Pants of Thanks nominations are open
Dear everyone, The Foundation Board would like to invite you you to nominate people for the Pants of Thanks award that is traditionally awarded during GUADEC. We give this award each year to someone who has done outstanding work for the community. Please mail bo...@gnome.org with your nominations! (With my apologies that we don't yet have the "Private Replies" feature enabled in Discourse, but we'll try and get that ready for next time. :) Many Thanks, Rob President, GNOME Foundation (on behalf of the Board) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
GNOME Foundation Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2020
Re-posting https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-foundation-annual-general-meeting-2020/3671 for any mailing list adherents, although the Discourse platform is preferred by the Foundation for follow-up discussion and questions. Dear Foundation members, You are invited to attend this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the GNOME Foundation, which similarly to GUADEC 2020 will be held as an online virtual event this year. About the AGM Every year, the GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors sets aside some time at GUADEC for the Annual General Meeting (AGM). Everyone is invited to attend the AGM and hear updates on what has been happening at GNOME for the last year, and also to get to know the new Board members and ask any questions that they may have. If there are any items requiring a vote by the Foundation membership to resolve, a vote is conducted at the AGM. Why attend? Besides getting an update on what has happened at GNOME over the last year, and getting to know some of the GNOME Foundation leaders, there will be other fun things planned too. This year the GUADEC group photo might need a little more creative thinking, but normally features as part of the AGM along with our annual Pants Award ceremony. For clarity to any British English speakers, this means trousers - for a deserving community contributor! Details for this year’s meeting Time: 15:00 - 16:30 UTC Date: Saturday 25th July 2020 Location: GUADEC Big Blue Button platform, details to follow Agenda for this year’s AGM (subject to change) Introduction to new Board of Directors Reports on the previous 12 months Q Pants Award (https://wiki.gnome.org/Pants) If you are a member of our community who has contributed significantly, we encourage you to apply to become a GNOME Foundation member as soon as possible so that you can participate more fully in events like our AGM, board elections and other member votes. For more information on how to apply for Foundation Membership, please check out: https://www.gnome.org/foundation/membership/ The Board is looking forward to (virtually) seeing you at the AGM, and to celebrating our achievements over the last 12 months. If you have any questions before the meeting, please let us know and we’ll do our best to answer them. Thanks, Rob McQueen President, GNOME Foundation Board of Directors ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Who organised LAS?
On Wed, 2019-11-20 at 10:55 +, Philip Withnall wrote: > Hi all, Hi Philip, > Who can I get in touch with to answer some questions about LAS this > year (nothing bad, I promise!)? I can’t find any contact or organiser > information on the website. I believe appsum...@lists.freedesktop.org is a reasonable contact point for the organisation team. > Ta, > Philip Cheers, Rob > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
New GNOME online code of conduct
Dear community members, The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors is pleased to announce our new code of conduct for online behavior. The new code was developed by our own Code of Conduct Committee, led by Federico Mena Quintero, with expert advice from Otter Tech's Sage Sharp. The board vote to adopt the code was taken at the meeting on Monday 23rd September, and was passed unanimously. The GNOME project is generally a friendly and inclusive space, but if and when issues arise, it is important for us to have a robust and fair process to deal with them. The new code of conduct is a strong statement of our values and our commitment to inclusivity. In the coming days, the new code of conduct will be advertised on our websites and communication channels, and will replace the old online code of conduct. In the mean time, you are encouraged to read it here. Some key points about the code of conduct: * It covers all online behaviour related to the GNOME project. This specifically includes all communications and interactions on GNOME infrastructure, as well as GNOME communication channels that are externally hosted. * The code of conduct can cover discussions about the GNOME project, whatever the context. * The code applies to all GNOME project contributors and participants. * Key behaviors that are prohibited by the code of conduct: * Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following. * Sustained disruption of online discussion and events. * Harassment of people who don't drink alcohol. * Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist language or otherwise exclusionary language. * Unwelcome sexual attention or behavior that contributes to a sexualized environment. * Threats of violence. * Influencing or encouraging inappropriate behavior. * The Foundation's Code of Conduct Committee is responsible for dealing with incidents when they do happen, and has been granted powers to take action when necessary. The committee has already received training in the appropriate and sensitive handling of reports. * The code of conduct includes best practices for handling matters confidentially, avoiding conflicts of interest between reporters and individuals on the committee, and providing periodic transparency reports so that the community can see that the committee is being well-run. * The current events code of conduct is still in place, as we have a number of events already planned for this year under the existing code. The board has asked the committee to review the new code of conduct and propose any amendments needed to implement it for all of the GNOME events in 2020 and thereafter. We are excited about the positive benefits that the new code of conduct will bring to the GNOME project. The new code includes advice for how to help create a positive environment, and this is a great opportunity for us all to reflect on our own behavior, and work together to make GNOME an even better place to contribute and have fun. Huge thanks to the Code of Conduct Committee for developing the new code and for volunteering to maintain and enforce it, and to Sage Sharp for their invaluable advice and expertise throughout the process. On behalf of the board, Robert McQueen President, GNOME Foundation Board of Directors ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: [guadec-list] Registration for GUADEC 2019 is now open!
On Thu, 2019-07-18 at 12:36 -0500, mcatanz...@gnome.org wrote: > On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 7:33 AM, Bastien Nocera > wrote: > > I also noticed that the "free" registration option went away. Is > > that on purpose? I don't know the specific circumstances motivating this change, but for context - individuals sponsored by the travel committee have been sent a discount code which waives the registration fee at the checkout. > In previous years, the registration fee was structured as a donation > rather than a mandatory purchase. Rumor has it this was to avoid a > repeat of the tax problems from the last desktop summit. Seems > important to make sure this change won't be problematic. I was just discussing this exact topic with Eike from KDE e.V. as the GNOME board has just been considering funding conditions/approval for LAS. It sounds like the European non-profit handling of fees versus donations is different (and more strict/complex) than my understanding of how this works for GNOME. I might be mistaken however. :) > Michael Cheers, Rob > > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Preliminary Results - GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Elections 2019
On Fri, 2019-06-21 at 12:46 +0100, Robert McQueen wrote: > On Fri, 2019-06-21 at 13:30 +0200, Jens Georg wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm sorry if this was explained before - what does > > > > "Elimination due to affiliation" mean? > > Due to the Bylaws preventing more than 40% of the board coming from > the same corporate affiliation, a third candidate from RedHat would > go above this level (40% of 7 is 2.8), Oops. Hit send too soon. Eliminating the candidate in the first STV round allows all of the subsequent preference votes of Benjamin's supporters to be considered for the other seats. The relevant bylaw is here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/foundation-web/blob/master/foundation.gnome.org/about/bylaws.rst#L507 Thanks,Rob > > > On Fr, Jun 21, 2019 at 11:40 AM, Andrea Veri wrote: > > > Foundation Members, > > > > > > We're happy to announce the preliminary results for this year's > > > Board > > > of Directors elections. > > > > > > Winners are Carlos Soriano, Philip Chimento, Robert McQueen, > > > Allan > > > Day, Britt Yazel, Federico Mena Quintero, and Tristan Van Berkom. > > > (details at https://vote.gnome.org/results.php?election_id=27) > > > > > > If you'd like to challenge these results, please send an e-mail > > > to > > > membership-committee@gnome,org. You can challenge them until > > > 2019-06-28, 23:59 UTC (the deadline has been extended by two (2) > > > days). Please note these results should not be considered final > > > until > > > all challenges have been resolved. > > > > > > This year we had 242 registered voters, 126 of which sent in > > > valid > > > ballots. We encourage everyone to check the list of all votes and > > > verify their ballot: > > > > > > https://vote.gnome.org/votes.php?election_id=27 > > > > > > Thanks! > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Andrea > > > > > > Red Hatter, > > > Fedora / EPEL packager, > > > GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator, > > > Former GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary, > > > GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman > > > > > > Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/~av > > > ___ > > > foundation-announce mailing list > > > foundation-annou...@gnome.org > > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-announce > > ___foundation-list > > mailing listfoundation-l...@gnome.org > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Preliminary Results - GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Elections 2019
On Fri, 2019-06-21 at 13:30 +0200, Jens Georg wrote: > Hi, > > I'm sorry if this was explained before - what does > > "Elimination due to affiliation" mean? Due to the Bylaws preventing more than 40% of the board coming from the same corporate affiliation, a third candidate from RedHat would go above this level (40% of 7 is 2.8), > On Fr, Jun 21, 2019 at 11:40 AM, Andrea Veri wrote: > > Foundation Members, > > > > We're happy to announce the preliminary results for this year's > > Board > > of Directors elections. > > > > Winners are Carlos Soriano, Philip Chimento, Robert McQueen, Allan > > Day, Britt Yazel, Federico Mena Quintero, and Tristan Van Berkom. > > (details at https://vote.gnome.org/results.php?election_id=27) > > > > If you'd like to challenge these results, please send an e-mail to > > membership-committee@gnome,org. You can challenge them until > > 2019-06-28, 23:59 UTC (the deadline has been extended by two (2) > > days). Please note these results should not be considered final > > until > > all challenges have been resolved. > > > > This year we had 242 registered voters, 126 of which sent in valid > > ballots. We encourage everyone to check the list of all votes and > > verify their ballot: > > > > https://vote.gnome.org/votes.php?election_id=27 > > > > Thanks! > > > > > > -- > > Cheers, > > > > Andrea > > > > Red Hatter, > > Fedora / EPEL packager, > > GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator, > > Former GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary, > > GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman > > > > Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/~av > > ___ > > foundation-announce mailing list > > foundation-annou...@gnome.org > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-announce > > ___foundation-list > mailing listfoundation-l...@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates - Minutes of the board meeting
Hi Max, On Wed, 2019-06-05 at 09:26 +0800, Max via foundation-list wrote: > We are all volunteer live in different time zone, we have real job > and life. So we will do community task at rest time of real life. > It's good to do community task in reasonable time. > I think ask question to candidates during the election time -- we > might be see how busy they are in real life. > To guess how much time the candidates could spend on community > tasks. > If someone is real great but he / she is 100% or 90% busy in real > life, she / he might be have no time to help. Serving on the board is a form of volunteering your time to help the GNOME community. It comes with specific and quite predictable time commitments in terms of the board meetings, e-mails, etc that being a board member entails - usually around 2 hours a week, and usually at the same time each week. As Carlos points out, these are rarely urgent. The board has actually been trying to take a more "hands off" role - focusing on oversight, strategy, etc rather than day to day or urgent decisions. The Foundation now has 7 full-time staff and they should be able to dedicate far more time and be more responsive. So - provided the board candidate is able to dedicate these specific times, I don't think response time or availability to volunteer for additional things should necessarily be considered while assessing board candidates for election - if someone isn't available to volunteer for community tasks that doesn't mean they will be a bad board member. I hope in my case the opposite is true - I am very busy in my personal and professional life because I am on the leadership team of Endless, a company that works with GNOME - but this means I have experience as a director/executive which I think I can use to help the Foundation board set a good strategy and sensible policies, manage it's resources well, manage the ED, etc. Whether a board member takes on additional community/volunteering tasks (eg organising a conference, joining a committee, being an officer like secretary or treasurer, etc) is a separate decision. (I personally don't have a lot /more/ time to give, but when I do I choose to spend it on Flatpak/Flathub because I think the app ecosystem is a blocker to the Linux desktop's overall growth and impact.) Cheers,Rob > The date is for UTC +08:00 in my local time. > > * Philip Chimento: 2019/6/4 > * Christel Dahlskjaer: 2019/6/4 > * Benjamin Berg: 2019/6/4 > * Allan Day: 2019/6/4 > * Tristan Van Berkom: 2019/6/4 > * Carlos Soriano: 2019/6/4 > * Robert McQueen: 2019/6/5 > > * Britt Yazel > * Niels De Graef > * Federico Mena Quintero > * Christopher Davis > > > On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 4:55 AM Robert McQueen > wrote: > > Hi Max, > > For what it's worth - I agree very strongly with Carlos here. The > > community seems very "latched on" to minutes as the only/best way > > to hear from or understand the board. I believe that on the whole > > Philip and Federico as Secretary and Vice-Secretary have been doing > > as good a job as could reasonably be expected of them, in terms of > > keeping the process running and making sure the minutes happen and > > are published within weeks rather than months. It's certainly as > > good or as close to as good as I've seen it during the past few > > years, and as a time-starved collection of volunteers, I don't > > think it's feasible for an incoming director to promise that the > > preparation of minutes will change significantly. > > That said; we hear the concerns about timeliness and transparency > > but really - poring over summarised board minutes looking for > > decisions (or conspiriacies) and second-guessing > > justifications/motivations is not a good way to build trust and > > transparency. Communication should be more intentional and > > directed, ideally the board should be more accessible. This is why > > I blogged about the key topics and things we were aiming to do from > > our hackfest last year. > > I think that Carlos' GitLab and Discourse suggestions are great, > > and maybe there are some other things we could consider - some > > round table / AMA things - so that the board is in discussion with > > the membership more frequently than the big Q "meet the new > > board" at GUADEC. At this exact time, the new board don't really > > know what they're doing (or about to do) - at least I certainly > > didn't - so you might get intentions/aspirations but very little > > insight into what is actually ongoing and why. > > (As a side point, I am also not used to the concept that a board or > > other panel would /not/ periodically approve it's previous minutes > > - but I would also not expect a
Re: Question to candidates - Minutes of the board meeting
Hi Max, For what it's worth - I agree very strongly with Carlos here. The community seems very "latched on" to minutes as the only/best way to hear from or understand the board. I believe that on the whole Philip and Federico as Secretary and Vice-Secretary have been doing as good a job as could reasonably be expected of them, in terms of keeping the process running and making sure the minutes happen and are published within weeks rather than months. It's certainly as good or as close to as good as I've seen it during the past few years, and as a time- starved collection of volunteers, I don't think it's feasible for an incoming director to promise that the preparation of minutes will change significantly. That said; we hear the concerns about timeliness and transparency but really - poring over summarised board minutes looking for decisions (or conspiriacies) and second-guessing justifications/motivations is not a good way to build trust and transparency. Communication should be more intentional and directed, ideally the board should be more accessible. This is why I blogged about the key topics and things we were aiming to do from our hackfest last year. I think that Carlos' GitLab and Discourse suggestions are great, and maybe there are some other things we could consider - some round table / AMA things - so that the board is in discussion with the membership more frequently than the big Q "meet the new board" at GUADEC. At this exact time, the new board don't really know what they're doing (or about to do) - at least I certainly didn't - so you might get intentions/aspirations but very little insight into what is actually ongoing and why. (As a side point, I am also not used to the concept that a board or other panel would /not/ periodically approve it's previous minutes - but I would also not expect a board to ordinarily meet every two weeks. We've moved from weekly to bi-weekly meetings during this board term, which is great, but ideally as we build trust/process/oversight in the ED and staff, the board should ideally have to meet less often.) As the staff team grows, more of the "stuff the foundation does" should move away from the board making micro-decisions, and more towards "business as usual" for the staff. Then the reporting and transparency requirement moves from the board to the staff - especially as they are (by their very existence) consuming donor funds. So I feel this transparency is also very important. As the ED line manager, I think we've made some progress during this term and have converted some of Neil's reporting to the board into eg a blog post visible to the community, but clearer and more frequent updates on "what is the foundation doing" particularly through the activities of staff is something I would hope to be able to continue working on with Neil and his team over the coming year. Thanks,Rob On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 22:22 +0200, Carlos Soriano wrote: > Hi Max, > Thanks for your question. You raise a very good point, I agree with > you that we need to improve participation of the community on board > topics, and it's specially difficult if the information is delayed > for too long. > > This is indeed a difficult situation. Some topics that the board > discusses are quite sensible, and sometimes we are in doubt whether > parts of it are private or not, so that requires consensus and > therefore delays happen. As you can imagine, we rely on volunteer > time to discuss and process them, and the availability of each > director and secretaries is limited. In all honesty, while this can > always be improved with our current processes, I think Philip > Chimento and Federico made an excellent job with minutes. > > However, let me comment about the lack of participation. I think one > of the reasons is that minutes are simply not the best tool for this. > Minutes feel to me too much of a one way communication, and on top of > that they are over email, which is not the most encouraging tool to > manage and track discussions. They are good for keeping a record, but > not so good for much else. Improving this situation was one of the > reasons we moved our key conversations to GitLab issues, so community > members could closely follow them and chime in directly if wanted. > > My vision to encourage more participation would be around using more > tooling such as GitLab and Discourse for board discussions, and on > top of that, keep pushing on our goal to put as early as possible key > initiatives there to allow members to actually participate. I believe > we have a big room to improve, specially with initiatives that are > not time sensible. > > Lastly, an interesting idea I think we could do is a round of > questions to the membership to know what topics they were interested > in and that we could have done better with their minutes. Although I > believe the board is always open to feedback, I personally look > forward to know about those. > > Thanks, > Carlos Soriano > > On Tue, 4
Re: Question to candidates: eco-friendliness
On Mon, 2019-06-03 at 18:10 +0100, Philip Withnall wrote: > Hi all, Hi Philip, > Thanks for running for the board! > > What steps do you think the Foundation could take to reduce its > environmental impact, and the environmental impact of the project as a > whole? Great question! Keeping us on our toes... :) As others have suggested, I think our ecological impact as a Foundation is most acute in travel, then after a significant gap, energy usage of our services, then probably anything else. As Allan pointed out, we've been pushing for increasing travel to hackfests etc as after our staff, hosting and organising events is the most significant and impactful way we can add momentum to project initiatives, giving something of an "opposing force" to any initiative to reduce travel. We've also (with only modest success) been trying to rotate the location of some of the conferences so that we're able to provide more local face to face events, potentially alleviating some of the requirement to travel larger distances. In terms of where the Board "legislates" I see two main places which we've looked at over the past year and could make some changes to what is required - the travel sponsorship policy, and the templates (and requirements) for evaluating hackfests and conference bids. Both seem very feasible to improve the consideration of environmental factors. In the travel policy, we could go ways potentially place requirements there, such as taking ground transfer when it is safe to do so and does not increase the journey time / cost more than a certain percentage - and/or (IRS permitting) making ground travel more comfortable/pleasant (eg allowing a first class upgrade etc) so we have both carrot and stick. The travel committee might have some more insight here. In the event approval processes, simply updating the templates to add a requirement to assess and then ameliorate the environmental impact means we can engage the ingenuity of the volunteers who are helping us to set up these events. Monitoring something changes the behaviour. Best practices or requirements could emerge from this (ie, if we see good ideas, we could roll them out as something we ask/look for specifically). In terms of energy usage, Andrea & team are already using cloud technology (OpenShift) to make more effective/dynamic use of our donated computing resources, which is a good way to get more "bang for buck" versus having statically scheduled machines idling away. Generally dynamic scaling for CI and other "intensive" workloads is a best-practice we do and should continue to follow. We should never use any crypto currencies. I think providing some "gold standard" real-time audio/video infrastructure for the use of the project would be a superb investment in time/infrastructure to allow more effective collaboration outside of events. We certainly practice this in the Board and make extensive use of Bluejeans and Uberconference for effective voice and video collaboration. It would be great to have a self-hosted and FOSS system we can use and make available for the project. There is quite a lot of other "cute stuff" like avoiding single-use plastics at conferences, un-necessary swag, having non-meat-eating days during events that are catered to reduce the carbon impact of food preparation, etc, but I suspect that one person taking a single transatlantic flight would obliterate the cumulative benefit from all of that. I think these things can and should be done "at the leaves" as everything helps, but the policy changes outlined above would be more impactful in effecting that change in a more persistent manner. > Obviously, those who have already served on the board will have some > insight to share about what the board already does, and concrete ways > it could improve; hopefully this doesn’t disadvantage those who > haven’t > already served on the board. My decision to "sleep on this" has made my answer look significantly less original. C'est la vie - however I think it's clear that there is some good alignment between candidates and we should be able to make concrete moves on at least high-level policy changes so that some of these factors are considered in the board's day to day activities. > Ta, > Philip Thanks, Rob > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Announcing Board of Directors Elections 2019: revamped timeline
On Mon, 2019-05-27 at 12:40 +0200, Andrea Veri wrote: > Foundation members, Dear Andrea, > due to no candidacies being received for the 2019 elections Is this a clerical / copy paste error from an old announcement? From my perspective I have seen four timely candidacies per the old timeline (myself included) and one further/late candidacy which would suit the revised timeline. Can you confirm the current candidate list from your perspective or whether any of the submissions so far have been discounted for any reason? Many Thanks, Rob > we're > postponing each of the items of the timeline [1] by one week in order > to provide additional time for possible candidates to evaluate and > send in their candidacy. [1] has been updated accordingly. Details on > how to run as a candidate and other related information can be found > at [2]. > > > *GNOME Board Elections 2019* > 2019-05-12: List of candidates opens. > 2019-06-02: Last day to announce candidacies, submit > summary statements. > 2019-06-03: Final list of candidates. > 2019-06-04: Instructions mailed to eligible voters, > voting begins. > 2019-06-18: Voting closes. > 2019-06-19: Preliminary results are announced. > 2019-06-26: Last day to challenge preliminary results. > > > Thanks, > > [1] https://vote.gnome.org/2019/rules.html > [2] > https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2019-April/msg2.html > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Board of Directors candidacy question
Hi Britt, Great to see you decided to go ahead and submit your candidacy! By way of context, I'd say the minimum time commitment is around 2 hours a week. We have a 1hr meeting every 2 weeks, and try to use the alternative weeks as work sessions to make progress on the board's projects. You need a little more time to stay on top of e-mails, proposals, etc. Any more time-consuming activities such as holding an officer post or taking part in specific projects/working groups is in addition to this, but also entirely up to you. Now the Foundation has a larger staff team, we're trying to keep the board streamlined in this way to allow people to contribute in a more regular board member advisory capacity, rather than becoming default volunteers for everything and anything. (I certainly wouldn't be able to commit time on that open-ended basis!) Hope this helps. Thanks,Rob On Sun, 2019-05-26 at 18:54 -0700, Britt Yazel wrote: > Hello fellow foundation folks, > I have been somewhat out of the loop about this year's election > cycle, and I was just told today by Caroline and Kat that the > nominations were due in as of yesterday. > > So clearly I missed the deadline, so one question is if it is too > late for me to consider throwing my name formally in the ring. > Second, I'm not sure if I would be a good choice given my Ph.D. > schedule. Does anyone have an idea of the weekly hourly commitment? I > just don't want to do a poor job if I we're to be appointed. > > Cheers! > > -Britt > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Board of Directors Candidacy - Robert McQueen
Name: Robert McQueen E-Mail: ra...@gnome.org Corporate affiliation: Endless IRC, Twitter, Telegram, Signal, etc: ramcq Dear Foundation members, I would like to announce my intention to stand for re-election for a second term as a director of the GNOME Foundation, not least because I believe the Foundation will benefit from the stability of longer- serving Board members and longer Board terms, and that my participation over the past year has been a net positive. :) I am currently the Chief of Engineering at Endless, and we are building new channels and markets to bring our GNOME-based desktop OS in front of more users, and provide accesss to technology to empower people. I have been using and contributing to GNOME in a personal and professional capacity for almost 15 years, most recently contributing to Flatpak and helping to found and build the Flathub app store and address technical barriers to attracting app developers to the free desktop. Professionally, I have served as a founder, company director or executive for that entire period, building products based around GNOME and the free desktop technology stack, and I am pleased have the opportunity to bring this commercial experience, and familiarity with the industry, legal and financial issues, into helping the GNOME Foundation grow as a more effective and impactful organisation. In the process of deciding to stand again I sought informal feedback from fellow board members, and the general opinion was that my advice and experience in the board meetings has been appreciated, although I encourage you to ask them for their thoughts yourselves. In my previous term on the Board I have served as the line manager for the Executive Director, including setting the priorities for Neil and his team to drive for the strategy that the Board outlined at the start of the year. As with other board members I am trying to craft the Board into a more regular advisory (and, barring optional additional participation, less time-consuming!) role and have the Foundation use its current resources and staff effectively to raise more funds and launch more ambitious programs. I also drafted and implemented the charter for the Compensation Committee to independently vet the ED's salary, to improve the tax/legal compliance of the Foundation as increased donations may subject us to increased scrutiny. I participated in that compensation committee (although most credit is due to Carlos and Nuritzi) and partnered with Allan and Carlos to refine thinking around defining what is GNOME software and how that interacts with use of trademarks and other resources. Given the opportunity to serve the Foundation again on the Board of Directors, I will continue striving for GNOME to become a more impactful, widely-used and widely-deployed desktop in order to preserve end-user freedom, and seek to remove roadblocks to the successful commercial adoption of the desktop and our technologies at scale. Many Thanks, Rob___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the board meeting of April 29, 2019
On Wed, 2019-05-22 at 11:35 +0200, Tobias Mueller wrote: > Hi, Hi Tobi, > I guess these plans are news to most members. They were mentioned previously in the blog posts we wrote after the hackfest last year - see http://ramcq.net/2018/10/19/gnome-foundation-h ackfest-2018/ - although not moved much further since then as you see from these minutes, > I think that the proposed change is a strict subset of what is > possible > today and that the cost associated with that change do not outweigh > the > benefits. We've received several large grants over the past year or so, and a spokesperson for the anonymous donor spent a while with the board talking about a number of factors, including the requirements around setting the compensation of the Executive Director (hence our new compensation committee) and more generally, how to attract and retain good staff, and be able to demonstrate impact for donors. They support a number of philanthropic initiatives and they impressed on us the importance of a growing Foundation that the strategy is maintained over longer periods of time, so that the resources that are given (ie donations, large or small) can be put to work on longer-term / more impactful projects, and that the staff are able to make plans to deliver such projects and impact. They said a normal time period for a directors term in most non-profits would be 3 years, but after discussion amongst the board it was felt that anything longer than a 2 year term might be a disincentive for people to stand for election. (Although as part of growing the Foundation budget and staff, we are aiming that the directors can reduce their time commitment to the usual oversight role of a board, allowing them to separately decide the extent to which they are able and willing to volunteer for other initiatives.) Most governments or other public bodies tend to have 3-4 year terms as well; for the same reasons. It's really hard to get *anything* non-trivial done in a year. A significant change of the board all at once, particularly if the incoming directors have less experience and might be less confident or decisive, is a significant fear of the staff of any non-profit. It threatens the ability of the (now 6-7) staff of the foundation being able to make effective plans, start longer-running programs and see them through, etc. If our decision making cadence, visibility and horizon is a year (or less) it's very hard to see past that for longer periods of time. In a business context the typical HR advice is that it takes 12-18 months for a change in team structure, strategy, etc to really bear fruit in terms of everyone getting back "in the groove" and being productive, confident about what they are doing, etc. The Foundation staff is small but I don't think we should under-estimate the impact of potentially having your manager, strategy and goals changed on an annual basis. > Currently, a candidate can simply run for a consecutive term. They > can > even make it part of their platform that they intend to serve for > more > than one term or that they have served a term already. The electorate > can then decide whether they like it or whether they'd rather see > change > (maybe to overcome perceived bad habits or discontinuing a cabal). I don't agree that these cases are equivalent. We are already in a period of time where the current board feels somewhat disenfranchised due to the upcoming elections, and not comfortable making any significant decisions that might potentially be reverted/countermanded by incoming/successor boards. Also there is a "gelling time" for a new board to come together as a team, which means you lose a chunk of time at the start of each term, particularly with new first-time directors learning the context, procedures and policies of the previous board. I think with the whole board being replaced on an annual basis, time removed at the start and end for you could expect 6-8 months of productive "program time" to make and implement key decisions. Changing from potentially 100% of the board changing every year to ~50% changing every year has a huge impact to this overhead because essentially the board can become a continuous process rather than a stop/start one. > Convincing the electorate to live with a candidate for longer than a > year is much more appealing to me than mandating that choice. > I can see how mandating can be argued into being an advantage, due > to the knowledge not getting lost and the consistency it provides. I > appreciate those arguments and they have some merit. > But my counter argument is that the electorate should be free to > choose > whether they see it the same way. With the change of term lengths, > you > are forcing the electorate to think the same way as you do. And > again, > if a candidate thinks continuity and preserving knowledge is > important, > I'd rather see the candidate convincing the electorate rather than > forcing that onto them. I think that the
Board of Directors Elections 2018 - Candidacy - Robert McQueen
Name: Robert McQueen E-Mail: ra...@gnome.org Corporate Affiliation: Endless IRC, Twitter, etc: ramcq Dear Foundation members, I would like to put my name forward as a candidate to serve as a director on the GNOME Board in 2018/19. I’ve been a GNOME and freedesktop.org technical contributor in one form or another for around 13 years. Most recently I've become the main sysadmin behind the Flathub "app store" and build service for distro- agnostic Linux desktop software. I believe Flatpak is the most promising and commercially-agnostic technology to allow the free desktop to provide a stable target for both FOSS and commercial app developers, without harming our ability as a community to innovate on the core OS and desktop. Professionally, I have worked on the commercial adoption of GNOME and our technologies for almost as long. Originally as the founder and CTO of Collabora, and currently as the VP of Deployment at Endless, I've worked on 8 (at least!) different commercial platforms based on the GNOME stack, across a range of desktop, mobile and other embedded industry segments. I sat on the GNOME Advisory Board for several years while I was at Collabora, and have appeared there on behalf of Endless on a few occasions. I think the combination of my professional background and direct technical contributions gives me a great perspective on what makes for successful cooperation between Free Software projects and commercial entities from both sides. I would like to use my experience as a manager and a company executive to contribute to the project in non- technical ways. I believe I can help the GNOME Board adopt a more supervisory role, while the GNOME Foundation can take advantage of its recently-pledged donation, experienced ED, and initiatives such as the GNOME Internships to get more actively involved in both project activities and fundraising programmes than was previously possible. In terms of my agenda, I would like to see the Foundation use its resources to continue to pushing for the important software freedom priorities that brought the project together. For example, GNOME should produce a desktop which is a first-class home for developers and other creators, without corporate restrictions on what can be built or for whom. It’s more important than ever that the GNOME project gets support to provide a desktop for all, which respects users privacy and allows people to control their data without undue corporate influence or intrusion. Some of this work is best addressed in a non-profit context to ensure the individual user freedom remains paramount. That said, as well the importance of remaining true to its goals, I believe that a Free Software project needs a diversity of users and contributors to stay healthy and impactful. I would love to see the GNOME Foundation continue to build on and expand the commercial partnerships that it has, to ensure that there are many robust partnerships which help to further GNOME’s mission and reach as many people as possible with our free desktop. Thanks for your time considering my candidacy, and I hope to have the opportunity to serve the Foundation members as a director on the Board. Many Thanks, Rob ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
