Re: Additional questions for the board candidates

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Philip Van Hoof">

> How important are desktop standards for you. How will you attempt to let
> the GNOME developers cooperate even more with the freedesktop.org
> movement? Or do you dislike that movement? In in general: What should
> GNOME "do" with fd.org?

I'd like to make sure that our relationships with other organisations are
published and well understood, so from a Foundation perspective, I would
like to document freedesktop.org as a partner project to which we actively
contribute.

> What will you do to further enhance cooperation with the KDE developers?
> Will you invite them to our conferences? Will you pay their travel
> expenses? Will you let them talk on GUADEC? Will you visit their
> conferences and will you do a talk about cooperation at their conferences?
> Or will you simply disregard them and think GNOME is superior yadiyada (in
> which case I wont vote for you, by the way)?

So, as a community, we already do many of these things. We have excellent
relationships with many of the KDE developers. There is not a lot that the
Board can do beyond supporting the community's needs in this area. We have
always (at least since I've been watching and participating) had a culture
of positivity and maturity within GNOME, and in our expression outside the
GNOME community.

> I can imagine companies that would like to target the GNOME desktop, while
> developing solutions for their customers, would like this type of
> leadership to happen. Yet I can imagine a lot Free Software GNOME
> developers dislike "any" form of "leadership". It's not a simple problem
> to solve. Will the GNOME Foundation fill this gap? Or will the GNOME
> Foundation create a solution? How will you, provided you become board
> member, address this. Or isn't this important enough for the Board to
> discuss? Or isn't it the focus of the Board?

Hmm. I don't think a lot of FOSS developers dislike leadership. We once had
a benevolent dictator - Miguel. Now we don't. There are good things and bad
things that come with that. The most obvious bad one is that sometimes we
have 'consensus gridlock', where we're waiting for the mythical 'someone' to
make a decision or get something done. I'd like to solidify the Board's role
as a "last resort" forum for conflict resolution, to assist with some of
these issues. In general, I think we have a very good community structure,
but there are some areas we need to clarify a bit (such as maintainership).
If we can't push this along within the community itself, then the Board may
be a good forum to figure this out. But in general, it is good for the Board
to steer clear of issues that are not obvious roadblocks that need action.

> Because I can imagine it's going to be an important project for the GNOME
> desktop and infrastructure, how will you involve yourself in the One
> Laptop Per Child concept?

I'm keeping up with what's going on through friends involved in the project
and all the news coming out about it. I've offered my help to assist the
OLPC project work more closely with GNOME. We'll see what happens - they're
obviously very busy. :-)

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand               http://linux.conf.au/
 
         "Spend your 'different points' wisely." - Havoc Pennington