Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (186 mails)
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Re: [opensuse-project] Question for Board Candidates
- From: Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 23:24:13 +0100
- Message-id: <20111201222413.GU5850@hera>
On 2011-12-02 01:31:01 (+0530), Sankar P <sankar.curiosity@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]
That is quite a list of questions, and neither of them are
simple :)
So pardon me for taking each question separately (and probably
break the character limit more than once :D).
A little disclaimer rightaway though:
Actually, I don't believe we're there yet, nor that we're ready
for it. Also, things are looking to be working quite smoothly
with SUSE/Attachmate on the aspects the Foundation is meant to
fullfil (financial aspects, and only that, at least as a first
step, even though everyone probably has different expectations
and ideas about what the Foundation ought to be). We're not
blind, we'll keep a good look at how things evolve, but I think
that the way it is going to work soon will be the best balance
between pros and cons (a Foundation has a lot of cons too). I
believe we should rather see how it turns out, and re-evaluate
having a Foundation in a year or two.
But more on that later. And yes, I was the one who pushed for a
Foundation (following up on an idea that was first voiced by
Martin Lasarsch at a Hackweek in Nürnberg quite some time ago),
but only fools never change their mind :)
(And the context has changed a lot as compared to when the
initiative was taken to have a Foundation.)
(And thanks again for Cornelius and Coolo to raise that very
good question at the openSUSE conference, as well as for the
follow-up discussion, which made me change my mind on the
matter.)
That being said (and it needs a lot more explanation and details
than the above)...
* Will board members be controlling the foundation too ?
Well, the original idea was to avoid having both the board and
the foundation board, to avoid conflicts and to have a better
clarity. *But*, in the mean time, and having given it more
thought (time helps having a better perspective), and also after
some discussions with AJ and Alan during the conference, it
turns out that it might actually be better to have both: an
openSUSE board (as of now) and a Foundation board.
The reason is quite simple: of course, trust is involved in both
cases, but I (and not just me) believe that we are looking at
two different types of people.
On the openSUSE board, you want "people people", who are good at
handling conflicts, who have a good network in the project, who
have experience with the project and its people, people who are
respected for their contributions and whom you can trust to take
the right decisions when decisions have to be taken. (At least,
that's what I'm looking for in the openSUSE board ^^)
On the Foundation board, you'll rather be looking with people
who have experience running something like that. People who have
some skills at "accounting" (or at least dealing with money,
like spending it on the things that make most sense), as well as
actively engaging and looking for sponsors.
* What roles do you see board members performing in the
foundation ?
As explained above, I'm more enclined to have different people
on both boards.
* Will there be dedicated personnel [from/outside] the board for
specific roles in the foundation ?
At the very least, the accounting and legal matters will have to
be outsourced to experts on the matter.
* Will you be interested in nominating yourself for any specific
position, say Treasurer, Lawyer, Firefighter ?
I was willing to run for a Foundation board position in order to
serve the community, because, frankly, there probably won't be
many people who will volunteer to do so (it is very tedious, not
really fun, and makes you legally responsible for what you do
there.)
But as explained at length above, in hindsight, we should rather
make ourselves a better picture of how we want the Foundation to
be run, and by whom, and not do it unless we have the right
people.
So, now, no, I don't think I would be a candidate for a
Foundation board position, because I want to concentrate on
other aspects (the people, communication inside the project,
facilitating the teams, mentoring).
First of all, there is a very strong legal framework, and it
already requires complete transparence on financial operations
as the Foundation would obviously be a non-for-profit
organization.
But even so, yes, the Foundation must be extremely transparent,
there are really no good reasons for not doing so. It is even
more required as money is involved -- not just money that
companies would donate/invest, but also money that regular
people like you and me would donate. And the very least to do is
to be transparent and honest.
Reporting could be permanent and continous. And sure, we have
been looking and will continue to look at what other comparable
foundations have been doing. Some aspects fit our needs and what
we would like to have, and some don't. Not learning from their
experience, good or bad, would be foolish :)
That's really up to every single person.
Me, personally, even though I don't see how it is of any
importance :), I believe that it's perfectly okay for as long as
you understand what it means, what the potential consequences
are, and as long as it is stated very clearly.
As an example, I believe that Google does a pretty good job at
that: it's pretty easy to find out what they will do and what
they won't do with your data. To me, it's a give and take: I
give up a little privacy on certain things, but I get a pretty
great service in return for free (in terms of financial
aspects).
If some believe that it's not worth giving up some privacy for
that, that's perfectly alright. The options are there, use them
or not. What is not okay, in my opinion, is that people are
either fooled in thinking no one will use their data, or when
people simply don't bother (which is the case for 99.9% of the
population, sadly). Facebook is a prime example of the latter.
It's an idea, but it's an extremely expensive one. You need to
invest a lot in order to keep those promises (a safe data center
that is not on one of the current cloud providers).
Personally, I believe that we have a lot more pressing and
interesting challenges. It might be an added value to lure
users, but I primarily care about contributors. "Market share"
is of secondary importance to me, at best. I rather focus on a
comfy and friendly atmosphere where everyone can contribute,
interact, and learn.
改善(kaizen, continous improvement :))
Possibly. Depends on which strings are attached to it, and the
quality of the service.
I would probably be fine with it: if we take money, why not take
it from them.
To the doomsdayers out there: if you still believe that
companies are like living beings and that a large corporation
such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, HP, Apple, etc... has one goal
and one objective, and that each of their actions are in line
with that objective (e.g. "destroy linux"), then consider
thinking again.
That is really not how things work in the real world.
I work for a company that is very large, and I can tell you
that's really not how things work.
I have used emacs for a very long time, actually, but have moved
to vim. I'm not religious about either of them (nor much else I
guess). Just use whatever you prefer, and it's not an election
parole, it's what I really believe :)
I actually typically use vim or eclipse, depends on the job :)
[...]
Thanks for the questions :)
cheers
--
-o) Pascal Bleser
/\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green
_\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf
[...]
I have a few very simple questions for the candidates. Please answer
them with a soft-limit of 750 characters, per answer. Thanks.
0) Board and Foundation: Will board members be controlling the
foundation too ? What roles do you see board members performing in the
foundation ? will there be dedicated personnel [from/outside] the
board for specific roles in the foundation ? I know that these have
been asked in the foundation-list earlier but I am interested in
knowing what your idea on this. Will you be interested in nominating
yourself for any specific position, say Treasurer, Lawyer, Firefighter
?
That is quite a list of questions, and neither of them are
simple :)
So pardon me for taking each question separately (and probably
break the character limit more than once :D).
A little disclaimer rightaway though:
Actually, I don't believe we're there yet, nor that we're ready
for it. Also, things are looking to be working quite smoothly
with SUSE/Attachmate on the aspects the Foundation is meant to
fullfil (financial aspects, and only that, at least as a first
step, even though everyone probably has different expectations
and ideas about what the Foundation ought to be). We're not
blind, we'll keep a good look at how things evolve, but I think
that the way it is going to work soon will be the best balance
between pros and cons (a Foundation has a lot of cons too). I
believe we should rather see how it turns out, and re-evaluate
having a Foundation in a year or two.
But more on that later. And yes, I was the one who pushed for a
Foundation (following up on an idea that was first voiced by
Martin Lasarsch at a Hackweek in Nürnberg quite some time ago),
but only fools never change their mind :)
(And the context has changed a lot as compared to when the
initiative was taken to have a Foundation.)
(And thanks again for Cornelius and Coolo to raise that very
good question at the openSUSE conference, as well as for the
follow-up discussion, which made me change my mind on the
matter.)
That being said (and it needs a lot more explanation and details
than the above)...
* Will board members be controlling the foundation too ?
Well, the original idea was to avoid having both the board and
the foundation board, to avoid conflicts and to have a better
clarity. *But*, in the mean time, and having given it more
thought (time helps having a better perspective), and also after
some discussions with AJ and Alan during the conference, it
turns out that it might actually be better to have both: an
openSUSE board (as of now) and a Foundation board.
The reason is quite simple: of course, trust is involved in both
cases, but I (and not just me) believe that we are looking at
two different types of people.
On the openSUSE board, you want "people people", who are good at
handling conflicts, who have a good network in the project, who
have experience with the project and its people, people who are
respected for their contributions and whom you can trust to take
the right decisions when decisions have to be taken. (At least,
that's what I'm looking for in the openSUSE board ^^)
On the Foundation board, you'll rather be looking with people
who have experience running something like that. People who have
some skills at "accounting" (or at least dealing with money,
like spending it on the things that make most sense), as well as
actively engaging and looking for sponsors.
* What roles do you see board members performing in the
foundation ?
As explained above, I'm more enclined to have different people
on both boards.
* Will there be dedicated personnel [from/outside] the board for
specific roles in the foundation ?
At the very least, the accounting and legal matters will have to
be outsourced to experts on the matter.
* Will you be interested in nominating yourself for any specific
position, say Treasurer, Lawyer, Firefighter ?
I was willing to run for a Foundation board position in order to
serve the community, because, frankly, there probably won't be
many people who will volunteer to do so (it is very tedious, not
really fun, and makes you legally responsible for what you do
there.)
But as explained at length above, in hindsight, we should rather
make ourselves a better picture of how we want the Foundation to
be run, and by whom, and not do it unless we have the right
people.
So, now, no, I don't think I would be a candidate for a
Foundation board position, because I want to concentrate on
other aspects (the people, communication inside the project,
facilitating the teams, mentoring).
1) Financial Transparency: Assuming that the foundation will be setup
soon, what aspects do you think that the financial processes of the
foundation should have ? What level of openness do you propose ?
Should everything be in black and white or there can be costs which
are not shared public ? How often should a reporting be made in terms
of the financial status ? Should we follow some other open source
projects here ? Say GNOME/KDE ?
First of all, there is a very strong legal framework, and it
already requires complete transparence on financial operations
as the Foundation would obviously be a non-for-profit
organization.
But even so, yes, the Foundation must be extremely transparent,
there are really no good reasons for not doing so. It is even
more required as money is involved -- not just money that
companies would donate/invest, but also money that regular
people like you and me would donate. And the very least to do is
to be transparent and honest.
Reporting could be permanent and continous. And sure, we have
been looking and will continue to look at what other comparable
foundations have been doing. Some aspects fit our needs and what
we would like to have, and some don't. Not learning from their
experience, good or bad, would be foolish :)
2) Software Freedom in the era of cloud: Earlier people were locked
into proprietary data formats (like doc, ppt) (before OOXML) but now
people voluntarily lock their data (mails, photos) into cloud storage.
Some feel paranoid about this. Some feel that this fear is much
similar to the fear that people had when Banks were introduced to
store people's money. Do you think that it is okay to trade a little
freedom for a little free online storage, for some home users at least
?
That's really up to every single person.
Me, personally, even though I don't see how it is of any
importance :), I believe that it's perfectly okay for as long as
you understand what it means, what the potential consequences
are, and as long as it is stated very clearly.
As an example, I believe that Google does a pretty good job at
that: it's pretty easy to find out what they will do and what
they won't do with your data. To me, it's a give and take: I
give up a little privacy on certain things, but I get a pretty
great service in return for free (in terms of financial
aspects).
If some believe that it's not worth giving up some privacy for
that, that's perfectly alright. The options are there, use them
or not. What is not okay, in my opinion, is that people are
either fooled in thinking no one will use their data, or when
people simply don't bother (which is the case for 99.9% of the
population, sadly). Facebook is a prime example of the latter.
3) openSUSE Hosted Solutions: Do you think openSUSE should enter into
hosting things and providing online services for users (like
ubuntuone, gmail, dropbox etc.) ? We can charge users a small fee and
promise to not spy/sell their data.
It's an idea, but it's an extremely expensive one. You need to
invest a lot in order to keep those promises (a safe data center
that is not on one of the current cloud providers).
Personally, I believe that we have a lot more pressing and
interesting challenges. It might be an added value to lure
users, but I primarily care about contributors. "Market share"
is of secondary importance to me, at best. I rather focus on a
comfy and friendly atmosphere where everyone can contribute,
interact, and learn.
改善(kaizen, continous improvement :))
4) Hypothetical Scenario: If Microsoft offers us a few thousand
dollars as part of Bing marketing for making Bing the default search
engine and homepage on openSUSE, will you accept it ? If no, Why not ?
Possibly. Depends on which strings are attached to it, and the
quality of the service.
I would probably be fine with it: if we take money, why not take
it from them.
To the doomsdayers out there: if you still believe that
companies are like living beings and that a large corporation
such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, HP, Apple, etc... has one goal
and one objective, and that each of their actions are in line
with that objective (e.g. "destroy linux"), then consider
thinking again.
That is really not how things work in the real world.
I work for a company that is very large, and I can tell you
that's really not how things work.
5) vim or emacs ? (Just trolling here. You can avoid. You'll get +10
points if you answer both)
I have used emacs for a very long time, actually, but have moved
to vim. I'm not religious about either of them (nor much else I
guess). Just use whatever you prefer, and it's not an election
parole, it's what I really believe :)
I actually typically use vim or eclipse, depends on the job :)
[...]
Thanks a lot and All the best :-)
Thanks for the questions :)
cheers
--
-o) Pascal Bleser
/\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green
_\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf
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