Hey Vinnie, thanks for these great questions. On 12.01.2011 10:23, Vincent Untz wrote:
I read the platforms of all candidates, and I have a few questions :-) I'd appreciate if you could take some time to answer them; it'll help me vote in an informed way.
1) You described various issues you'd like to get fixed and goals you want to achieve. Will you still work on (or help with) those tasks if you're not on the board, or do you think you really need to be on the board for some of those tasks?
I wondered that myself and from my board experience I can tell you that being on the board has little to do with day to day tasks. It's about finding consensus with the other board members for project wide issues that are brought up by the community. Being on the board really is not about working on the distribution, infrastructure or marketing.
2) How much time per week can you secure (approximately) for the board? (I know it will be 0% of your time for some weeks, and much more for some other weeks; I'm interested in the average)
I usually spend 40% of my week for project wide issues. Fortunately I have a job and a boss that allows me to spend work time on this...
3) Did you attend IRC board meetings already?
I run them at the moment... :)
4) It's interesting that I see nearly no note about budget/money in platforms. When (not if ;-)) we'll have the Foundation, the board will have to work on a budget. So a few questions about this...
Let me clarify. The current elections are not for the board of the Foundation! A foundation has to find (elect) its own board. The current plan is to "transfer" the members and take the board that gets now elected as initial "proposal" for a foundation board but I'm sure that due to the change of tasks, roles and priorities (which you correctly noted) we will see a lot of changes in the setup. All of this has still to be hashed out of course.
4a) Have you experience with creating/dealing with a budget?
Indeed I have. Before my current position I was a people manager at SUSE managing a team of ~15 people that took care of the base system. I of course also managed the budget.
4b) Where will we find money for the Foundation?
Everywhere we can! Corporate sponsors close to us like Novell, open-slx or B1. Individuals that want to give something back to us. Other organizations etc. Fund raiser parties, merchandising, partnerships and so on. I also would like to be creative about it and seek out of the box ways to find money. There are a lot of cool new ideas out there like the crowdfunding platforms, buy one get one for charity campaigns and so on. You know me, I wouldn't mind to try new obscure things and be different :)
4c) What should we use the money for?
One focus I would definitely like to see is to use that money to make it possible to bridge the distance between contributors sometimes. Its amazing what you can achieve if you put people in real life into a room. Not only will you produce better technology but also a better community with more meaningful friendships.
5) I do think it'd be useful to have some board-related meeting at FOSDEM. That should help the newly-elected board members to know faster what's happening, and how things work. Will you come to FOSDEM? (I know some people, and that's most probably true for the non-European, will likely not be able to attend; that's not an issue)
I will and I think meeting at some event is a nice idea.
7) Do you care more about Free Software or Open Source? Just to be clear: there's no wrong answer. But it helps understand why you contribute to projects like openSUSE.
I equally care for both concepts. I also care for getting things done. And I'm a believer in change. What I really believe is that the world is in no regard as black and white as all theorems made by man.
Questions to specific candidates, related to their platform:
Henne: not really a question related to your platform, but to your experience on the board. What could be improved in the way the board works as of today? (btw, it's not a way for me to try to get the current board blamed in any way: we all know things can always get improved, and time usually helps with that)
There is only one grief I have with the boards work at the moment and that is not easily fixable. Most of the members don't have too much time on their hands for the work on the board. Every tried to bring 5 busy schedules together? Ever tried to bring 5 busy people on one page? Sometimes it's a nightmare and we have to do things over and over again until it sticks with everybody. So if you would be a ferry with a tutu and I had a wish, I would wish for less busy people with the same amount of experience and commitment to openSUSE on the board.
Also, can I get a dodo?
If you show me your dodo herding license... Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, openSUSE. Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org