Hey Vincent, Thanks for putting thought into your questions. I think they provide great base to get to know the candidates better. :) On Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:23:36 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'm still (and have been) happy to contribute expertise insight (and sometimes opinion). It's all about direct involvement with administrative issues, though, and in that sense it'll be unlikely that those end up on my plate, rather than someone else's. In my experience, a board seat does have this tendency to keep you on your toes, even if vastly more interesting things come around.
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 estimate about 8 - 12 hours a week, but as you say, it's subject to strong fluctuations. I am prepared to putting some opensuse-board time away on a regular base, though, and my employer (open-slx) has agreed to allow me to work on opensuse-board stuff during working hours as well.
3) Did you attend IRC board meetings already?
Nope. I did get some information about how these things are run and organised from my colleague, Rupert.
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...
4a) Have you experience with creating/dealing with a budget?
I've been on the board of directors of the KDE e.V., where we've been continously growing the budget, and using it to support a comparable Free software organisation. KDE e.V.'s budget is very solid. Now I'm not saying that I'm responsible for that (far from it), I just happen to not have an "unbalancable destructive effect" on money. So yes, even with growing and staying within its bounds. ;-)
4b) Where will we find money for the Foundation?
Most sense seems a two-fold donation scheme, personal and corporate. There are many individuals who care about openSUSE, and would probably be willing (and able) to contribute a bit financially. Likewise, there are companies who, in some way, depend on openSUSE, who would be in for donations as well.
4c) What should we use the money for?
Support of the community (meetings, for example), running infrastructure, promotion, legal things, possibly administrative tasks that would otherwise get left behind in a volunteer community.
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 didn't plan to go to FOSDEM (really unfortunate timing being right around release prime-time, and our presence is usually quite good there anyway, so little extra bang for the buck. Brussels is only about 3 hours from where I live (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), so I can probably make it to a board meeting there on short notice, still. However, IF I come, I'll to FOSDEM, I'll be happy to buy you an ice-cream. (I'm sure that's the *real* reason you added this particular question. :P)
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.
Deeply, it's pretty much what drives me and motivates me to move my bum out of bed every day. That, and good espresso =)
Questions to specific candidates, related to their platform: Sebas: what needs to be more transparent in openSUSE?
I'm not sure if there's anything in particular that I'd like to see more transparant *right_now*, I think that people are actually doing a great job keeping information flowing within the community. Transparency is not a given though (as is pretty much nothing at the moment). We will all see how openSUSE's position in the light of the Attachmate acquisition will develop. There, transparency, honesty and a bit of a critical look once in a while is essential. That's what I'll stand for. Cheers, -- sebas http://www.kde.org | http://vizZzion.org | GPG Key ID: 9119 0EF9 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org