Board of Directors Elections 2018 – Candidacy – Benjamin Berg

Benjamin Berg <[email protected]> Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:09:48 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnome.foundation.announce
Message-ID	<6d5adf7c7b35435a8a242e8b6554f46ba612abea.camel__16.3784520283983$1527810685$gmane$org@sipsolutions.net>

Full name: Benjamin Berg
Email: [email protected]
Corporate affiliation: Red Hat

I have decided to submit my candidacy for the Foundation Board as I
feel that the Board has not been able to sufficiently represent me in
the last few years.


The Foundation needs to empower individuals in their work on GNOME and
in the community. As every project, GNOME has its share of issues, and
we always need to work on identifying and understanding them. Only then
can we work on improving ourselves, our policies, our community and the
software we create. In the end, GNOME is about software, and it is
through this software that we improve the lives of millions of people
worldwide who rely on all of us every day. The interest to advance
GNOME is what unites us as a project, independent of each person's
motivations.

Some issues I see and some ideas about them:
 * Accessibility:
   As far as I know we currently still have major accessibility issues
   on Wayland. This is one issue that may need to be addressed with the
   Advisory Board and possibly an area for which we can use Foundation
   money.
 * Community:
   The Foundation membership seems to have declined in recent years.
   Numbers go down from 349 (2011) to 252 (2016) to 236 (today, current
   list on the website).
   This one has no easy solution but it is an issue that the Board will
   need to face in some way. I don't think we can consider it a success
   if we use the recent donation to boost our spendings if our
   membership stagnates at the same time.
 * Project Management:
   I believe that GNOME is currently lacking a strategy and
   coordination. To a certain degree this is expected considering the
   individual freedoms that maintainers enjoy.
   However, the Foundation could likely become more active in
   coordinating the long term development of the project. Strategies
   could include facilitating meetings between Advisory Board members
   or creating a separate team for the purpose of project planning.
   We need a forum where larger development efforts can be efficiently
   coordinated.

I do believe GNOME has a large impact on the (F/LOSS) world. Lets make
sure we remain relevant for years to come.

Benjamin

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