Member/Board Interactivity (was: Re: [Members] DRAFT airlie)

[Matthew Rubenstein]

	These issues indicate a broader process problem limiting the current
Foundation operations. X.org has members, a board/chief, sponsors, and a
budget. None of them are being used to their maximum capacity (or near
it). The solution of course is the board planning more Foundation
activities for members (and associates), then spending budget on those
activities. Which in turn will help the Foundation raise even more
money, on the strength of productive activities rather than the
potential of the organization.

	This election will pick a new leader of the foundation. Practically
everyone involved is "part-time", with even secondary responsibilities
in other work, so delegating "production" work to members, coordinated
and led by the board and its leader, is the only way to manage the
community. As the new leader, how will you get the community to
contribute proposals for which activities the board should decide to
spend money on? A better cycle of member proposals and board decisions
will not only better use the time and money budgeted. It will also
invigorate the membership, and attract new/better members.

	Do you agree? How would you lead the board to get this show on the
road?

 
On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 15:48 +0200, Egbert Eich wrote:
> Leon Shiman writes:
>  > >
>  > >1) X.org has limited funds gotten from company sponsorships, I'd like
>  > >to know what plans for those funds the nominees would have?
>  > >
>  > 
>  > And those funds are shrinking because sponsorship is currently not being 
>  > encouraged, and most major vendors have chosen to contribute employee 
>  > developer time rather than funds for us to allocate.
> 
> The funds are shrinking because the organization has not made good
> use of them and convinced the sponsors that it has used them for a
> worthwhile cause. Of the budgeted spendings for this year a little 
> more than just 10 percent have been spent.
> Once you subtract the fixed costs for domain and LLC, hosting services
> and materials (not to forgot the final charges for our managment agent)
> there is very little that has been spent on causes that drive the
> community forward.
> 
>  > 
>  > What funds we have should be used to build the organization. I think that 
>  > should include not only support for contributors to attend developer 
>  > meetings, but also awards for specific development, some of which may be 
>  > speculative. I think we need to encourage innovation and imagination, giving 
>  > individuals the means to concentrate on fresh ideas, outside of large 
>  > corporations. That has to include addressing some longstanding needs, such 
>  > as documentation. But it does in my view also include outreach, to build 
>  > interest and participation world-wide. 
> 
> This begs the question who should do the outreach and how the 
> outreach should be performed.
> Sending those who actively designed new pieces of technology or have
> contributed to these to developers or even user conferences to talk 
> about the advances in the project seems to be a very worthwhile cause.
> 
> Supporting people to go to trade shows local to them may also be 
> worthwhile. 
> Trade show  attendances can serve as gathering places for the local 
> community and help strengthen ties.
> However this is different from Board organized attendences all
> over the globe completly disconnected from local communities.
> 
> Talking about outreach to user: A lot of user questions rank 
> around support issues and questions. These people would like to 
> talk to somebody with hands on experience and expertise 
> in this area. This however is not necessarily the expertise 
> of a Board Member.
> I think that drawing in new contributors can at best be achieved by
> letting people get to meet other contributors and give them the
> opportunity to discuss ideas and desires and possible ways of 
> implementations with them.
> If we are going to have a trade show presence people with this level
> of expertise should be encourage to organize it. There is no need to
> staff a trade show booth with a Board Member - espeically if the
> Board Member does not have this expertise.
> 
> 
>  > 
>  > >2) Due to fact that we have a limited budget, how does your current
>  > >employer feel about your X.org contributions and will funding for
>  > >X.org related travel come from your employer or the X.org funds?
>  > >
>  > 
>  > I am employed by Shiman Associates, a non-aligned consulting and development 
>  > group. I can and do contribute a lot of effort, but can't always support 
>  > travel. My X.Org travel has sometimes been partially supported by X.Org 
>  > funds. I've also become skilled at cheap travel.
>  > 
> 
> I don't think this is a matter of cheap. This is a matter of what
> we want to achieve and a matter of how we offer and distribute
> the funds.
> Without a sponsoring program a Board Member has a considerable 
> advantage to ask the Board for funding and I believe that this 
> is wrong just as I believe that it is not necessary to always
> have a Board Member present at such events.
> I tried to change this for the upcoming LWE event in Colone Germany
> and give our community an equal chance to apply for funds.
> However I was told that too little time is available to do so and
> my proposal was not accepted by the Board.
> 
> I found that the incentive for community members to attend trade
> shows is not extremely high. It is even lower when the Board 
> makes it its errand to host those events without soliciting the
> local community for volunteers before. People feel treated second
> class if the organization sets aside half of the available funding 
> to bring a Board Member in while those other contributors are 
> allowed to apply for the rest.
> But it is not so much a funding issue. It is also the lack of
> confidence into the local community exhibited here by the Board
> that lets people become inactive and lethargic.
> 
> 
>  > >3) X.org attends a number of "industry" events, like Linuxworld I
>  > >believe, do you feel this is necessary for what is primarily a
>  > >development oriented foundation? or that funds would be better placed
>  > >elsewhere at organising developer meets...
>  > 
>  > X.Org has had booths at LinuxWorld and LinuxTag events, but those costs have 
>  > not been great. To my knowledge all such events that we have attended offer 
>  > free booth space to .Org's. Both Boston and SanFrancisco this year had zero 
>  > cost I think. The sponsors also think this is a good use of their funds. I 
>  > don't see that expense is the primary issue. I believe that visibility of a 
>  > major critical technology at major open source trade events is good policy. 
>  > Do we need a comprehensive outreach policy? Yes. Why? As the ByLaws state 
>  > clearly, the purpose of the X.Org Foundation extends beyond the support of 
>  > development. Those expenses did not conflict with developer support. Of 
>  > course support of development, release, communication, documentation, etc --  >  is our first responsibility.
> 
> The outreach effords of this organization certainly need to be revisited:
> We need to identify the goal and the target audience and pick events
> and people that best serve these goals.
> As said: cost isn't much of an issue. As corollary we should not stop
> individuals to persue other sorts of outreach when they don't involve
> costs.
> 
>  > 
>  > You didn't mention training, mentoring, and education of new contributors. 
>  > Without direct support from senior contributors, I am not sure how 
>  > successful we can be in using our funds to grow the base community. We need 
>  > to help those who show interest and are receptive to guidance. This also 
>  > requires dedicated organizers. This is a gap I would like to help close - 
>  > based in part on my teaching experience at MIT.
> 
> Since the Fondation has been set up and the development has moved
> to freedesktop.org a lot of mentoring has taken place to educate
> new developers and help them to find their area of expertise.
> This is an ongoing efford of the community taking place largely
> on channels some Board Members are not even aware of.
> Luckily these effords have started without waiting for the Board
> to move on the issue. There doesn't seem to be a need for extra
> help by the Board or Board Members.
> The technological achievements on the X Window System have happened
> without the help of the Board - not to say despite of the Board.
> The Board has not contributed much to the success of the development
> project - sometimes it had even been an obstacle.
> 
>  > 
>  > According to the X.Org ByLaws, the Board has oversight responsibility for 
>  > the operation of the Foundation. The communications and data handling are an 
>  > important part of the organization. The Board also can and should delegate 
>  > responsiblity for its operations such as web-site(s), wikis, lists, cvs/git, 
>  > bugzilla, etc. Two new servers will be coming on-line at X.Org's MIT site. 
> 
> Right now x.org doesn't operate any of these. I would not say
> that these reside on freedesktop.org by delegation of the Board
> so much but by choice of the contributors.
> The code hacking could take place anyplace. freedesktop.org is
> just a very suitable and convenient place to be.
> 
> 
>  > Decisions about staffing, redundancy, etc need to be made. I think managing 
> 
> These decisions don't have to be made by the Board. This is a popular
> misconception that currently exists on the Board. The Board only
> has the responsibility to oversee that this is done - however due to
> the misconception described not even this is happening.
> 
>  > such services is another good way to open and build the organization. The 
>  > Board should certainly _not_ be directly involved in daytoday operational 
>  > decisions. My impression from lookng at the current list of fdo system 
>  > admins is that most of them are already over-committed developers.
>  > 
> 
> Definitely. But these are people who depend on these 
> systems. This forces them to adjust their priorities 
> so that the infrastructure keeps running. 
> This seems to be a good way to ensure that things are 
> done without delay.
> 
> 
> Cheers,	     
> 	     Egbert.
> 
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-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein