[Members] Xorg BoD : Response to Peter Winston

[Leon Shiman]

Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:06:02 -0400 Peter Winston wrote:
>
>Most of the posts,  circle back to the first question.. what is the job of
>the board, and what is the goal of X.org. it will be hard for X.org to move
>forward without a clear vision.
>

0) "What is the job of the Board". 

To manage administration of the Foundation, with oversight responsibility 
for communication, legal issues, meetings, public statements, financial, 
records, code development, release, and distribution. These all require 
dedication and time. It has proven difficult to distribute these and other 
tasks. But primarily to demonstrate stimulating leadership for the entire 
global X Community.

The Board needs to be aware of the skills and interests of its members. The 
Board can advance members' interests by stimulating and supporting local and 
global working meetings, and soliciting sponsored support for individuals. 
The Board has an obligation to increase member and community participation
in activities of the Foundation.

The Board needs to facilitate increased publication by members, both open on 
the net and in print. Prizes for technical papers might help.

This is not the Board of a for-profit corporation. The Board is elected 
directly by the (voting) members. The Board can also influence the criteria 
for membership and how members participate in decisions. It has no chairman, 
no CEO - no hired staff. But it also has a lot of responsibility, and it can 
have a significant influence on the productivity and direction of its 
community. Legally and morally Directors are responsible to the charter, the 
electorate, and to the community - voting members, non-member contributors, 
and users and interested public who use and depend on well-maintained X 
technology.

>   
>1) What would you like to see  X, and X.org look like in 3-5 years.

Whatever proves to be required to enable the world-wide dominance of the 
"open desktop".  X is the keystone technology in enabling stable 
cross-platform network-transparent point-to-point communication, and X.Org 
is its supporting and facilitating organization. I want to see X accepted as 
the sandbox of choice for innovative applications. Open X-based technologies 
still cannot compete with Microsoft's tools for graphical application 
development. This gap can be closed.

I am not interested in promoting X as a closet technology. I want to grow a 
community of committed X developers who will work with toolkit and end-user 
application developers, of whatever stripe, to bring their knowledge of X 
internals to the end-users and end-beneficiaries of the technology. This 
would have consequences both backward on X and forward to the desktop.

Some say that the only "customers" or clients of X.Org are either "the 
distros" or Gnome and KDE and their underlying toolkits. I challenge this 
perspective. We should not wait for these organizations to come to X.Org, we 
should go out to work with them. That's our organizational responsibility. 
It is the Board's responsibility to bring focus to these issues within the 
membership, the community, and the leadership of other organizations.

Specifically, I think that X should take the lead in meeting the challenge 
of integrated media and accessibility.  An active architecture working group 
would help. The desktop can't succeed without them. 

For example, government open source initiatives are still resisting adoption 
of X-based desktops. This is an influential sector. New tools and 
applications are needed, and we're responsible for the underlying 
technology. Can we contribute to filling this gap? 

 
>
>2) What is the ideal relationship with Freedesktop? 

At present each serves a different basic need. X is a platform, desktop, and 
OS-agnostic core technology. I see Freedesktop's most valuable service as 
providing a common sandbox for desktop (and X) related project development 
and maintenance. 

Legally and organizationally they are distinct - but not operationally. I 
feel it is time to clarify their relationship. This was not possible two 
years ago when X.Org built the Foundation's first CVS at Freedesktop.org. 
The political climate didn't support it. The community and the technology 
could be greastly strengthened if that could be done. One of the major 
barriers continues to be the issue of inclusiveness. Public disparagement of 
non-Linux platforms would have to end. Proprietary implementations of X for 
Windows need to be accepted. Hosting functions also need to be distributed. 
The presence of hosting functions can serve as a catalyst for local interest 
in University communities. This needs to be encouraged. 

The full range of issues affecting the hosted projects, the goals of FDO, 
the structure and goals of the Foundation, active member and developer 
habits and preferences, logistics , and finances need to be put on the 
table. X.Org brings public institutional credibility to a common solution. 



>
>3)  What about sponsors, Sponsorship $ has dropped precipitously  since
>X.org was reformed. Do you think that X.org should have  sponsors anymore?
>Why/why not. If your company is not a sponsor why should anyone be. 

Sponsorship is vital to the organization. Support for sponsorship has not 
been uniform in this Board. The label "pay for say" has had a poisonous 
effect. I personally believe that this label is misused, and that sponsor 
funding is a valid, productive and product neutral mechanism for supporting 
the technology. It is the membership responsibility to leverage that 
support. Such funding potentially opens a path for new contributors who do 
not receive corporate funding. There are creative ways that sponsors can be 
drawn into this process, beyond just the initial funds they provide. Eric 
Anholt's personal experience appears to support this.  

>
>[4a)] also I wish someone could explain to me, why  company(s) donating and
>pooling  money to solve a particular problem causes a problem,  while a
>single company doing the engineering does not cause a problem.  

I support such use of funds. MIT's Project Athena and UROP student project 
support have demonstrated how productive this can be. The challenge is in 
the management. I'll volunteer to head a committee to take responsibility 
for this. If sponsors want it to happen, there's nothing to lose.


> [4b)-and how >can small companies contribute if they can't afford full 
>time staff.

Leadership and structure are required to take advantage of small company 
contributions. Testing, bug fixing, performance evaluation, site-management 
tasks, on-call availability, responding to end-user queries.

5). Conclusion: Our greatest need is to build strong active volunteer 
participation in administration and self-governance. The Board can lead by 
example, by leading and by recognizing interest and facilitating action. 

Thanks,

Leon

>      
>
>Thanks,
>
>Peter Winston