Candidate Q&A - List of Questions

[Alan Coopersmith]

>  1) In the last year, the membership gained a lot more insight in the activities
>     of the board. What is your opinion on this new-gained transparency? Do you
>     see options for improvement?

Well, it's more work for me, but I think it's been worth it so that members can
see what's happening (or in many cases, how little is happening).

>  2) In the past, X.org financials have been dealt with in a less than optimal
>     way, but in the last year a lot of effort has been put into creating solid
>     financial records for the last 5 years, so that incorporation can happen.
>     This work is still underway. What is your opinion about this, where do you
>     see room for improvement?

The work is needed, and good progress is being made.

>  3) As stated in the X.org Foundation bylaws, only a maximum of 2 of the 8 board
>     seats can be taken by employees of the same company. In the past there was a
>     situation where there were more than two of the same company on the board,
>     after some board member changed affiliation. What is your opinion about
>     this, how would you prefer to resolve such a situation?

There's only one way we can resolve such a situation - getting the three
members in question together to discuss it, with the simple directive that
"Three members enter, two members leave."   The bylaws don't allow us to
just ignore it.

> As a follow-up, do you still think this restriction is relevant, and
> would you change/remove it in any way?

We've been fortunate to never have any serious problems caused here, and
the board members have historically done a good job of representing the
best interests of the community over their employers, but clauses like this
are designed to prevent the worst case, not deal with the normal case.

I think it's still useful to have some limit, to avoid the appearance of
becoming a non-independent organization (see for instance the recent blogs
and stories around the proposed OpenJDK governance).   It does unfortunately
limit the board membership, which as others have noted, is always a challenge
to get enough qualified candidates each election.    I do think we should
continue the discussion from the last board meeting of re-examining it -
possibly raising the limit to 3, which still prevents any one company from
stacking the board with enough members to have a majority vote.

>  4) What is your opinion about the past and the current X.org board elections.
>     Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

They're a pain to organize, which is why the schedule is often missed.

>  5) This years X.org conference was held in Toulouse, France. Did you have the
>     chance to visit this, or any previous conferences? 

Yes, I've been fortunate enough to have my employer send me to all but one of
the X.Org conferences.   (I missed Cambridge, UK due to schedule clashes.)

>     For 2011 one proposal was already made to hold the conference in Chicago.
>     Opinions/Suggestions/Proposals?

What city the conference is held in is the least important part of a conference
proposal.   The far more crucial and much harder part is getting the people
to organize it and run it.

>  6) A big chunk of spending goes to travel sponsorship. When he learned about
>     the practices of the more recent years, the current treasurer voiced that,
>     when the X.org foundation was formed, travel was usually not sponsored for
>     those gainfully employed to work on X.org related topics. What is your
>     opinion on this?

The economy was better when the X.Org Foundation was formed - as it worsened,
we adjusted to deal with it for the benefit of the community.  The majority of
travel funding still goes to those for whom X is not their full time jobs,
especially to students like our GSoC mentorees.

>  7) Now, a topic quite close to the heart of the author of this questionnaire:
>     FOSDEM. 4-5000 free software users and developers over a weekend in winter,
>     join up in the center of Europe. X.org used to have a hugely popular
>     Developers Room there. But the interest from the X.org community has
>     dwindled now. Why do you think this is so? Should this be different? Do you
>     have any suggestions?

I believe FOSDEM greatly suffers from being too close in time to linuxconf.au,
and that X.Org developers have generally been attending the conference more
directly relevant to them, not the one with much wider scope of all open source,
and with more limited travel budgets, have an easier time getting funding for
LCA than FOSDEM.

>  8) The topics of an X.org trademark and a new X.org logo have been talked about
>     since the formation of the current X.org foundation. Are these really
>     important topics for the X.org board? What is your opinion, do you have any
>     suggestions?

Not really.

>  9) Coordinating Google Summer of Code is another initiative supported by the
>     X.org board. There have also been follow-up initiatives started by the
>     board. What is your opinion about these initiatives and their results? Any
>     suggestions?

They're working well.

> 10) X.org hosting infrastructure has had its hiccups over the past few years.
>     The loss of all users home directories on freedesktop.org and the breach of
>     trust through defamation of a driver repository by former board members
>     come to mind. What is your opinion about the current situation, how would
>     you want to improve it?

I've expressed my opinion clearly on the mailing list many times.

> 11) The membership of the X.org foundation is not completely representative
>     with respect to its contributing audience, and it is hard to motivate
>     people to become a member of the X.org foundation. Some people suggest
>     linking commit access with membership. What is your opinion, and do you
>     have any further suggestions?

I think linking commit access to membership is useful only in that it ties it to
the legal agreement in the membership application.

I see no benefit to increasing the membership solely for the point of increasing
the membership.   We get no real benefits from just having a larger number of
members on the books.

> 12) Are there any topics that were overlooked in this questionnaire? Is there
>     something else that you would like to talk about now and/or work on during
>     your term on the board?

No.

> 13) What do you think about this questionnaire? Should this initiative be
>     repeated, and do you have any suggestions for such future repeats?

Way too long.

> 14) How do you feel about the size of the Xorg board?  Should it be changed?

Seems to work.

> 15) Some have argued that the current election process is flawed.  Do you
>     agree?  What do you think is flawed and how can it be improved in the
>     future?

Seems to work.

> 16) The Xorg Foundation has been working on getting 501(c)3 non-profit status
>     for a while now.  Would you be interested in getting involved with this
>     work?

All board members already are involved at some level.

> 17) It has been brought up in several board meetings that we should donate some
>     money to the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) for their help various
>     legal matters.  Do you agree with this?

I voted yes.

> 18) Non-profit corporations have certain requirements with respect to where
>     their funding comes from depending on the type of non-profit they are.
>     Should the Xorg Foundation actively solicit donations from the community to
>     fund it's activities (developer conferences, travel expenses,
>     infrastructure expenses, etc.)?

I don't see a need right now.   The Foundation still has more money than things
to fund with it.

> 19) If you agree with the soliciting funding from the community, would you be
>     interested in taking on a role to help reach that end?  If so, what ideas
>     do you have for soliciting these donations?  If you don't agree, where
>     should the Xorg foundation look to get it's funding?

The X.Org Foundation seems to be sufficiently funded by corporate donations at
this time.

> 20) With new platforms such as android and programs like wayland, some would
>     say X is becoming less relevant.  Do you agree with that statement?  Where
>     do you see X going in the future?

I see Wayland, like Xgl and similar programs in the past, as being an
interesting experiment in future desktop design, and one from which we
should be able to learn some things.   It's too soon to tell whether it
joins Xgl in the experiments that don't work out (but from which we gained
valuable insights into what to do instead), or whether it turns into "X12".
The X.Org Foundation is not here to promote X11 and the exact current model
& implementation at the expense of all other solutions, but to research,
develop, and support the window system, and that must include evolving it
as necessary.

This is why I asked to include Wayland in the projects eligible for the
X.Org mentoring in the Google Summer of Code this year.

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-        alan.coopersmith at oracle.com
	 Oracle Solaris Platform Engineering: X Window System