[Members] Corporate Priorities?

[Leon Shiman]

on Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:44:36 -0400 Matthew Rubenstein wrote:
>
>	Candidates: you have another job that pays your income, other than 
>your X.org work. What are your employer's priorities for your role in 
>X.org? What are your employer's priorities for the ongoing work of X.org? 
>What are you employer's priorities for X itself, regardless of your work on
>it, or its foundation?
>-- 
>
>(C) Matthew Rubenstein
>

I am both employer and employed, and my commitment to developing X 
applications, and promoting the use of X has been continuous since the 
mid-eighties. I have chosen contract work and applications which allow me to 
do this. My support of the original X Consortium, X.Org under TOG, and 
creation of this Foundation has been a personal priority. I am free to 
determine the time I contribute.

You have raised an important subject. In many conversations with responsible 
representatives of major vendors, concerning their unwillingness to provide 
sponsorship funding to X.Org, I have been told many times that they 
contribute the time of their employees, rather than funds which X.Org can 
choose to allocate. That means of course that their work on X reflects 
directly their own corporate priorities. "Predecessor" organizations also 
received discretionary funds as sponsorship fees from companies. It is those 
fees which have been dwindling. It is hard for me to believe that underlying 
employer priorities cannot help but influence the direction of development, 
and the actions of their Board members. It is precisely for this reason that 
the ByLaws require disclosure of the primary employers of all nominees, and 
limit the  number of Board members to two employees of any one company. 
There are benefits to companies paying their employees to work on X and 
contribute their product, but I believe that the critical importance of this 
technology to the global success of the Free Desktop requires strong 
independent voices share asw Board members in the Board's decision-making 
authority, and that there is a healthy mechanism for providing and 
allocating financial support through X.Org of innovative non-standard work. 
The Foundation has not begun to touch its potential - nor will that happen 
overnight.

Leon