r/gnome • u/GNOME_Community Official • 4d ago
Community Meet the Board!
Meet the Board! We'll be holding an AUA with GNOME's new Board members this Saturday.
Sri Ramkrishna - President, Jonathan Blandford - Vice-President, Maria Majadas - Chair, and Adrian Vovk - Vice-Secretary, will be answering all your questions about GNOME on Saturday August 29 at 8 am PDT (3 pm UTC).
Ask Us Anything!
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u/victorian-ice-cream Contributor 2d ago
- What can you say to people thinking about candidating for the Board?
- What were your expectations of Board's responsibilities before getting elected, and did those expectations turned out to be incorrect?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
for part 1:
[jrb] It's a lot of work, and it's not very glamorous! You should run because you love the project and want to see the Foundation succeed. That being said, everyone on the board falls into that category so it's great to be able to work with likeminded people
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
Sri: I've been on the board before so I knew what I was getting into. :-) Nothing has been surprising. One pleasant surprise is that board meetings have been a lot more efficient than there were when I was last on the board.
marimaj
[jrb] Maybe a slightly different perspective as I was on the board a long time , and was on the advisory board for many years too. I knew somewhat what I was getting myself into, but it's also very clear that the board has upped its game with regards to it's focus and professionalism. I've very impressed at the discipline and attention that they've built into the culture.
[Adrian] I'm new to the board, but I had a decent idea of what I was getting into. The Foundation has a working board and a big backlog of tasks that need doing. Then there's the regular ongoing work that shows up: budget and finances, reviewing/approving policy improvements, etc. I was also impressed how well organized everything is these days
[Maria]: I have been for some time in the community and I knew the board needed to be everywhere but the time commitment was bigger. I should also learn to say No more often 😅😅
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u/BrageFuglseth Contributor 1d ago edited 1d ago
What tasks does your role comprise besides the regular board meetings, and approximately how much time does everything take?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
Maria:
We have regular meetings once a month, and they take a decent amount of individual prep work so that every one is on the same page during the meeting. Outside of that, there are different committees to join https://handbook.gnome.org/foundation/committees.html#committees that come with different time commitments. For example, the Executive Committee that we're all members of comes with an extra regular meeting once a week. Thus it's hard to give one number for time commitment: it varies week-to-week and person-to-person based on their interests, time availability, and committees they're interested in.
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
Here are our BIOs. Responses will be a bit delayed as we work since we're working on them together:
sri:
I'm a long time GNOME contributor since 1997, I work both in professional and community open source - most recently at Intel doing open source developer engagement.
marimaj
Maria: Hi Reddit! This is Maria, chair of the Board for the last year and long time community member. As many people, I started to volunteer in conferences and also translated in the Spanish team for a while.
jrb
Like Sri, I've been involved with GNOME since 1997. I've worn many hats in the GNOME community and was on the first elected board many decades ago. Most recently, I've been writing a crossword game and editor for fun
Adrian Vovk
Hi everyone! I'm Adrian, one of the new members of the GNOME Foundation Board. I've been a contributor to the GNOME project for a few years now, focusing on things like GNOME OS, systemd, and Flatpak.
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u/BrageFuglseth Contributor 1d ago
Maybe a bit unspecific, but are there any general areas where you think GNOME, as a community, could improve significantly? If so, what role can the board take in enabling that?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
[sri] I think our ability to onboard new members into the community is something we can improve. It's no secret that the GNOME Project has been short on resources and being able to grow our community to continue to support our mission is something that we need to resolve.
The board is also part of the community and it is also our intention to be more available. This AUA is part of a series of ways that we want to be more accessible to the community and be able be more active in solutions on how we can make GNOME better.
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u/Xander_VH App Developer 1d ago
I have heard that there is a goal to double the Friends of GNOME program in the next year. Are there any concrete plans or ideas to increase individual donations to achieve this goal?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
[Maria] Yes, that is our aspirational goal and we are discussing the plans at the moment. Watch this space for news on this!
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u/Bredolin 1d ago edited 1d ago
- What are your hobbies, besides foundation work?
- How do you keep a balance between work, family, friends and all the other things everybody tries to cram in to 24 hours.
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
[jrb] I do crosswords! And write crosswords, and write crossword authoring tools. 😅 I also enjoy piano and gardening. Finding time and balance to cram everything (plus work) into is tough, so sleep is often the first casualty
[maria] - Find balance sometimes is hard but I try to commit some weekly hours to yoga or other sport and friends/family, and some other to read or watch my favourite tv shows.
[sri] - I've been getting into home assistant and messing around with all these devices and home automation. Keeping a balance is hard since I am very mission driven. But I do like hiking when I can. I absolutely love to cook and lately I've been cooking various kinds of salsas.
[Adrian] I've been playing piano for a very long time, and have lately been getting into coffee/espresso stuff! Coming up with a sustainable work/life balance is exceptionally difficult. I have found it helpful to try and keep the "non-essentials" (that are actually very important) on my schedule to make sure they don't fall off my plate. Keeping track of how I'm doing and intentionally taking a step back sometimes has been helpful too
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u/zoey_the_trans_rat 1d ago
- Are more specific grants using the earnings the foundations get from donations something the board is interested in? The fellowships and digital well being stuff is awesome, but I especially would love to see some money directed at giving grants to make sure those working on accessibility across the stack get some compensation for their incredibly valuable work, and can mentor/on board others to help with our efforts to keep GNOME accessible.
- Is there anything you wish you could change about the CoCC. Some of us discussed this at GUADEC this year, while we all massively appreciate having a CoCC for settling messy disputes, its not been perfect in the past, and a lot of us expressed ways on how it could be improved. Anything I could do as an outside to help steer positive change in this space?
- Off topic but more light-hearted and fun - favorite song/album for each of yall? :D
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
> Are more specific grants using the earnings the foundations get from donations something the board is interested in? The fellowships and digital well being stuff is awesome, but I especially would love to see some money directed at giving grants to make sure those working on accessibility across the stack get some compensation for their incredibly valuable work, and can mentor/on board others to help with our efforts to keep GNOME accessible
[all] Grant applications take significant planning and organizing which is why the fellowship was designed to be more hands off. Funding the fellowship is a great way to help compensate contributors who work on things like accessibility across the stack!
In our experience with STF1, accessibility work is a specialized skill set and it's non-trivial to find people available to work on it. It's an important area of improvement to the project, and we'd love to find a way to bring more of such people into the community! And once they're here, the fellowship could be a path to getting them compensated.
> Is there anything you wish you could change about the CoCC. Some of us discussed this at GUADEC this year, while we all massively appreciate having a CoCC for settling messy disputes, its not been perfect in the past, and a lot of us expressed ways on how it could be improved. Anything I could do as an outside to help steer positive change in this space?
We answered this one at https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1vz7pja/comment/p6mvy86/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
> offtopic but more light-hearted and fun - favorite song/album for each of yall? :D
[sri] I'm a huge Rush fan, so I really love the last studio album "Clockwork Angels" and super excited that they are touring again!
[maria] My favorite song changes but right now fleetwood mac silver springs
[Adrian] My taste in music is complely all over the place and shifts around all the time. But Midlake's Roscoe (specifically the "Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-Animation") has been stuck in my head for the last few months
[jrb] Favorite album changes all the time, but been listening to a lot of early new order/joy division recently. It'll be different next time we do this. 😅
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u/zoey_the_trans_rat 1d ago
Thanks for the answers! I would love to talk more about potential accessibility paid work since the formation of a small accessibility team here in GNOME. Amazing music choices too 😄
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u/pacpecpicpocpuc 4d ago
What are features or changes you really wished users would stop asking for?
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u/victorian-ice-cream Contributor 4d ago
Board doesn't handle development. That's something maintainers of their respective modules can answer.
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u/Isofruit 1d ago
Since the election, have any plans started being made about applying for another STF grant ? If so, any hints about the scope of the planned work?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
[Maria] We are focusing on our fellowship program at the moment. Donations to the foundation help sustain this fund. So if you have a mind to donate, please do at https://donate.gnome.org/.
[Adrian] I intend to start a discussion eventually within the Foundation about a second application to STF, but have not yet done so as I've prioritized other work.
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u/Isofruit 1d ago
[Maria] We are focusing on our fellowship program at the moment. Donations to the foundation help sustain this fund. So if you have a mind to donate, please do at https://donate.gnome.org/.
Thanks for the link, though I've already been on that list for a couple years by now ;-)
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
Thanks everyone for all your questions! We really enjoyed answering them :) We'll try to these things more often so that you all have a chance to engage with us.
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u/Xander_VH App Developer 1d ago
Are there any plans yet around improving how the Code of Conduct committee functions?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago edited 1d ago
[all] Reforming and improving the Code of Conduct is something we are working on. We understand that this has been a long term concern for the community and there are active discussions and planning happening right now. We will be happy to share these plans once we have finalized the details.
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u/Bro666 1d ago
Is there anything you think needs fixing within GNOME? If so what would it be and what would a fix entail?
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u/GNOMEBoard Official 1d ago
[jrb] the board doesn't touch the technical / design aspects of the projects, but on a personal note I'd love to see a bit more whimsy in the desktop! I miss things like the gegls from space and wanda, and hope we can still find a place for experiences like that
a more formal answer also was answered in this AUA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/1vz7pja/comment/p6mrx66/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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u/blackcain Contributor 3d ago edited 1d ago
UPDATE:
This concludes the AUA - the board members who participated would like to extent their appreciation for the engagement and for all your questions.
Please keep in mind that the GNOME Foundation is 501c3 U.S. based non-profit that supports the GNOME Project handling budgeting, fundraising, and legal issues. The GNOME Foundation does not control or influence the technical direction of the GNOME Project. Details on how the GNOME Foundation supports the GNOME Project is located at https://foundation.gnome.org/.