[Members] Xorg BoD

[Daniel Stone]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 11:06:02PM -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.
> 
> 
> 1) What would you like to see  X, and X.org look like in 3-5 years.

Technically, I would like to see an X SI that is still very portable: I
would like to not have lost any ports just because we didn't want them,
or refused to be flexible enough.  If they atrophy because of lack of
interest, that's one thing, but I'd like us to be as welcoming as
possible.  I'd like to see a lighter and more functional Xorg DDX.  I'd
like to see a fully self-configuring, dynamically changeable X.

From an organisational point of view, I'd like it to remain as open as
possible.  I think the technical organisation (xorg@, the accounts
process on fd.o, BZ) is sufficiently open right now.  The Foundation,
unfortunately, is still incredibly inert, and ivory tower.  I'd like to
see a fully useful x.org domain name (see below), and I'd like to see a
lightweight Foundation putting its money and technical clout towards
good use.

I would like to see us open up a bit and start dealing with external
parties on behalf of our contributors.  If someone needs VESA specs, or
if we feel that we should get involved with Khronos in order to have
some weight on the ARB, then I absolutely believe we should throw the
Foundation behind that.

In short, we should achieve those technical goals with the _help_ of the
Foundation, not in spite of it.

> 2) What is the ideal relationship with Freedesktop? 

I really don't know.  I think the relationship now, where fd.o acts as a
surrogate Foundation, is harmful.  Harmful because it encourages us to
route around the Foundation (a la TOG), rather than just fixing it, and
harmful because no matter how much you try to ignore it, the Foundation
is still there.

So I think probably the ideal relationship is where fd.o helps out with
the hosting and probably carries most of the admin burden for x.org
machines, and the projects are obviously quite closely tied in
personnel, objectives, etc, but we don't have the ridiculous situation
where we feel reluctant to use the x.org domain name, and instead use
fd.o.

I guess the soundbite is 'a little bit diminished'.

> 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. 

Absolutely, I do.  Unfortunately, I'm only an X server developer, not a
manager, so I don't get to make sponsorship decisions, but I have been
pushing internally towards sponsorship.  The wheels of bureaucracy take
a long time, however; doubly so when finance is involved.

I don't have any figures on sponsorship, but my understanding is that we
still have around $US250,000 in the bank, which is a reasonably solid
financial base, if sponsorship continues.

As to why it's dropped (assuming it has), I assume that's because the
Foundation is -- in a word -- irrelevant.  We could continue handing out
the level of travel sponsorship[0] we currently give until we're all
dead, and still have money in the bank.

Technical people don't give us money because the Foundation doesn't
achieve anything technically; that's all done under the auspices of
fd.o.  People don't give us machines because we don't use them.
Managers don't give us money because we don't do anything visible with
our money.

Make the Foundation relevant again and you've solved those problems.

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

It doesn't, as long as it's done externally to the Foundation.  If the
Foundation starts employing people, then you get a Mozilla-like
situation where some people are second-class citizens, and their
technical views are always going to be inferior to those of the paid
developers.

It causes problems and friction in communities, as we've seen from the X
Consortium, and as we've seen from Mozilla, which is probably the best
example.

I have absolutely no issue with companies pooling together to get a
single problem solved, but just keep it out of the Foundation, as it's
only going to create a mess.

Cheers,
Daniel

[0]: Not that I'm complaining that it gets handed out, or about the
     amount.  We just need to do it more often.
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