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GNOME Foundation Board Election Results

Anonymous BillyGoat writes "The results of the 2003 GNOME Foundation Elections have been announced. These are preliminary results, and will stand unless someone decides to challenge them. A notable exclusion from this year's list is Miguel De Icaza, whose candidacy application was rejected as it missed the deadline. In related news, barely a few weeks after the news of the death of GNOME hacker Chema Celorio in a sky diving accident, the GNOME community was shocked by the news of the sudden death of Evolution hacker Ettore Perazzoli."

41 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Excluded? by KlomDark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can Miguel be excluded? Didn't he start the whole thing? That's be like excluding Linus from a Linux Foundation. Just makes the Gnome Foundation seem like a joke if they leave the founding member out.

    1. Re:Excluded? by tds67 · · Score: 3, Funny
      Just makes the Gnome Foundation seem like a joke if they leave the founding member out.

      Considering the high mortality rate associated with being part of GNOME, it's probably a good thing.

    2. Re:Excluded? by azzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, what would make it a joke is if they ignored all of their rules for someone, regardless of who that was.

    3. Re:Excluded? by pr0c · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ya but you also lose integrity by allowing people who don't meet deadlines to slip by. It is a lose/lose situation really. I'm sure Miguel will still be very involved.

    4. Re:Excluded? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      on any other day, this comment would be funny.. but right now, it's in bad taste..

    5. Re:Excluded? by The+Snowman · · Score: 3, Funny

      That was crude and tasteless, even by my standards -- and that's saying a lot.

      --
      24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
    6. Re:Excluded? by Lussarn · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, like David Wexelblat of XFree. He is in the core team without even using XFree because he is a windows user now. Sounds smart.

    7. Re:Excluded? by ebuck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Airplanes don't wait for passenger 42 to come on board, even when passenger 42 is a politician or powerful businessman.

      Universities don't "reopen" enrollment for a tardy applicant, without compromising their perception of fairness.

      Deadlines exist. Mabye the years of missing them in software development has numbed us, but they still exist. And as much as I find it ironic that Miguel isn't on board, let's not cry that he deserves a spot when he couldn't be bothered to get his application in on time.

      If he was tardy in his application, that's not a pretty precedent to set as a board member. (Admittedly, I'd expect a few board memebers to be tardy at everything else, BUT the application process, hehehe)

  2. don't trust it by TedCheshireAcad · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't trust these results. They used Diebold machines.

  3. Who gets to vote? by zomper514 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who gets to vote for the Gnome Board?

    1. Re:Who gets to vote? by haystor · · Score: 5, Funny

      gnomes

      --
      t
    2. Re:Who gets to vote? by zomper514 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Lawn Ornaments vote?

    3. Re:Who gets to vote? by gouldtj · · Score: 4, Informative

      I surprised no one answered this.

      Members of the GNOME foundation get to vote for the board. Basically these are the people who contribute to GNOME. So, if you translate or code or give presentations to do with GNOME you can be a member. There is no charge or anything like that.

  4. Who cares about gnome? by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 2, Troll

    I stopped caring about Gnome at about the time they started deciding Metacity is good and should be the default. When Metacity's maker puts out an egotistical manifesto that says all the features in a window manager that don't match up exactly to his way of working are just immature fluff to him, then I'm not going to want to use the thing he makes based on that philosophy. (Apparently, for example, he thinks that outline-dragged windows are frivolous fluff, while solid-dragged windows are the only useful way to do things productively, because of course all Linux users want to waste CPU cycles on the UI. And he uses the oft-repeated dodge that since computers are faster nowadays, you don't have to save CPU cycles. Bullshit. It's *my* computer, and those are *my* CPU cycles. If I'd rather use them on background processes like mathematical calculations rendering 3-D povray animations, then that's *my* business. And that doesn't change just because we measure speed by the gigahertz instead of the megahertz today. If the computer is ten times faster, I want that speed applied to the areas *I* want it applied. If I didn't care about stuff like that, I'd be using Windows.)

    --

    Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

    1. Re:Who cares about gnome? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Gnome took a turn for the worse when Gnome 2.0 was released and it hasn't recovered since. At least now they aren't playing catch-up with KDE anymore. They are trying to innovate and do new things. This is good. The problem is that those new things suck. This is bad.

    2. Re:Who cares about gnome? by sysopd · · Score: 2, Interesting
      AMEN. Responsiveness in the (G)UI is incredibly important for me. If its slower than windows (95 era or 98lite micro) then I'll stick to the CLI. I want my alternative OS to be faster, slimmer, and more stable.

      But then, thats a large reason why I don't use either GNOME or KDE. I stick with black/fluxbox, XFCE, or possibly windowmaker. Honestly, when I buy a hard drive for good seek times, fine tune my swap partition(s) and span them across multiple drives, use IDE/SCSI sw/hw RAID, and remove all but the necessary services and kernel drivers/modules-- I'll be damned if after all that I'm going to waste CPU cycles and memory on anti-aliased alpha blending of my skinned 'desktop environment' windows.

      I'd like to actually use my computer, not just use my GUI. Choice is paramount.

    3. Re:Who cares about gnome? by Nodatadj · · Score: 2, Informative

      Especially seeing as...

      Taaadaaaa!

      you can turn it off at the click of a button or two...[here's a hint, check gconf-editor and turn on Metacity's "reduced resources" feature]

      Yey for uninformed bitching!

      Woohooo

    4. Re:Who cares about gnome? by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 3, Insightful


      I use KDE, and I assume you do too given that it's the only remotely customizeable WM.

      I didn't before. I used to prefer Gnome over KDE, but I switched to KDE after the pile of dung that is Gnome 2.0 showed me that Gnome is a dead end now. What annoys me about the Metacity manifesto is how it ruined the future of what *had been* my preferred interface.

      I'd use blackbox or icewm, except that I hate the look and feel of NeXT that they try to emulate. It doesn't waste computer resources to have resize bars on *all* sides of a window. There's no reason to make you have to use a little button down on the lower corners.

      --

      Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

    5. Re:Who cares about gnome? by pyros · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Gnome took a turn for the worse when Gnome 2.0 was released and it hasn't recovered since.

      Matter of opinion. I happen to think the jump from 2.0 to 1.4 was the first big leap towards being useable on a personal desktop, and it's been getting better ever since. I think File Type application association sucked ass in earlier versions of GNOME. Nautilus has made considerable speed and memory improvements. The panel kicks butt. they used to have different kinds of panels you could add/configure. Finally in 2.4 they figured out that they're all just panels. So now it's one kind of panel you can put whereever you want, and you can put any and all available applets on it. Some people really hate metacity. I can honestly say that I've had no change in usage patterns or productivity during the transition from Enlightenment to Sawfish to Metacity. Now we have the emerging gstreamer audio/video subsystem for GNOME apps to hook into. Totem and Rhythmbox are pretty sweet. I still use xmms every now and then, but I like having my little systray applet for rhytmbox. (I never liked the xmms gnome panel applet)

      What exactly do you think got worse from 1.4 to 2.0?

    6. Re:Who cares about gnome? by Nodatadj · · Score: 2

      which as I pointed out, works fine, but apparently that was offtopic for this thread.

  5. Gnome by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Funny

    Aren't Gnomes and Trolls Related?

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    1. Re:Gnome by strictnein · · Score: 4, Funny

      No no no...

      Gnomes steal your underwear.
      Trolls smell like your underwear.

      It's very easy to get the two confused...

      Although, now I'm confused. My definition directly relates them. They are connected through.... my underwear. Hmmm... must do more research on the subject.

  6. It is an official conspiracy now by segment · · Score: 3, Funny

    Two election based articles...One day? I think Slashdot is now trying to sway the vote.

    Vote No to proposal #4839562358096-2385178934569384560345934(a(b)(d)) titled "More Electoral Based Articles on Slashdot"

  7. Sad by pavon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I remember right Ettore Perazzoli was also largly responcible for the GNOME Virtual File System code (transparently opening tarballs as folders, FTP etc) which in my opinion was the only good thing to come out of the Nautilus project.

    1. Re:Sad by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Err, AFAIR, the GNOME VFS layer existed long before Nautilus... it was part of Gnome Commander.

  8. Conspiracy theory by daserver · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone seen Antitrust?

  9. Gnome == Novell, Sun, Red Hat by chill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Novell had 5 people elected, but the charter doesn't all that many from 1 company, so 4 will sit on the board.

    Sun & Red Hat had 2 each.

    That means of the 11 sitting members, a super-majority (2/3) is in the hands of 3 big companies.

    Hmmm... the big boys are starting to pay attention. I hope this is a good thing.

    -Charles Hill

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    1. Re:Gnome == Novell, Sun, Red Hat by bogie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well Sun and Red Hat have done well by Gnome up till now so I don't see why it wouldn't be good thing. Heck if Red Hat had gone KDE like everyone else did instead of pushing a rather unfit at the time Gnome, there is no way Gnome would be where it is today.

      The real wild card here is Novell. Novell is the outsider here and it remains to be seen if there goals will align with the opensource community's goals longterm. Sure the names ie Nat are the same for now, but Novell is going to the ones pulling the strings.

      I have to say even though I've read only good things about what Novell plans to do, it's going to be years before I can trust them. Novell wasn't exactly big in Open Source before buying Suse and Ximian.

      Two things I'd love to see are opening up YAST and Ximian's exchange connector. Its would nice to see a Truly Free,Open, and Redistributable Suse. An open Connector would really help out in getting Linux on those corportate desktops.

      --
      If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
    2. Re:Gnome == Novell, Sun, Red Hat by pyros · · Score: 2
      Two things I'd love to see are opening up YAST and Ximian's exchange connector. Its would nice to see a Truly Free,Open, and Redistributable Suse. An open Connector would really help out in getting Linux on those corportate desktops.

      While I don't use Suse, I'd love to see YAST opened up. I get really pissed off about how much flack Red Hat takes when they give all their tools back to the community and Suse doesn't.

      Regarding Connector, it'd be cool but I doubt it would happen. They're pushing the Groupwise plugin. More likely they would leave the Connector plugin as is ($), and open the Groupwise plugin. Or at least make it free beer.

  10. Myth #11 about open source by afternoon_nap · · Score: 4, Funny
    It will withstand the /. effect:

    Warning: Too many connections in /var/www/html/fast.php on line 4

    Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /var/www/html/fast.php on line 4 Unable to select database

    1. Re:Myth #11 about open source by pclminion · · Score: 2, Funny
      Warning: Too many connections in /var/www/html/fast.php on line 4

      Ahhh, shit, I knew I should have committed that faster.php I finished coding last night...

  11. Ettore's blog by zr-rifle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here is Ettore's blog, updated to 29 November.

    On a side note, it's moving to browse through the weblog of someone who has died recently. I never knew Ettore, although I regularly use and love Evolution, but from his entries I see he was a very nice person while also being a talented hacker.

    --
    Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
    1. Re:Ettore's blog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yes, especially considering his note from Sunday, November 2, 2003:

      • Life goes on.
  12. Dear /. by Nodatadj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    GNOME got a new logo 2 years ago...

    Not about time to change?

  13. MOD PARENT DOWN!!!! by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 4, Funny

    > This is proof that moderation is broken

    Quick, he's on to us. Get this off the front page

  14. Your focus is incorrect by mar1boro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    " I think the more important news here is the death of two GNOME developers. I can't believe you took this oppurtunity to bitch about your dissatisfaction with software that they wrote and freely give away."

    You need to save up the sentimental bullshit and spend it where appropriate. I assume Celorio and Perazzoli were commited to their work and had invested a considerable amount of their emotional/philosphical selves into Gnome. If so, they probably would rather have you and everyone else focus on the future of their work.

    Offer their families and friends comfort. Let them know you appreciate what these two did. But show some respect and keep focusing on the work these guys cared about. You are not showing respect by focusing on their deaths instead of their lives. Quite the opposite.

    --
    -- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
  15. SCO's point of view by Gzip+Christ · · Score: 2, Funny
    An Open[*] letter by Darl McBride

    Dear Reuters,

    As of late many Linux-communists have complained of our efforts here at SCO (the owner of the UNIX operating system) to bring fairness and equality to the management of our Intellectual Property[**]. The Linux collective launched a denial of service attack on our web site earlier this week, and in doing so forced us into reciprocating with a return denial of service attack of our own. It is unfortunate that it has come to this, but we must take measures to protect our Intellectual Property[**] - it is not a choice we have made, but a course of action that we have been forced into. Our enforcers, Vinny and Spike, will continue to administer these denial of service attacks against Linux-terrorists in a freedom fighting effort for the good of all Intellectual Property ? our Intellectual Property[**] as well as the intellectual property of others[***].

    For a totally unbiased explanation of why our policy of DOS reciprocity is pro-America and good for everybody, please refer to the completely independent report by the Yankee Group's Laura Didio, who has not connection to SCO whatsoever and doesn't know anybody here and has never worked with any of us and is totally unbiased. Please quote her repeatedly as she is totally unbiased and doesn't even know us.

    Love,
    Darl McBride

    [*] This letter may be reprinted until January 1, 2004, for the nominal price of $699 provided that you can actually track down a SCO sales person that will actually sell you a license. After January 1, 2004, the price will return to the regular $1399, except that it actually won't.

    [**] I.e., all software composed of a sequence of zeros and/or ones.

    [***] I.e., all software not composed of a sequence and/or zeros or ones.

  16. Death Announcement Reprint by chuckw · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Some people are getting MySQL errors so here's a copy I managed to snag:

    According to Nat's blog and numerous other blogs, Chema Celorio died yesterday skydiving in Mexico.

    "The always enthusiastic and charming Chema Celorio died yesterday skydiving in Mexico.

    For those of you not in Ximian who don't know, Chema started and ran our Mexico City office, led the Ximian Setup Tools team a few years ago, was in charge of the team that managed our contract with HP, led the Ximian Desktop for a while, was one of the creators of GNOME Love, and was recently our lead sales engineer for Europe.

    Chema was one of the most loving, passionate people I have known. Being around Chema always made you want to do more and try harder. He was always questioning himself, trying to grow, taking on new challenges and never backing down.

    When I went to visit our office in Mexico I stayed at Chema's house and gripped the door handle on his car till my nuckles turned white when he drove us to work. Whenever he wasn't on sales trips or skydiving he seemed to be in my office asking good hard questions and always pushing for us to do more.

    Chema was easy to love, and he will be easy to miss. "

    Descanse En Paz

    --
    *Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
  17. Re:OS developer deaths by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Informative

    Way, way, way out of line.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  18. Why did Ettore Perazzoli Pass Away Exactly? by Listen+Up · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why did Ettore Perazzoli Pass Away Exactly? Every place I look, every is sad of his death, but nowhere can I find out how and why he died. Does anyone know?

  19. miguel still part of things! by Xtifr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He may not be an official member of the GNOME Foundation Board, but that hardly means that he's no longer a leader of the GNOME project itself. Let's keep some perspective here. I seriously doubt if anyone is saying, "he didn't meet the election deadline, we'd better shut off his CVS access." Or even, "we'd better stop listening to what he has to say."

    It's even possible that not being on the Foundation could allow Miguel to spend more time actually working on GNOME.