Hi there,
Below are my answers to the questions:
1. Do you commit yourself to have enough time and the necessary
technological tools in order to participate to the regularly scheduled
board calls?
Yes.
2. Do you commit yourself to follow up and work on (at least) the main
items and actions you will volunteer to oversee or that will be assigned
to you by the board?
Yes.
3. What is your willingness to delegate decisions, especially in lack of
time?
No problem.
4. What are your views on the foundation's budget? How should the money
be spent, besides our fixed costs?
My experience with community shows me that its members are highly skilled professionals and I think that some of the “extra” money should be spent on programs through which highly skilled / promising individuals are continuously attracted to the community so that this trend can be kept/expanded. As a developer I think first about this category but the programs should not focus only on it. While working on different projects I’ve seen many examples when the value of individuals decided the fate of the projects in a good or bad way. The individuals are the backbone of any human activity.
One way of achieving this can be engaging the most experienced members of our community into programs designed to increase the awareness of our projects. Why the most experienced ? Because their experience can be used to reveal the most interesting sides of our projects, on one hand, and to expose the highest value of our community, on the other hand.
5. Should we work towards broadening our pool of contributors, both
technical and non-technical?
Definitely.
6. What actions do you suggest to increase the engagement and
participation of volunteers from local communities around the world in
project's activities?
An increase in interaction between community members can be one of them. Since the beginning of COVID pandemic this become an issue. I miss the opportunity to discuss face to face with other members of community as online interaction cannot replace that.
Also, the idea of attracting new members explained at question 4 can be used in this direction too. Maybe some kind of seminars on specific topics.
7. Should the Foundation -as an entity distinct from the LibreOffice
project or the Document Liberation project- engage into growing its
influence and promoting and defending Free Software and Digital Freedom?
It is, after all, an integral part of its mission per its very Statutes.
If yes, do you have ideas on what should be done about this?
Definitely. The promotion of free and open source software is the main objective of the foundation as stated in its Statutes. One way of doing this is to increase the awareness of its mission and activity, as explained at question 4. People that are aware and value our work/mission can become promoters by themselves.
8. What's your idea to let TDF membership become more appealing?
Currently, the only difference from being Community member and TDF
member is the possibility to vote and be voted for TDF's governance, and
it's fine, but can you imagine anything to encourage more Community
members to become also part of TDF?
Maybe more involvement at strategy development and decision level.
9. How do you view your (potential) role as a member of the board of
directors, given that this position does not give you any specific
functional role inside the LibreOffice or Document Liberation projects?
As this could be my first membership in TDF BoD I think a role of connection point between community members and BoD is the most suited one. My experience as developer can prove to be valuable at the highest decision level and my eventual future experience as BoD member also can be valuable in explaining the decisions to the community.
10. What is the biggest problem of the foundation in your opinion? What
is its biggest opportunity?
The biggest problem: Attracting/Involving enterprises into foundation's work/mission as they are a huge pool of highly skilled individuals and can become sponsors.
The biggest opportunities are its mission: development and promotion of free and open source software as well as a high quality community.
11. If they will occur, how do you think to handle conflicts within the
board?
The conflicts are unavoidable in an environment that involves more than one individual. As long as they stay in decent limits they can be handled easily by exposing the arguments of each side of the conflict, by openness and good will of each of the participants. If at the end each side maintains its position and a decision must be taken then a final vote should solve the problem.
Best,
Gabriel Masei
Senior C/C++ Developer, Free Products Development Romania
Phone: +40 31 223 90 62
Mobile: +40 721 934 131
gabriel.masei@1and1.ro
1&1 Internet Development Romania SRL
Sky Tower, 246C Calea Floreasca,
13th Floor, 014476, RO Bucharest
