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Candidate name and bio: Marina Latini, 31 years old, from Italy.
email: marina.latini@libreoffice.org
Corporate affiliation: Studio Storti Srl (Italian company member of the Advisory board)
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75 words statement:
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I'm a free software activist from 2007 when I realized the importance of open standards as a key element for the personal freedom. Over the years I worked to promote free software and open standards, with particular attention to the office suite (OOo before and now LibreOffice). My technical background allowed me to turn passion into a job, and together with others, carry on the success of LibreOffice in Italy (as Founder of LibreItalia).
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Below you can read my answers to Charles' 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?
With my candidacy I'll dedicate all the necessary time to participate to all the scheduled Board calls.
2.Do you commit yourself to follow up and work on (at least) the main items and actions you have volunteered to oversee or that have been attributed to you by the board?
Yes, I’ll do.
3.What are your views on the foundation's budget? How should the money be spent, besides our fixed costs?
Apart from the fixed costs, I think we need to invest in marketing and develop. First of all we need to increment the marketing budget. I mean, LibreOffice is a great software but, as usual, if you don't know all the features and the possibility provided by a software you can't adopt it. I think that the brand identity is fundamental for our growing and for being competitive on the market. On the developer side I think we need to improve our crowd funding capabilities.
4.Should we work towards broadening our pool of contributors, both technical and non-technical?
Sure! I think it's important to have a good base of contributors, in line with those are the needs and availability of the various groups.
5.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?
The Document Foundation represents the ideals of transparency, openness and sharing of knowledge. These values are common to the world of free software, with which it shares many TDF possible future goals. Defend and promote these values is an important milestone. To do this it's necessary that the simple LibreOffice user of today may become the ambassador of freedom of tomorrow: there are no magic formulas or special tricks, but only the constant commitment and focus on our values and goals that us want to achieve.
6.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?
I think that is not important the role I have as a member of the BoD, but what contribution I could give, based on my experience and my skills
7.What is the biggest problem of the foundation in your opinion? What is its biggest opportunity?
In these five years of history we reached amazing goals doing great jobs. What we should do now is to optimize our efforts and maximize our ability to get in touch with the community and new users.
Regards,
Marina