When I was elected to the board of the Document Foundation, as the only self nominated candidate, I promised myself to promote discussions between the members of the board and the members of the community - that is, those who voted for us - with the aim of breaking the isolation of the board and promoting an exchange of views on the strategies and future of LibreOffice.
In order to do this, I had identified a few general topics that would allow me to take the pulse of the community in order to understand, both directly and indirectly, how the governance of the project should be addressed, even in all the cases where it is not possible to make the issue explicit for legal reasons.
Unfortunately, I was not able to do what I would have liked because of three problems that severely limited my time availability:
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FAMILY: I have a 37-year-old son with addiction problems to alcohol and in the past also to cocaine, which is very difficult to deal with even when normal. Imagine sitting on a time bomb, not knowing when it will go off.
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HEALTH: In February I had several episodes of high blood pressure with a general feeling of malaise. As a precaution, my GP advised me to keep travel to a minimum and had me undergo a series of tests which revealed that, due to a combination of hereditary factors, stress and mild hypertension, I have a dilated aorta which needs to be kept under strict control. I can travel, but I must avoid exertion and stress.
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WORK: As you can understand, family and health problems have reduced my availability, even if only temporarily, so that I have had to make choices to ensure my presence in the TDF team, and in one case (layout of the annual report) I arrived later than the deadline I had set myself.
In addition, in the little free time I had, I had to read - and in some cases reread - all the documents that we had inherited from the previous Board, both to understand the situation and to decide what to do to resolve the complex and often interrelated problems that limit the operation of The Document Foundation.organisation.
The result of this activity was the presentation of twelve different motions to be discussed at the next Board meetings. In my opinion, the approval of these motions could solve or significantly reduce some of the problems, and in any case would demonstrate to the authorities a proactive attitude towards solving the problems on the part of the current Board.
This week I am on holiday and have decided to take over the project and write introductions to the discussion topics, as I believe that more interaction - public and transparent - between Board members and community members is needed anyway.
Some of the discussion topics I will present over the next few days are related to the history of our project, also for the benefit of younger members who are not fully familiar with the genesis and development in the early years, and thus to medium and long term decisions, while others are more related to the current situation - of technology and the market - and thus to short and medium term decisions.
Looking forward to your comments. Thanks, Italo
(mine are entirely personal opinions, but the objective of encouraging discussion with the community is part of my duties as a member of the Board of Directors)
DISCLAIMER: As my simultaneous presence on the Board of Directors and on the team of The Document Foundation where I deal with marketing and PR, activities for which I am paid, could give rise to criticism and a potential conflict of interest, I think it is useful to clarify that I have asked for my remuneration for marketing and PR activities - set by previous Board of Directors - to be frozen until I will not be a member of the Board of Directors (i.e. until TDF Members will elect me to the Board of Directors).