Month: February 2010

Attended the FOSS Workshop. This was an event of mostly university researchers with some invited industry and project attendees (like myself.) The goal was/is to come up with proposals for NSF grants to study free and open source software. The discussions and writing took place over 2.5 days and evenings and I was impressed at the discussion that happened and the proposals that were starting to take shape. I pushed for less studying how projects work (I feel like we know that) and more studying how people (including students and companies) can get involved. There were also proposals for studying how the open source model can be applied to other industries (other than software), how different cultures get involved, business models, etc. I was also impressed at how long all the professors could focus on the project. I could have used some more email/voice mail/blog/twitter breaks. 🙂

Met with a few more GNOME advisory board members. A few more meetings to go. It’s good to catch up with everyone and their plans so far. (No big secrets.)

Exchanged email with FOSSFA about an event they are doing in Africa and about how GNOME could participate with some training.

Talked to several people about GNOME a11y, usability and the hackfests in London and at CSUN.

Provided quote for XIPWIRE press release. They are accepting donations for free and open software projects like GNOME free of charge.

Welcomed Gary Ekker as Novell’s representative to the GNOME advisory board.

This week for sure:

• Presenting at IASA.
• Attending OSS Watch phone Advisory Board Meeting.
• Working on GUADEC sponsorship.
• At least 4 more meetings with advisory board meetings.
• Board meeting.
• Meeting with Rosanna.
• Pinging a lot of people about a lot of things …

This week hopefully:

• Settle on dates for the Meet the Funders events.
• Letter for annual report.
• Catching up on email.
• Landing pages for Friends of GNOME hits from Google ads.

Edited a GNOME Journal article. Check out the latest issue with its multimedia focus!

Published the GNOME Q4 2009 Quarterly Report! Thanks to all the teams that wrote things up – we have some great write-ups about some awesome work.

Submitted the GNOME Google Adwords account for approval. I was bummed when the automated response says it could take up to three months to get approval. However, it was approved within a few days! We’ve been running ads for Friends of GNOME and Women’s Outreach for the past week or so. I’ve played with the keywords and ads some and gotten some feedback from the marketing list as well. Anyone with experience with Google Adwords would be appreciated!

Conversations with several board members about how things are going for the Board and how things are running with the GNOME Foundation.

Many one on one conversations with GNOME Advisory Board members. These were mostly brief chats 20-30 minutes about how things were going for them and how we could best work together. Discussed things like hackfests and GUADEC as well.

Friends of GNOME update for December 2009 and January 2010. We had a stellar 2009! In 2009, Friends of GNOME raised $29,578 for GNOME! That is the same amount raised by 3 large companies. From community contributions. It’s enough for several hackfests and close to the amount needed annually for a part time system administrator. In December we raised $2,663, more than any other December. Spread the word!

Sent thank you’s to people who donated money to GNOME. Sent a few postcards out for the Adopt a Hacker program. Sent on addresses to others who also owe thank you postcards.

GNOME Jobs. Heard about several GNOME jobs and asked people to post them on the GNOME Jobs board.

Had 1:1 meeting with Rosanna. Still working with her to try to get her workload balanced.

GNOME Board of Directors meeting.

Pinged a lot of people about a lot of things. Including GUADEC sponsorships.

Checked on getting a Euro account for the GNOME Foundation. Found one option that is good for large amounts but has excessive wire fees for small amounts.

Attended the Women in Free Software IRC meeting.

Attended a “Benchmarking Women Leadership” event put on by the White House Project. I was expecting more data about the new report but instead I met a lot of interesting people that may be able to help with contacts for the GNOME Outreach Program for Women.

Started planning a “Meet the Funders” event with other free software projects. We’ll invite people from Foundations and other funders to learn more about free software projects.

This week:

• Attending the FOSS Workshop.
• Hoping to meet with Rosanna and a few more advisory board members.
• Blogging about the GNOME Outreach Program for Women.
• Pinging lots of people about lots of things.