Board Election/2008/Platforms/Pascal Bleser

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Revision as of 21:41, 6 October 2008

Introduction and Biography

(in no particular order, except the first:)

Life #1

I'm 33, father of two (my 3 years old daughter Gaëlle and my 3 months old son Thomas), and live with my girlfriend in eastern Belgium.

Life #2

During work time, I'm busy as a software architect/engineer/developer at Atos Worldline in Aachen (Germany), which is a subsidiary of Atos Origin, the 2nd largest independent software vendor in Europe, part of a great team whom also happen to be good friends. I work on Java based enterprise development (research, frameworks, libraries, applications) since several years (have also been developing in many other languages) on Linux and Unix systems. But note that my professional activities have nothing to do with my investment in open source, as I'm developing proprietary software for proprietary, customer specific applications and deployments.

Life #3

I've been using S.u.S.E./SUSE/openSUSE since 5.0 which is.. err.. quite a long time ago. I'm using Linux every single day since 12 years. I've been involved into the S.u.S.E/SUSE/openSUSE community since something like 7-8 years (IIRC), starting with packaging several hundreds of projects (in the now defunct "guru" repository) and later merging+joining the Packman project. I've had quite a big share of helping people on IRC, on the mailing-lists, at "Linux Copy Parties" back in the days, etc... as well, although I don't always have much time to dedicate to that nowadays, trying to mostly concentrate on other things.

Apart from that, I have been and am still trying to be involved in several areas, especially in terms of (better) communication, putting people in touch with each other, develop software for openSUSE, etc...

I've been a member of the initial "bootstrap" openSUSE board (see my comments on that here and here).

As a side note, I'm also one of the organizers of FOSDEM (Free and Opensource Software Developers' European Meeting, one of the largest and most appreciated Free and opensource software events in Europe.

Major Issues

Definitely communication, in terms of putting people together, binding the somewhat isolated parts of our community. It's certainly a perpetual issue, not only for us, but in my opinion it is the area where we can improve most.

Also, I do think that our communication and development environment is lacking. The openSUSE Build Service is brilliant, but we tend to use the Wiki for everything else, and it just doesn't fit. I think it is a limiting factor in certain areas.

We're really bad at "marketing" our features, too. openSUSE is clearly one of the most outstanding distributions in terms of technical aspects, but we're not making enough noise around it. Not that I appreciate or support nor aim for the guerilla tactics of a certain distribution, but we should really talk a lot more about the stuff we have.

From a technical point of view, openSUSE is really, really good, but it's always worth improving. As a community, we need to grow up now, get involved a lot deeper into the processes and decisions. As I said and wrote a few times already, I believe that we're reaching "openSUSE.org 1.0" now, with most of discussions, meetings, processes happening in public and open to contributions from non-Novell community members. We now need to take those opportunities and contribute, in order to make the whole thing symbiotic.

Basically, I believe that this is the next big step in front of us: we have to start working on and preparing the emancipation of the openSUSE.org community. What does it mean ?

• be aware of our importance and our value to Novell, and discuss as an equal partner
• get more deeply involved and contribute more, not only to the distribution itself (packaging, marketing, testing + reporting bugs) and support (mailing-lists, forums, IRC), but also to its infrastructure (Build Service, users.o.o, Wiki translations, Software Portal) as well as building an even stronger community with initiatives such as Helping Hands, openSUSE TV, more/better documentation on how to contribute, more social tooling, build a stronger network of individuals who contribute actively, etc...
• contribute directly to Factory
• think of ways to sponsor openSUSE.org related projects in terms of infrastructure where Novell cannot help
• stop looking up to Novell so often and tell them what to do, but take our fate in our own hands, in a strong and healthy synergy with Novell (where ever possible, which is almost always the case)

We're not there yet, but we're slowly entering the phase where we need to work on that as the next logical step of our evolution. We got out of the previous, initial phase through the combined effort of Novell employees working on openSUSE working hard on opening up processes, discussions, infrastructure (such as the Build Service replacing the internal abuild), their minds, and the non-Novell-employees part of the community by pushing them into doing so ;)

Role of the board

As I already explained in my blog posts, I believe that the board has to find its place, and even more so that the community has to define its board (e.g. through the requests it submits to the board).

But that has to happen within a certain frame:

• the board should not put its nose into technical aspects (as explained in our Guiding Principles "Governance" section)
• the board is there as a service to the community, not the opposite: I personally don't see the board as an entity that controls the community -- if people happen to look for guidance, if that is really appropriate and desired by a majority in the community, and if the board members feel capable of doing so, then I guess it would be acceptable, but it definitely isn't the purpose of the board
• the board isn't there to solve everything, it's up to and possible for every member of the community to add her brick to our edifice

The board is certainly representative of the openSUSE.org community to a certain degree (and probably should be even more in the future), so make sure you vote for people you think represent your views and opinions (ok.. as in any election, probably ;)).

Aims/Goals

• communication: put people together, humanize the community, make it easier for people to find the appropriate contact persons
• make sure the members of the community are able to contribute: this is an ongoing process, and a lot of progress has already been made, but we have to make sure that people aren't put down when they want to contribute their time, ideas and energy to our project, even more so when they're doing that during their free time
• be aware of our importance and our value to Novell, and discuss as an equal partner
• drive the community as an entity on its own: Novell is an important ally without whom this wouldn't be possible in the first place, and it isn't about taking distance with Novell, but the community would be an even stronger partner if it was somewhat more independent (but I'm aware of the fact that this is a long process we have to work on carefully to avoid hurting feelings or giving wrong impressions, and that it'll most probably take more than one board to fulfill)

Why you should vote for me

While I prefer to let my actions speak for themselves, for those who don't know me...:

• I have a lot of connections with people in the community, both Novell employees (specifically in Nürnberg, having met many of them several times, including around a few beers) and non-Novell employees, which is obviously an advantage in such a position
• I have been contributing endless hours to the community since many years and, as such, I know the value of spending sleepless nights to service other people who share the same or at least similar passions, ideals and technical interests (mind you, I'm not whining, I actually like doing that ;))
• my job involves using and knowing a lot of opensource software, occasionally contributing to some projects here and there, but it is mostly about closed-source, proprietary, customer specific software, which I think gives me a certain degree of balance and reality check regarding certain aspects of what we're involved in; I'm passionate about Free and opensource software, both for "philosophical" (I don't like using the word "ideological" here) and technical reasons, but I also know that proprietary software isn't necessarily "t3h 3v1l" -- put short, I'm not a zealot.
• I tend to believe that I'm in a very good position to understand and weigh both sides when it comes to Novell vs non-Novell interests, as I have been in the non-Novell/S.u.S.E. GmbH part of the community for a very long time, and still am, but on the other side, I know many of the Novell-employee-community-members (those who are based in Nürnberg, at least) who are contributing to the project and the distribution personally, know a bit about the internal "openSUSE.org process" that has been going on there since some time

Why you shouldn't vote for me

I'm a pretty busy person, as I'm usually involved into a dozen things at once (packaging, board (well.. at least the soon-to-be-previous one ;)), developing, helping out, marketing, ..., organizing FOSDEM, contributing a bit here and there to a few other opensource projects, etc...), not even to mention my family life with two very young children and a very understanding girlfriend :)

In the first board, I think that I managed to participate more than sufficiently, even though it was Andreas Jaeger doing most of the annoying work, and that I thought that I would have been able to do a lot more (but certain things take time).

So... dunno.. you might think that I'm too busy for the job :)