Hi Hugh,

As I write this on March 2, your candidate's statement is a great resume, but doesn't yet say anything about policy. Would you please fill that in? Obviously there are important issues that OSI should be on top of, and that you, as a director, will be on top of for us if you are elected. What is going on at Joomla about the issues of women who participate on Open Source projects, and what would you like to do about it at OSI? How do you feel about standards groups that want to have patent royalties attached to their standards, and that promote that Open Source and patent royalties are compatible? What about the new licenses that have been submitted to OSI that remove rights we've previously guaranteed in order to increase the income of companies who feel they're being ripped off by Amazon? What other policy issues are you interested in?

Bruce, thank you for the question and giving me an opportunity to explain more. I have updated by profile above with my 'thoughts on Open Source' which I think adds some background to this answer. I am a strong believer in doing all that is possible to achive a safe and inclusive environment for all who might consider contributing, it doesn't matter what there gender, ethnicity, whatever is. The project must embrace their diversity as it is only by doing so that we (as a project) can benefit from their input. I am also very aware that with the widening of diversity, comes a need for tolerance, and an awareness and enforcement of a set of rules which ensure that the project is maintaining a safe environment for everyone. We need to recognise that on global projects different cultures and languages are involved and not everyone is always communicating in their native language or understanding the nuances which might be implied in anything they say. The first level of investigation therefore in any reports of non compliance becomes one of understanding what has happened and how it has caused offence. In the Open Source world, developers can become very defensive with the code they have written and often have very short fuses when faced with what appears to be critisism. My work as chairman of a couple of UK charities involves me with similar challenges on a day to day basis, I would therefore expect that my knowledge and experiences of dealing with them would be valuable to OSI.

With regard to licences, having worked in the commercial world and having had a lot of experience in the nuances of the way commercial software licences can work, this is an area I have a lot of knowledge of, although I am ready to admit, I am always willing and able to learn more (I do not hold any legal qualifications). What I do have is a lot of attention to detail and what I look for in any new 'improvement' is how that might impact what has gone before. I am very aware of the economics of running a large organisation (I have sat on the board of a number of international companies over my career). What I think is paramount is ensuring that anyone who is considering adopting a licence is well aware of its implications and the pros and cons of any particular approach.

What I have seen from my review and investigation of the OSI and the approved licences it promotes, seems to my eye as the 'newbie' user, is a lack of any detailed analysis of the key differences between licences and how they might be interpretted. I would therefore like to suggest an area of 'Start Here' where for a new project moving into the Open Source world, they could quickly and definitively understand the implcations of the various licence types and therefore make a very informed decision on which one to select.

On the subject of royalties I come back to the analogy I added in my profile above of the bee keeper. Companies have to have a way of generating an income, or they cease to become companies. However that income should not be derived from the exploitation of anyone else. Where companies or groups seek to enshrine standards within a patent and seek royalties from it, they to my mind, at the basic level, that standard becomes proprietary and where it is based largely on what may previously have been entirely open, then all protection should be offered to keeping it open.

Once again, thank you for giving me the platform to explain myself further, I look forward to answer further questions.

Hello,

I have a question for you, Mr. Douglas-Smith.

You mention that we must embrace diversity.  I agree that a diverse team is a great boon.  However, I have often seen attempts to diversity end up in having a team who's diversity is only skin deep, attempting to recruit people with narrow and near identical view points, who happen to have differing racial makeups.

What will you do to ensure that the diversity you seek is more than just superficial, and consists of various people with different thought processes and viewpoints?

Hi, thanks for the question.
My experience from working across many different cultures and regions is that there are two approaches to 'hiring for diversity', as you intimate. One is to focus any search on the skills required and then assess every application blind, so looking very objectively at the suitability from a skills perspective and experience perspective of each candiate. The other is to positively discriminate so as to artificially make up a team matching some notional model of diversity. I would always opt for the first approach and where that is not delivering the diversity required, see to actively promote the recruitment into areas where the diversity is lacking.

Discrimination can take on many different forms and I feel it is vitally important to pre-empt and plan out all occassions of discriminiation. I have read in one of the questions to another nominee, the comments of someone with Aspergers syndrome, one of my sons was diagnosed with this (notice, I don't say 'suffers' from). He has some incredible skills where infinite attention to detail is called for and when placed into the right envrinoment, is able to excel and deliver way beyond what someone without his characteristics would be able to achieve. However, the way he is 'wired' means that he does not pick up on the nuances of language as readily as others and so often comes across as either uncaring or unsupportive when in fact the opposite is the truth. This is also something that becomes very apparent when working with teams spread around the globe from different cultures. Whilst I am from the UK, I have worked and managed teams in USA, India, Vietnam, South Africa, Europe and currently Siberia, each of these have their own nuances which if understood become their strengths. I see my role as mentoring the communication channel between different groups to ensure there is understanding aboout how different cultures and traits work so as to build better diversity through a level of understanding and harmony.

Bruce
This is becoming an interesting and I hope worthwhile discussion, however, I want to make it clear, the expression 'only skin deep' was not mine, but the anonymous question. Sadly the world we live in seems to bounce from one extreme to another and the online culture where a level of anonimity can be achieved as well as the lack of any context or emotion is the written word, or perhaps more, where the emotion and context are often misunderstood, the need for an effective method of dealing with issues to ensure the harmony of the community becomes essential.

One of the roles of the OSI has to be to ensure the environment is both open and safe as well as being inviting and conducive to the aims of the organisation. To that end a level of monitoring is required along with a reporting and escallation policy which can deal with any incident. A published code of conduct (CoC) needs to be enforced and easily understood by all who engage. Ultimately with an ombudsman who can adjudicate should it be necessary.

In so many online communities, there are many examples of where an imbalance diverts the attention of those involved away from the core aims of the organisation, thus ultimately threatening to destroy the community from within. I believe that my experience over many years both commercially and within the not for profit sector make me an ideal candidate to be able to assist OSI with the continued building and strengthening of a harmonious community which runs effectively and coherently to its stated goals.