Pilot Conversation: 2/22/05 to 2/23/05
CAB Nominee Request
Original Message
Subject: [Opensolaris-discuss] CAB nominee request
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:08:28 -0600
From: Jarod Jenson <jarod@aeysis.com>
Organization: Aeysis, Inc.
To: opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
I guess I will be the first to start open dialog about the CAB nominees.
I have read over each nominee's Wiki and previous posts. A couple of things
still remain unanswered for me and I would hope that each of the candidates can
address them for me. A response via email or updates to your Wiki's will work
(the latter is probably a better method to avoid list traffic).
First of all, each candidate has clearly shown technical prowess - of this I
have no question. However, I believe that the initial CAB will have significant
responsibilities in the areas of leadership, marketing, and communication.
For the leadership issue, I believe that the strongest trait will be the ability
to take guidance from constituents and coalesce it into a unified direction for
OpenSolaris. This clearly means that personal preference and ideology take a
back seat to what is best for OpenSolaris. The success of OpenSolaris is
paramount to the beliefs and preconceived notions of any of those elected. The
SCCS/Teamware discussion is an example.
As for marketing, we are at a significant disadvantage to the Linux
Penquinistas(TM). The press is going to attack us from every angle and try to
play up the fact that that we are playing second fiddle to an already
established and insurmountable Linux snowball. The CAB will have to be able to
address this issue with the press and form collateral that establishes why
OpenSolaris is a viable alternative. Without a clear marketing plan that
highlights the benefits of a superior operating environment, we will do nothing
to further the cause.
Lastly, communication is a key requirement as well. The ability to to not only
communicate via electronic methods, but also in presentation type scenarios will
be a huge benefit. I foresee on-line chats, media events, and slideware
presentations in the future. An ability to effectively communicate position and
direction in less than favorable situations would be necessary. An ability to
address a group in an ad hoc setting would be beneficial.
These three items are by no means an exhaustive list. However, they are the only
areas that I think the nominees have not completely addressed in their
respective curriculum vitae's.
I do wish to thank each nominee for the willingness to commit their time to this
cause. I only wish I had the cycles myself. To each of you, I am appreciative of
your dedication to OpenSolaris.
Thanks,
Jarod
Original Message
Subject: Re: [Opensolaris-discuss] CAB nominee request
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:19:22 +0100
From: Pieter Van den Abeele <pvdabeel@gentoo.org>
To: Jarod Jenson <jarod@aeysis.com>
CC: opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
References: <421BF3AC.4050607@aeysis.com>
Hi Jarod,
On 23 Feb 2005, at 04:08, Jarod Jenson wrote:
> For the leadership issue, I believe that the strongest trait will be
> the ability to take guidance from constituents and coalesce it into a
> unified direction for OpenSolaris. This clearly means that personal
> preference and ideology take a back seat to what is best for
> OpenSolaris. The success of OpenSolaris is paramount to the beliefs
> and preconceived notions of any of those elected. The SCCS/Teamware
> discussion is an example.
>
> As for marketing, we are at a significant disadvantage to the Linux
> Penquinistas(TM). The press is going to attack us from every angle and
> try to play up the fact that that we are playing second fiddle to an
> already established and insurmountable Linux snowball. The CAB will
> have to be able to address this issue with the press and form
> collateral that establishes why OpenSolaris is a viable alternative.
> Without a clear marketing plan that highlights the benefits of a
> superior operating environment, we will do nothing to further the
> cause.
>
> Lastly, communication is a key requirement as well. The ability to to
> not only communicate via electronic methods, but also in presentation
> type scenarios will be a huge benefit. I foresee on-line chats, media
> events, and slideware presentations in the future. An ability to
> effectively communicate position and direction in less than favorable
> situations would be necessary. An ability to address a group in an ad
> hoc setting would be beneficial.
I agree that whoever is elected to the CAB should have sufficient
experience with leadership, marketing and communication. I also believe
that having a background in other Operating Systems Communities such as
Linux and OpenDarwin is a plus.
The commitment nominees have to make shouldn't be taken lightly. Good
leadership involves the ability to steer and further a project without
looking like a dictator. I see the CAB as an extension of the
OpenSolaris community, and the CAB should work transparently. I think
the keyword should be 'consensus'. Somebody who tends to take extreme
stands on whatever he defends and doesn't want to water his wine would
imho. not be the best candidate in an election for the CAB. One aspect
in which the CAB differs from other management teams and boards I have
been present in is that there isn't a clear mapping between CAB members
and project subdomains. For example: I am currently a senior manager in
the Gentoo Foundation and my responsibilities include platforms and
architectures. I often have conflicting interests with our
infrastructure team, which doesn't have enough space to mirror all
software the team produces. Our solution was to implement bittorrent
infrastructure that could be used to mirror optional components. The
ability to reach a consensus that benefits the entire team is imho more
important than being impossible and book zero progress.
As for marketing, I am on a direct line with our PR team, I often
contribute to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter. Marketing obviously plays a
big role in establishing or growing a project and being able to 'sell'
your ideas is as important as the ability to realize them. That's also
where communication comes into play. I pride myself in being able to
speak diplomatically about other projects, this is something the CAB
has to be careful with. The last thing the OpenSolaris community needs
is a Jihad. I am scheduled for two speeches on FOSDEM 2005 this
saturday and sunday (On our future direction regarding package
management and the other projects I lead or am involved with). If
you're around, come and say hi :-)
Please don't hesitate shooting questions my way (or to this list)
> I do wish to thank each nominee for the willingness to commit their
> time to this cause. I only wish I had the cycles myself. To each of
> you, I am appreciative of your dedication to OpenSolaris.
Thanks!
Best regards,
Pieter Van den Abeele
Original Message
Subject: Re: [Opensolaris-discuss] CAB nominee request
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:34:04 -0600
From: Jarod Jenson <jarod@aeysis.com>
Organization: Aeysis, Inc.
To: Pieter Van den Abeele <pvdabeel@gentoo.org>
CC: opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Pieter Van den Abeele's email at 2/23/2005 7:19 AM, said:
> I agree that whoever is elected to the CAB should have sufficient
> experience with leadership, marketing and communication. I also believe
> that having a background in other Operating Systems Communities such as
> Linux and OpenDarwin is a plus.
<Major Snippage>
Pieter,
Thanks so much for the response. Your elaboration is most helpful in my
decision making.
Thanks,
Jarod
Original Message
Subject: Re: [Opensolaris-discuss] CAB nominee request
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:19:08 +0100
From: Joerg Schilling <schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de>
To: opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org, jarod@aeysis.com
References: <421BF3AC.4050607@aeysis.com>
Jarod Jenson <jarod@aeysis.com> wrote:
> First of all, each candidate has clearly shown technical prowess - of this I
> have no question. However, I believe that the initial CAB will have significant
> responsibilities in the areas of leadership, marketing, and communication.
A CAB with only 5 part time heads cannot do real marketing.
Of course, the CAB members should act as evangelists, but note that my impression
is that a CAB member should not act aggressively to the "outside".
We need to show to others that we attach importance to discussion culture.
Acting self-aware and relaxed will be no longer a problem once the CAB has been
established and we have the source available to the world.
Marketing (particulary if aggressive) should be done by non CAB members.
> For the leadership issue, I believe that the strongest trait will be the ability
> to take guidance from constituents and coalesce it into a unified direction for
> OpenSolaris. This clearly means that personal preference and ideology take a
> back seat to what is best for OpenSolaris. The success of OpenSolaris is
> paramount to the beliefs and preconceived notions of any of those elected. The
> SCCS/Teamware discussion is an example.
Technical discussions should always be possible (even hot ones) if they are kept
inside an inner circle. This is a matter of discussion culture.
I don't see the SCCS/Teamware discussion related to personal preferences and
ideologies. SCCS/Teamware (if both is available as OpenSource) is the best solution
as it would give a smooth transition from the current development, rock solid
quality and it would be a signal to the world that Sun is taking OpenSolaris
seriously by making needed software besides the Solaris kernel available as OSS too.
> As for marketing, we are at a significant disadvantage to the Linux
> Penquinistas(TM). The press is going to attack us from every angle and try to
> play up the fact that that we are playing second fiddle to an already
> established and insurmountable Linux snowball. The CAB will have to be able to
> address this issue with the press and form collateral that establishes why
> OpenSolaris is a viable alternative. Without a clear marketing plan that
> highlights the benefits of a superior operating environment, we will do nothing
> to further the cause.
We cannot do that before OpenSolaris is ready but after OpenSolaris is ready
life will become easier for us. What the CAB should do is self preparing for
this time.
But if you believe that there is a need to work against the Penquinistas(TM),
you could try to set up a group of the Dukes(TM) from non CAB members who try
to give rebuttals to the Penquinistas(TM) press actions.
> Lastly, communication is a key requirement as well. The ability to to not only
> communicate via electronic methods, but also in presentation type scenarios will
> be a huge benefit. I foresee on-line chats, media events, and slideware
> presentations in the future. An ability to effectively communicate position and
> direction in less than favorable situations would be necessary. An ability to
> address a group in an ad hoc setting would be beneficial.
I hope that we will find a better way to communicate that just doing CAB
teleconferences via the phone. Let us try to use videoconferencing, we at Fokus
did this using the mbone in 1995 and it did work well, unfortunately it seems
to be forgotten now.
I expect that once the CAB has been established, the CAB members will be the
target of pollers from the interested/related press. I expect that this may
cause a work high load during the first weeks. For this reason, it may help if
there are people in the CAB who speak other languages (e.g. German ;-). If you
ask me about my skills in this area, I would answer:
During my time at the secondary school, I did give extra lessons to other
pupils. During my time at the university, I did work as a tutor and did give
lessons in programming fundamentals to students. People who know me personally
know that I am usually able to explain complex things in easy to understand
ways. I am a member of the works council of our institue and thus have
experiences in discussions and mediation between the Fokus & Fraunhofer
management and the employees and even with members from the government.
> These three items are by no means an exhaustive list. However, they are the only
> areas that I think the nominees have not completely addressed in their
> respective curriculum vitae's.
Well, I believe that some of the answers you might be interested in, do not
belong into a curriculum vitae but could be given as a result of questions
from voters like you.
Jörg
