bert boerland
Fri, 01/04/2008 - 19:26 — bert boerland
What is your motivation for being a member of the Drupal Association?:
For me, Open Source is about three things,
* the Code,
* the License and
* the Community.
Since my "Hello World" would end up in a textbook on how to have four XSS exploits and one SQL injection in a oneliner, I want to help the project by supporting on the legal and especially community side.
I did this for the last 5+ years in the Netherlands and broader the Drupal Community at large, starting from convincing friends to use Drupal and help them, introducing colleagues into the professional Drupal world, converting Dutch media sites to Drupal and giving lots and lots of Drupal presentations for Board rooms.
Being a Permanent Member of the Drupal Association is a logical next step I took last year to help the community even more. This year I want to continue towards the next step, being a Board Member and thereby guarding our assets and facilitating the community.
What are the primary goals you would like to work on?:
* Legal. I am not a lawyer yet I would like to /manage/ the legal process meaning getting in touch with lawyers and other stakeholders. This holds true for all our assets (infrastructure, domains names, money, trademark, copyright), both when we are under attack on one of these fronts but also defending all these fronts. For the next year I would like to make sure Dries does not have to spend his time on this while using Dries’s contacts and giving all the room he needs or wants in this area. I would like to have a plan ready on what to do if we have non GPL-ed code in our codebase and procedures for what to do when we see copyright/cc license infringements. I would like to extend “our” trademarks to other countries and finish the (sub) license document so people and (smaller) Drupal shops know how and when the can use Drupal in the name. I also would like to take care of our other assets, for example taking care of insurance of our hardware (if we need this at all) and the Drupal Association legal structure. And as the last point I want to do for the legal department next year, I want to make a very raw multiple year planning so we can drop our ad-hoc decision making and have a line between the different points.
* EU alignment. Currently we are traditional organized with a role per activity that acts globally. This is fine but in due time –maybe this year is too early and we need to do this the year after- I think we need to go to a matrix organization where there is still one person/role responsible for an activity. Apart from this we might need to have general regional managers who can advise the board members and carry out smaller regional tasks for different roles of the Board. Ideally, this will be non Board Members. Thereby reducing the load on the Board Members and increasing the participation of the other Permanent Members. The tow axis, role and geographical, together make a better matrix organization. If we go for such a structure next year, I would like to represent Europe if no other candidates can do this better. Note that this is not a BM role hence application .
* DrupalCon's alignment. One of our biggest assets is facilitating the community to come together and meet face to face. Organizing these conferences is something that can hopefully be done by community members. Making sure that sponsor contacts are re-used, lessons are learned and that the Association will make a small profit, oversight of these activities from the organizers to the Association is needed. The most important
I want to help on all 3 topics, with the main focus on the Legal Department
What strategy will you employ in order to accomplish said goals?:
For the legal department I want to make a plan for the next year, and the next 3 years. I want to make a budget, follow up on it. I want to have procedures to see legal problems and know ow to act upon them.
What yearly budget would you need in order to accomplish said goals?:
The range for the out of pocket costs of the Legal department is between 2.000 euros (setup costs, representation costs) to 15.000 euros. In the latter case costs covering some additional trademarks applications are included.
What strengths/experience you have to help you accomplish the goals?:
"Talent" to spot talent. Work with people, help them heling me
How long have you been using Drupal, and how'd you get your start?:
Feels like my complete life. But I do think I entered Drupal somewhere around 2001 in the drop.org days.
Have you made existing community contributions, and if so, what?:
* Organized DrupalCon Amsterdam 2005
* Co organized DrupalCon Barcelona 2007
* Co organized DrupalJam Netherlands 2007
* contributed many handbook pages
* Bought and paid for 2 years the Drupal.org domainname and handed it over to Dries
* Many bug reports, feature request, spam deletion, d.o f/p postings postings
* Helped out with many many small things, from promoting to making sure other people can do the real work.
* promoted Drupal in the Netherlands for a long time, convinced some of the biggest newspapers in the Netherlands to use Drupal.
How much time can you invest in your Drupal Association work?:
16-20 hours/month
Apply for Board of Directors membership:
Apply for Board of Directors membership
Board of Directors position:
Legal officer
Statutes:
I have read and understood the Statutes of the Drupal Association. I am prepared to participate by following those statutes.
Comments
One of the most valuable applications
Bert, after reading through almost all applications, yours is one of the most important, concrete, and valuable ones. I'm not eligible to vote, but your application would certainly be the first I'd deal with.