Below you will find a list of candidates who are running for the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors. A short summary statement from each candidate and a link to their full candidacy announcement is provided to help you learn more about them. We encourage all voters to read the full candidacy statements and related discussions on foundation-list@gnome.org.
When deciding who you should vote for, please carefully consider the various tasks the Board of Directors must perform. This overview may be helpful. Keep in mind that the board will make a number of important decisions and will also have to perform many tasks which require a significant amount of time and effort and the ability to work and communicate with other people, companies, and the media. The board of directors will represent GNOME to companies and the world in a very real way. It is a good idea to strive for a well-balanced board consisting of people with various backgrounds, skills, and perspectives.
Additional elections details can be found on the GNOME Foundation Web Site.
If you have any questions, please send them to either foundation-list@gnome.org or to us at elections@gnome.org.
1. Jonathan Blandford
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00007.html
I am a long-time member of the GNOME community. I am also an employee of Red Hat, run a desktop team there, and have been active on the Board for the past four years. I know what being on the board entails, and will bring continuity for the next board. Most importantly, I have the time to be an effective board member.
2. Behdad Esfahbod
Affiliation: Sharif FarsiWeb
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00012.html
I've been a member of GNOME foundation since 2001, but never called myself a GNOME developer until recently, when I found myself well inside, and I believe I am here to stay. I started as a hacker, but found a great family that is much more valuable than the sum of the parts. So I'm trying to get more involved in other aspects of the project.
3. Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller
Affiliation: Fluendo S.L.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00008.html
I have been a long term member of the GNOME community and this last year also served on the board. I am also an employee of Fluendo S.L., a company doing products and consulting around the GStreamer framework. If I get re-elected to the board I want to continue making it platform for talking to other open source groups and companies, pulling them closer to GNOME and eventually increase our corporate membership.
4. Quim Gil
Affiliation: Interactors s.coop.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00002.html
GNOME is technically ready for the general public. Does the general public know this? Ask your neighbour. In order to make GNOME a mainstream desktop we need to focus in the social aspects of software as much as in the technical development. If the mountain doesn't go to GNOME, GNOME goes to the mountain. Actions recommended to be promoted by the board in which I possibly could play a useful role: gnome.org megawebsite, GUADEC & smaller events, smartketing, strengthen our brand, extend The GNOME Experience to proprietary desktops, start discussing seriously GNOME 3.0.
5. Dominic Lachowicz
Affiliation: Teragram Corporation
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00013.html
I promise to be a helpfully pedantic board member, ensuring that things get done on time and that they get done right. I believe in forming rough consensus and acting by convention. My contribution will be one of mediating the board's many goals, injecting realism, building a roadmap to those goals, making sure that we succeed, and making our successes/failures transparent. These traits will become increasingly important with the transition from 11 to 7 board members.
6. Federico Mena-Quintero
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00011.html
I have been working on GNOME since it began in August 1997. Since then, I've maintained or done substantial work on several modules. I have served as a Foundation Board member for two periods, once four years ago and once this year. I also acted as treasurer of the Foundation three years ago.
7. David Neary
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00001.html
I have very much enjoyed my year on the board, and I would like to continue working on aspects of the board's communication and reactivity. I am also eager to continue and bring to completion work to generate revenue for the foundation through merchandising, and increased partnership with companies supporting GNOME.
8. Bastien Nocera
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00010.html
I am a long-time member of the GNOME community, first as a user, then a package maintainer and finally a developer (I've also been known as a "machete hacker"). I work for Red Hat as a software maintenance engineer, meaning that I get to support and fix bugs in our old versions of GNOME, among other things.
9. Germán Poó Caamaño
Affiliation: Universidad del Bío-Bío
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-November/msg00039.html
I would like to contribute to the board giving more transparency about its internal process as much as possible. Also, I would like to contribute defining and promoting differents teams, looking for the same success than has been reached by teams as release, membership, etc. I'm convinced that can advance and get more contributors if we can keep the things simple and clear, and I will go for that.
10. Vincent Untz
Affiliation: Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00006.html
I'm running for the elections for three reasons: I want to make more Foundation members involved in the Foundation, I want to enable the local groups to do more than what they can do right now, I want to see that we care about our users. I believe I can help achieving at least one of these items and that it will make GNOME even better than it is now.
11. Luis Villa
Affiliation: Harvard Law School
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-November/msg00031.html
In the past, candidacy statements have been of the form of 'I will get the board to do X', which I now believe is wrong. The board should be about encouraging people to do X, giving advice on X, and exercising oversight to make sure X is done well. When I'm done with this term, the board should be a group of people whose main role is oversight, inquiry, and delegation, not doing.
12. Jeff Waugh
Affiliation: Canonical Ltd
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2005-November/msg00014.html
I love GNOME. I am passionate, motivated, and dedicated to building our success, both outwardly - a foot on every desktop; and inwardly - making sure our developer and user communities are rocking all the time. I believe I've earned the trust of the GNOME community to represent it, both as a communicator outside the project, and as a mediator and leader within our community. I am here to help GNOME rock.
13. Anne Østergaard
Affiliation: Easterbridge.dk
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-November/msg00028.html
I was a volunteer at the 2nd GUADEC in Copenhagen in 2001. - Where I was "sold" to GNOME and the GNOME Community because of the passionate, motivated, warm, and dedicated atmosphere among the developers and in fact everyone. We had a full house on user day. Since that time I have followed the foot prints and contributed to the conferences and the community.
Ballots will be sent out via e-mail to everyone who's registered to vote on Friday, November 25th, to the address provided with registration. If you need to change the address to which you want your ballot sent, please contact elections@gnome.org as soon as possible. People will vote by returning the ballot via e-mail. A public archive of the ballot returns will be available after the elections end on December 23rd.
Also, keep in mind that there is a 2-person maximum on the number of people affiliated with any one company that can be on the board: if more than 2 persons from one company get elected, only the top 2 vote getters will get on. You will be able to vote for up to 7 candidates of your choice, with no restrictions, except that you cannot vote more than once for the same candidate.