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 (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/).

When deciding who you should vote for, please carefully consider the various tasks the Board of Directors must perform. This overview (http://foundation.gnome.org/overview.html) 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 election details can be found at the end of this message and on http://foundation.gnome.org (where you can also find this document).

If you have any questions, please send them to either foundation-list@gnome.org or to us at elections@gnome.org.

The elections committee.

CANDIDATES FOR THE GNOME FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

1. JONATHAN BLANDFORD " I have been involved with GNOME since 1997. I have spent a lot of time working on many core parts of GNOME, and feel like I have a very good idea of how the project works. I very interested in helping to improve the desktop experience, I would like to see GNOME spend more time on the small, incremental improvements that make a desktop usable. " Affiliation Red Hat. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00020.html

2. CHEMA CELORIO " I have been contributing to GNOME over the past few years, I want to be on the board because I want to help GNOME even further. I have a very good relationship with a number of GNOME contributors as well as a very good understanding of the GNOME community and what drives GNOME forward. I am confident that we can make GNOME the best desktop available and I work hard everyday to make it happen. " Affiliation Ximian. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00021.html

3. RHETT CREIGHTON " The future is now, and that future is: Bowling Balls. Do you realize that if GNOME starts making bowling balls, we stand to net profit $11,000?! That's right, eleven big ones. Net profit, mind you. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00007.html

4. MIGUEL DE ICAZA " Have been an active contributor to the free software movement since 1992. Started the GNOME project when various freedom issues arose that would threaten the future of a fully free system. I am one of the founders of Ximian, one of the GNOME companies, where we employ around 40 GNOME hackers that develop free software. " Affiliation Ximian. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00018.html

5. GLYNN FOSTER " Easy going 23 year old from Dublin, Ireland seeks position on GNOME Foundation Board ono. Will trade communication, energy and commitment for an honest, hard working life with comfy seat. Will ensure that GNOME remains a happy go-lucky-project that people are excited to work on. Previous experience includes gnome-session hacks and being on GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee. Loves Guinness & climbing. Hates celery. Answers to the name of Gman. Email glynn.foster@sun.com after 8pm. " Affiliated with Sun Microsystems. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00010.html

6. NAT FRIEDMAN " The foundation could be doing more to help GNOME be more unified, move faster, and have more visibility. Things I would like to see include more focus on the desktop itself, more in-person events and a coordinated GNOME Office. I've been contributing to GNOME since 1998 and co-maintained Bonobo for a while. I wrote the first draft of the foundation's charter. I co-founded Ximian, and these days, I'm in charge of our product development. " Affiliation Ximian. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00022.html

7. JIM GETTYS " I'd like to continue to be on the board to help Gnome reach its potential. I feel that we are about a year from having the ingredients to make open source desktops viable for the mass market and would like to do what I can to help make this happen. As part of this, I believe interoperability is a key ingredient, and will work to encourage Gnome to invest in this area." Affiliation Compaq. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00024.html

8. JODY GOLDBERG " I have been a free software advocate since the early 90s, and have contributed to several projects, from G++ and Wine, to Nethack and a pager for CDE. As the current maintainer of Gnumeric I'm on the front lines of what users like and dislike in GNOME. Our technologies are good. Our integration could use some work. I'd like to work towards improving communication between the far flung elements of GNOME to improve that. " Affiliation Ximian. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00025.html

9. TELSA GWYNNE " I do docs, bugs, and hassling developers. I don't code. I also make last minute decisions. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00030.html

10. BILL HANEMAN " Bill Haneman AKA 'that Accessibility guy'. "I've been programming over 20 years, an active Gnome hacker since Dec. 2000. I maintain the Gnome Accessibility Project (atk, at-spi), co-moderate gnome-accessibility-list, and contribute to Gtk+, libglade, libbonoboui. I'm employed by Sun Microsystems Ireland. While wearing the 'Gnome Board hat' I would work hard to take a broad view of what's best for Gnome. My hopes for Gnome's future include platform development/maturation, universal accessibility, interoperability, and extensibility. " Affiliated with Sun Microsystems. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00011.html

11. JAMES HENSTRIDGE " I have been hacking on gnome for over 3 years, and have been involved in language binding development, gtk/gnome platform library development and also some work on apps. I am Australian, which may be a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view :) If elected I can represent these interests on the board. I served on the GNOME Steering committee from its creation until the Foundation elections last year, where I was one of the unsuccessful candidates. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00019.html

12. GEORGE LEBL " I have been with the GNOME project since '97, maintain several packages, and have been 'half-part' of the steering committee. I also pretended to work for Eazel for over a year. I want the GNOME community to stay as chaotic and open as it has always been. So elect me or I'll smack you with a GEGL. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00005.html

13. CHRIS LYTTLE " Expatriate Kiwi living in the USA. Been involved with running non-profit businesses. Contributor to the Gnome Documentation Project and GnuCash. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00015.html

14. IAN MCKELLAR " I'm an ex-Eazel hacker from Australia who is living in California. I have some experience running anarchic organizations like GNOME (on a smaller scale) and a strong belief in Free Software. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00026.html

15. MICHAEL MEEKS " Lots of experience of Gnome both technically and relationally, I continue to promote Gnome widely at conferences and to companies. We must finance and encourage small interest group meetings as well as GUADEC to increase real contact time. We need to bifurcate the project - the core environment and the applications built on top of it, so we can release core improvements more quickly, with a stable API, yet rapidly innovate in the applications. " Affiliation Ximian. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00014.html

16. FEDERICO MENA-QUINTERO " I'd like to see the GNOME hackers focus more on the desktop and, in particular, the user experience now that the GNOME 2.0 platform is almost complete. I am a co-founder of the GNOME project, and prior to that I was the maintainer of the GIMP. I worked at Red Hat Advanced Development Labs (RHAD Labs) for a year and a half, and have been working for Ximian since January 2000 on the Evolution Calendar. " Affiliation Ximian. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00029.html

17. TIM NEY " I've presented GNOME to government officials on several continents; built public awareness of GNOME around the world through the media, seminars and trade shows; secured funding, hardware and services to support GNOME. I see 2002 as the year GNOME reaches beyond the hacker community and to schools, corporations and governments. My contribution is to build bridges, develop strategy, policy and projects that are inclusive and appeal to a wider geography of developers and users. " Affiliation GNOME Foundation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00027.html

18. BASTIEN NOCERA " I'm a relative newcomer to the Gnome world as a programmer, with my main interests in multimedia, all ease-of-use concerns (accessibility included), and portability. I've never run for any elections on such a Board, but I have some experience in strongly opinionated discussions (with politics, and not hackers ;), and being French, I have a big mouth as well. Hmm, couple of words to go...I like bitter ale. " No affiliations Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00002.html

19. HAVOC PENNINGTON " I have several years of experience with GNOME, and want to help ensure continuity between the current board and the new one. My main goal on the board is to build up GNOME as a self-sufficient and long-term organization with solid infrastructure for keeping things running smoothly. I work on GTK+, GConf, packaging GNOME for Red Hat, and various less important projects. " Affiliated with Red Hat. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00008.html

20. CHRIS PHELPS " GNOME is the smoothest desktop I've ever used, and I intend to do anything and everything I can to keep our development rolling. My personal peeve is that GNOME is an awesome development environment without a respectable IDE. I intend to work on this to make GNOME more attractive to all kinds of developers. Yeah, that's about it... " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00004.html

21. ARIEL RIOS " My experience ranges from developing on Guile to numerous other contributions including technical reviews for Gtk+ and GNOME related books. I have been hacking in GNOME since the first years of the project. I have attended many conferences as a promoter of Free Software and GNOME. My main goal is to seek that GNOME will turn into a feasible solution against proprietary software turning into a powerful stable API that will be available for everyone. " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00017.html

22. RICHARD STALLMAN " I've been working for GNOME since years before there was a GNOME. In 1983, while formulating plans for the GNU operating system, I decided it should include a window system. After two desktop initiatives that didn't pan out, I found Miguel, who launched our third desktop project--GNOME. As president of the Free Software Foundation and Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project, I have had years of experience working with contributors both individual and corporate. " Affiliation. Free Software Foundation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00028.html

23. ANDY TAI " I have been a strong supporter for the GNU Project and a long time observer of the GNOME Project. I maintains the advocacy site free-soft.org and the GUI Toolkit and Framework Page, the definite reference for GUI toolkits on the Internet. I understand the major weakness of the GNOME architecture at this stage. If I am elected, the first thing I will push is to merge gnome-specific widgets into gtk+, so there are less number of libraries to link against :-) " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00013.html

24. DANIEL VEILLARD " I am French, long time Gnomer and Linux addict, maintainer of libxml, libxslt and rpmfind. I served on the Gnome Board for last year and I am used to non-profit organizations and the negotiation needed to reach consensus in a group. I will focus on the reuse of standards, internationalization and keeping trust relationship at an individual level. I think those are needed to keep hacking on Gnome fun and getting acceptance in new communities. Affiliation Red Hat. " Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00001.html

25. JEFF WAUGH " We need to improve the project's outreach, both within the Free Software community and outside it, through documentation, publicity, and making good information easy to get to. Some work on infrastructure can make other tasks and goals easier, such as contributing and releasing. We need more GNOME love and better cooperation. All of this, openly and transparently, without interrupting our awesome hacker's hacking time! I'm wacky enough to believe we can do it, too. :) " No affiliation. Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00016.html

Ballots will be sent out via e-mail to everyone who's registered to vote on Tuesday, November 13, 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 ASAP. 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 November 20.

Also, keep in mind that there is a 4-person maximum on the number of people affiliated with any one company that can be on the board: if more than 4 persons from one company get elected, only the top 4 vote getters will get on. You will be able to vote for up to 11 candidates of your choice, with no restrictions, except that you cannot vote more than once for the same candidate.

Additional election-related materials are available at http://foundation.gnome.org.