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 election 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-list/2004-November/msg00013.html
I am a long-time member of the GNOME community, and an employee of Red Hat, Inc. I have been active on the Board for the past three years. I also have previously been on the release team, and am currently on the sysadmin team. I am primarily interested in continuing to work with Tim and Jody to ensure that our finances remain in good shape. We've had a better year financially, this past year, and I expect that we'll be able to continue this trend. We have made great strides in our ability as a foundation to hold and fund conferences, and we should be able to do even more this year. I'd also like to make our budgeting more transparent and public.
2. Bryan Clark
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00011.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
3. Murray Cumming
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00007.html
I am a dedicated member of the release-team and maintainer of the C++ bindings. I believe in building and identifying consensus, in order to create the environment in which GNOME's talent can thrive productively. I would like the Board to continue its good work but be a little more organised.
4. Rodney Dawes
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00009.html
I agree with Tim. As far as contributions to GNOME go, I maintain intltool, gnome-icon-theme, evolution-webcal, and the background portion of control-center. I've also contributed code to most other GNOME modules as well.
5. Miguel de Icaza
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00005.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
6. Christian Schaller
Affiliation: Fluendo S.L.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00006.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
7. Jody Goldberg
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00020.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
8. Bill Haneman
Affiliation: Sun Microsystems
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00019.html
IMO Board issues for the next year will include leveraging grassroots GNOME support around the world, and facilitating use of the GNOME "brand" while defending GNOME and Free Software. Forging and strengthening relationships is important too. I work on GNOME software every day; as maintainer of multiple cvs modules, and as an architect of the GNOME Accessibility Project. "GNOME is for everybody!".
9. Dom Lachowicz
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00024.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
10. Michael Meeks
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00016.html
At last count, Gnome was suffering from a lack of clear, well articulated, technical leadership, with no mechanism for generating technical consensus (particularly where this requires compromise). This in general leads to directional atrophy, wasted effort, and violence towards domestic pets. The board shouldn't provide this leadership, but can encourage it. Furthermore it seems obvious that the Gnome environment should be further strengthened by compromise, alignment & code-sharing with other projects eg. Mozilla & OpenOffice.org.
11. Federico Mena-Quintero
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00010.html
My interest is in propagating the use of Gnome in Latin America: help local groups make the best use of Gnome and free software in general. I want to ensure that Gnome has a clear direction from the viewpoint of regional efforts: that it can be integrated into local GNU/Linux distributions easily, that it provides a good technology base for custom setups, that it is easy for developers to learn, and that it is adequately localized.
12. David Neary
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00008.html
Even though I'm probably an unknown to most of the GNOME developers, I have been around for quite a while, primarily in the GIMP project. Last year, I was involved in organising GUADEC, and also brought the GIMP under the GNOME Foundation umbrella, with help from Tim Ney and the current board. I'm more an organiser than a coder, and I actually like doing board-type activities. The board has a lot to offer to the community, especially in the realm of communication and organisation - being on the board doesn't mean running things, so much as letting other people know what needs running, and harnessing that enthusiasm.
13. Tim Ney
Affiliation: GNOME Foundation
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00013.html
I nominate myself for a seat on the 2005 GNOME Foundation Board of Directors: For the GNOME Foundation to fulfill its mission, it needs the combined efforts of hackers and non-hackers alike. One of my main contributions to GNOME has been to organize and raise funds for GUADEC, the Summit and now other regional events in Brazil and Spain. For GNOME to scale to the widest geography of development, recognition and use, we need to assemble more resources to help provide training accessible to all.
14. Anne Østergaard
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00003.html
I will work for explaining the values and goals of The GNOME Foundation more clearly to the general public in order to attract new and active members, and for GNOME website to be a natural place to find clear information about our cutting edge software and how to start up new initiatives locally.
15. Germán Poó-Caamaño
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00015.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
16. Leslie Proctor
Affiliation: None
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00001.html
I've been involved with GNOME since the beginning, doing marketing, organizing trade show presence, helping to organize GUADEC and other stuff like that. I'm an incumbent member of the board.
17. Owen Taylor
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00004.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
18. Daniel Veillard
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/membership-committee/2004-November/msg00011.html
I am French, long time Gnomer and Linux addict, maintainer of libxml, libxslt and rpmfind. I served on the Gnome Board for three years and I am used to non-profit organizations and the negociations needed to reach consensus in a group. I will focuse 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. Growing GNOME presence worldwide in mindshare, users and developpers is the next challenge of the Board.
19. Luis Villa
Affiliation: Novell, Inc.
Full statement at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00012.html
SUMMARY NEEDED
Ballots will be sent out via e-mail to everyone who's registered to vote on Friday, November 19th, 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 8th.
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.