Candidates for the GNOME Foundation 2014 Elections

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.

Candidates for the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors

Tobias Mueller
Affiliation: SAP
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00001.html
I have served on the Board of the GNOME Foundation for two years now and as I enjoy my duties I would like to continue doing so. I promote Free Software and GNOME wherever I can. I am regularly speaking at conferences and making contact with new users, contributors, or other organisations that help us to advance GNOME, spread the word about Free Software, and ultimately make the world a better place. I am running for the Board because I think I can be an asset in making GNOME better. I think we need to restructure our Friends of GNOME programme to make it cost us much less time or upgrade our Bugzilla instance. If elected, I would try to steer resources towards those goals.

Oliver Propst
Affiliation: None
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00003.html
I want to announce my candidacy for the GNOME Board of Directors. I have contributing as part of the Engagement Team since 2010, recently I have been involved with the GUADEC 2015 Gothenburg bid and the Annual Report. I think that free software never have more important then now and if we as a community can get together and do the necessary work the greatest future of GNOME lay ahead of us. I have two years of experience of being on the non-for profit FSCONS board (FSCONS, the free software conference in Gothenburg that Karen keynoted last year). More info about me (including occupation) can be found here [1].

Jean-François Fortin Tam
Affiliation: None
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00004.html
I have been involved in various areas of GNOME since 2004 or so, including testing, triaging, marketing, mentoring, coding, public speaking and advocacy, UI/UX design, etc. I also graduated from business & management school, so I would like to put that background to good use. I'm keeping this description short & simple (as I suspect many of you will know me); you can learn more about me at http://jeff.ecchi.ca

Karen Sandler
Affiliation: Software Freedom Conservancy
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00005.html
As promised when I left the position of Executive Director, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for the Board of Directors. I think I can help bring continuity to the board (Stormy was incredibly helpful on the board when I started as ED). Also, as a lawyer I sometimes have an additionally useful perspective. I'm still doing volunteer work for GNOME both as pro bono counsel and as a volunteer on nonlegal matters for GNOME. I've been helping with fundraising, collecting on outstanding invoices and generally wherever I can.

Andrea Veri
Affiliation: None
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00006.html
I've been part of the Foundation since late 2009 participating and contributing in many GNOME teams and fields. While it's usually common among applicants during elections (them being either political or private for a certain foundation or association) to promise or propose what they plan to do (in case of them being elected) for the next term, I'd like to focus on my involvement on the GNOME Project and my past work on the Foundation instead. This to let everyone know how deeply I've been caring about GNOME and the awesome community behind it.

anish patil
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00007.html
This is the first time i have been running for any election (you can't win over your friends) Since last few years, i have been talking at various conferences making awareness about Free Software and GNOME, input methods and how one can make money from free software. The reason i would like to run for this election is because I think would be the right person to promote GNOME specially in Asian region. If I get elected,i would try to have more hackfests in Asia region and try to raise fund for GNOME.

Emily Gonyer
Affiliation: None
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00008.html
I'm interested in serving on GNOME's board of directors for the first time, in order to help steer GNOME in a more open and community led direction. It is my opinion that GNOME has strode too far towards a corporate-driven project and away from its community-led roots. As of now, GNOME is, in my opinion too beholden to a small handful of large corporations which forces the project to ignore large swaths of our users in preference to them. The end result being that GNOME has lost a tremendous portion of its respect and goodwill in the wider free software community. As a member of the GNOME board of directors I will actively work against this tide and towards the more open, community-driven project that GNOME once was and I hope will be again.

Marina Zhurakhinskaya
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00009.html
I'm running for a second term on the board to lend my organizing skills and my interest in reaching out to people to the Foundation and ensure its growth. We have an amazing community and high quality technology. My interests as a board member are to enable face-to-face work, development in the areas of interest to donors and advisory board members, and better external visibility of GNOME. Most recently, I've been helping organize sponsorship materials and process for GNOME.Asia and GUADEC, and contacting prospective sponsors.

Ekaterina Gerasimova
Affiliation: None
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00010.html
I am currently working towards the Foundation being able to be more transparent again with its finances, as it used to be. This will help our sponsors and supporters see how we are using their donations to further the goals of GNOME and will help the membership, especially the volunteers, to keep contributing to the project. The board will also need to keep making challenging decisions for the benefit of the Foundation, to make sure that our spending is in areas that are of most importance. I feel that I have done this well over the last year and would like to be able to keep doing it. In the upcoming year, I want to be able to offer our sponsors better value for their financial support.

Sriram Ramkrishna
Affiliation: Intel
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00011.html
I'm running for a second term as Director of the GNOME Foundation. I plan on continuing my efforts in outreach both inside of GNOME Foundation and to external. There is still many things to do in order to make our platform and desktop attractive to everyone and I wish to continue talking about our story. I can continue to be effective in leveraging what I've learned as Director as well as the extensive set of contacts I have as part of my day job and the open source project I am involved there as well.
David King
Affiliation: Red Hat
Full statement at https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2014-May/msg00012.html
My goal on the board is to be an effective director. As a visible portion of the Foundation's role is providing financial support to its members, I think that lots more work will be needed by the board to ensure that GNOME is financially secure, and will remain so in the future. I think that my experience on the travel committee will be helpful in making challenging decisions regarding finances.

Additional Elections-related Information

Note, that according to the Bylaws Article VIII Section 2d 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.

If you have any futher question, please consult the Rules for this election or write to GitLab.