Candidacy: Jeff Waugh

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

  Name: Jeff Waugh
  Mail: jdub gnome org / jdub perkypants org
  Nick: jdub
  Affl: None

Here's my foray into the jaws of democracy (again), or at least my
nomination as candidate for the GNOME Foundation Board elections.


The "Who Am I?" bit:

  - I am an Australian Free Software activist
  
    My passion for Free Software was borne from experience of and disgust
    for the information technology industry a few years ago. A friend put me
    onto some high quality software that I could read and learn from, and I
    subsequently found out about the community of hackers and contributors
    writing software for fun, education and each other's praise. It renewed
    by interest in computing, I got hooked, and it has changed my life. :-)

  - I am the GNOME Release Co-ordinator

    Over the past year, I have worked on GNOME release management, as one
    small part of the awesome GNOME Release Team. During this time, we have
    earned the trust of the GNOME developer community, madly hand-waved the
    GNOME 2.0 project back on track, and brought strong co-operation and
    "the love" back to the project after a short hiatus. It has required an
    interesting combination of skills, from cheer-leading and Maciej-style
    police brutality to subtle diplomacy and 'networking'.

  - I contribute to other GNOME activities

    Wanting to give back to the project that has given me so much enjoyment,
    I started working on documentation, advocacy (in the form of interviews
    and news stories) and usability. I then tumbled quickly into sysadmin,
    release management, webhackery and am now helping a bit with GUADEC 4
    planning. I'm also working very hard on the next iteration of the GNOME
    websites, and providing the GARNOME distribution for l33t testers.

  - I am involved in the greater Free Software community

    I've been serving as the President of the Sydney Linux User's Group this
    year, after two years on the committee, and was on the organising team
    of linux.conf.au 2001.

  - I am an independent voice

    Given that I meke out my existence as an independent tech. consultant -
    specialising in Free Software, of course - I'm currently wonderfully
    free of real or perceived bias towards contributing GNOME companies.


The "Why Should You Vote For Me?" bit:

  - I'm pretty passionate about this stuff, if you didn't grok that from
    above. ;-)

  - I would like to see GNOME's approach of personal trust and friendliness
    continue. This is a comfortable, fun and casual community - we should
    not endanger that approach.

  - I strongly support the companies involved in GNOME, and their excellent
    contributions to the project. I believe that we can and should encourage
    the growth of businesses around GNOME, whilst maintiaining a strong
    focus on the project itself, its Free Software ideal, and our commitment
    to those goals.

  - I will contine to work on making GNOME attractive to contributors,
    through infrastructural changes (website, accounts process, etc) to
    documentation and general information about "How GNOME Works". This is
    my most important personal goal for GNOME at this point.

  - I would like to ensure that we establish an active community marketing
    project, in a similar vein to OpenOffice.org's. It would be great for
    first-time contributors, and definitely a huge boost for GNOME.

  - I want the Foundation to continue to be as transparent as possible, as
    it represents the project and its contributors first and foremost. I
    would like to make sure that suggestions and queries sent to the board
    are answered promptly, and publically if appropriate.

  - My candidacy statement from last year is still quite relevant, apart
    from the 'lack of love' bits, because it's BACK IN FORCE!

    http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announce/2001-November/msg00016.html


Other comments:

  - I feel we need a strong continuity of members from each year's board,
    particularly the most active members. Certainly, the board will have a
    different role this year, but we need to grok past experiences so we
    don't make mistakes again and again.

  - I have wanted to establish support for my work on GNOME through the
    Foundation (as 'technical assistant' or somesuch) or via sponsorship for
    some time. If the opportunity arose, I believe that I could contribute
    an enormous amount more to GNOME than I already do, but I would not like
    to be part of the process that decided this due to the obvious conflict
    of interest. I feel that it's important to make this known up front, in
    the interests of transparency. :-)

  - I still do not say "mate".


Thanks,

- Jeff

-- 
     "Perdon; estoy buscando mis pantalones." - Luis Villa's Essential      
                                  Spanish