[Candidacy] Thomas Thurman

[Baris Cicek <baris teamforce name tr>]

Announcement of Thomas Thurman, which is sent to elections gnome org 
(#4039)

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Name: Thomas Thurman
Mail: tthurman gnome org
Nick: marnanel
Affl: Devon IT, King of Prussia, PA, US
Blog: http://marnanel.livejournal.com
Biog: http://marnanel.org
	
75-word summary:

I believe in freedom and respect, and that is why I use, create, and
maintain free software; the last year as a GNOME developer has been
full of new challenges for me, and I wish I had thought to help
sooner. I want to find ways to help others find that path. After much
thought over whether I should stand, I decided I could, and that the
question of "should" was better left to you.

The rest:

I am passionate about freedom, and I am passionate about respect, and
I believe these are two sides of the same coin. I have been using free
software near-exclusively for around ten years, but I very much regret
not having joined a free software project as large as GNOME sooner
than I did. I want to help people become users of free software
because it contributes to their autonomy. I want to help users become
developers of free software because it contributes further to their
autonomy. This is about freedom, and it is about respect.

I have thought long and hard over whether to stand. I am acutely aware
of how easily time can be squeezed away in volunteer work, and I know
Metacity and FUSA can always use more. (Many of you know that I've
also lost time in the last year to health issues, which have in the
last few months responded well to treatment.) Much of the reason I am
teaching my daughter to program-- and for many years when I lived in
the UK I worked as a leader on a summer camp doing the same-- is the
one I gave above, that a person is freer when they can maintain their
own software, and that they become a more productive member of
society; I want to encourage all our users to try to improve their
software, to see that "free" doesn't mean "for nothing", to be more
than just consumers. The Gnome Love programme is an inspiration and a
challenge, and the only way we will grow is if people see our work as
more than just a way of saving themselves a few quid. However you
vote, let's rise to that challenge.

As to who I am:

Along with Elijah and Havoc, I maintain Metacity; I also maintain FUSA
(the user switcher applet), but most of my efforts are directed
towards Metacity at present. I also try to help out in small ways with
internationalisation (I studied computational linguistics in grad
school, for a while) in Britsh English and Welsh. I am a British
citizen sharing a rather geeky house in the Philadelphia suburbs with
two other grown-ups and one child. I have been fascinated with
programming since I was seven, and been paid for doing it for about
the last ten years. You can find a slightly out-of-date resume at
<http://marnanel.org/resume>. If you want to know anything else, ask
here, or come and find me on IRC.