Re: Candidacy (Bart Decrem) (was: Re: Candidacy (Michael Meeks))

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

On 13 Oct 2000, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> There has been one unmistakable exception to this trend, and that is
> Bart Decrem. Remember the level of activity on this list while Bart
> was on vacation? Pretty much zero. And believe me, you don't even want
> to know how the foundation would be turning out if it were left up to
> just us hackers and the corporate lawyers to work out.

I completely agree with Maciej's statements above.  Bart has done for the
GNOME Foundation what no other person in the GNOME community could have
done, or would have done.

I'd also like to share some of my impressions of Bart because he has
been doing most of his work behind the scenes, and I think many GNOME
contributors have not had the pleasure of working with him yet.

Every time I have worked with Bart I was amazed at how organized
and efficient he is.  The first time I really saw him in action was during
a "guest appearance" of his at the beginning of a steering committee
meeting where he informed us of all the work he was doing with the GNOME
Foundation.  I think he covered more ground and we made more decisions in
the 15 minutes he was present than we normally do in several meetings
combined.  He was extremely organized, focussed, and goal-oriented.  Bart
also completely understands the free software ideology and how the GNOME
community thinks, which means that there is no time wasted on ideas which
won't fly.

During my subsequent interactions with him (helping him coordinate the
membership and elections for the Foundation) he has consistantly proven
himself to be very efficient, pleasant to work with, and very good at
finding solutions to problems which everybody can agree on.  I feel Bart
is quite exceptional in this regard within the GNOME community, and I
think the GNOME Foundation would suffer a substantial loss without him.

I'd like to encourage everybody to give careful consideration to voting
Bart onto the GF board of directors.  (ie. vote for Bart!)

Dan