Re: Candidacy Nomination - John Heard

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

I'd like to say a few words in favor of John. Although the start of
GNOME's relationship with Sun has been rocky at times, John has done
much to help smooth that path.

John is the chosen representative of all the hackers we have seen
trickling into many of the GNOME projects, including, to my knowledge,
Nautilus, Evolution, GConf, Bonobo and others. He also represents the
many hackers who just released the Star Office code at OpenOffice.org,
making a Gnome contribution of unprecedented code size. This is a
massive constituency both in people and code size, and smoothly
integrating both the people and the code will have a large impact in
GNOME's future.

I have also met John in person, and he seems bright, reasonable, and
very sharp on both technical and political issues.

Please consider giving him your vote.

 - Maciej

John Heard <john heard Eng Sun COM> writes:

> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I would like to put myself forward as a nominee for the GNOME Foundation
> board of directors. Being responsible for much of what Sun is doing with
> GNOME, I consider that I can bring a variety of contributions to the
> GNOME Foundation and the GNOME Project as a whole.
> 
> Thanks
> John   
> 
> Introduction
> ------------
> 
> Name: John Heard
> Email: jheard eng sun com
> Employer: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Menlo Park, USA
> 
> I am the manager of architecture and strategy for the group in Sun which
> does much of the core client side software. These areas include the
> Solaris desktop environment, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice,
> Mozilla/Netscape.
> 
> I am responsible for managing the Sun GNOME Project work and was
> responsible for effecting the decision by Sun to join the GNOME Project
> and adopt it as the future User Environment of the Solaris operating
> system. 
> 
> My responsibility also includes managing the strategies for the
> OpenOffice.org initiative. This included getting the Sun management to
> choose the GNU Public Licenses as the mechanism by which the technology
> would be released as open source (ie. compatibility with the GNOME
> Project). I am driving the migration of the OpenOffice.org technology to
> become Bonobo and GTK+ based within Sun and thus core pieces of a
> comprehensive GNOME platform for everyone.
> 
> Recently, I have been driving the work towards setting up a GNOME
> project to add accessibility capability into GNOME so that GNOME will
> become the platform of choice for people with disabilities and also for
> future generation GNOME devices which do not have traditional desktop
> interaction mechanisms (ie. keyboard/mouse/screen).
> 
> Have been working with several members(Miguel, Nat, Bart, etc.) of the
> GNOME community to help out in the establishment of the GNOME
> Foundation.
> 
> History
> -------
> 
> Have been with Sun Microsystems for over 14 years as an engineer and
> manager in various roles and in various countries. I joined Sun because
> it did(and still does) great things for open systems and continues to
> have many really great people who really believe in open systems. It
> also develops good products that are based upon these tenets. 
> 
> I have worked on a wide variety of areas, including porting work on
> System 7 to a PDP-11/23(trust me, I was very young then). Building
> uni-processor and multiprocessor hardware systems and associated OS work
> starting with the Z80, then NS32032, and on with the Motorola 68k. I
> have also worked on the Human Genome project by porting a suite of
> genome applications to unix from VAX/VMS. I was also the lead for
> several large Java projects - one delivering a commercial PPV video
> server system for a cable and telco operator in New Zealand.
> 
> I was the co-founder and co-architect of a broadband telco company in my
> home country, New Zealand. (http://www.citylink.co.nz), and a
> co-founding trustee for the 20/20 Communications Trust
> (http://www.2020.org.nz) which has successfully been equiping schools
> with free internet access.
> 
> I studied Computer Science and Physics to post graduate levels at Otago
> University, New Zealand.
> 
> 
> Summary
> -------
> 
> Name: John Heard
> Email: jheard eng sun com
> Employer: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Menlo Park, USA
> 
> + Initiated and manage the Sun GNOME Project
> 
> + Initiated and manage the OpenOffice.org initiative and making it a
> fully integrated part of the GNOME Office suite
> 
> + Working to establish the GNOME Accessibility project
> 
> + Participant in the establishment of the GNOME Foundation on behalf of
> the Sun GNOME team, working closely with quite a few GNOME members.
> 
> + A 14+ year open systems "bigot" in Sun (with T-shirts to prove it :-))
> 
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