Candidacy: Srinivasa Ragavan

[Srinivasa Ragavan <sragavan novell com>]

Name : Srinivasa Ragavan (call me Srini)
Irc  : srag  (in GIMPNet/FreeNode)
mail : sragavan gnome org (or) sragavan novell com
Web  : http://blogs.gnome.org/sragavan 
Affiliation : Novell, Inc.

Short Summary:

I love GNOME, free software and the community. I care for it. I'm
contributing to GNOME for the last 6 years, by means of code, bugs,
patches and features. I want to contribute more in non-code terms being
in the board. I'm confident I can do it. Every GNOME board I have seen
is awesome, unique and ever-improving. I'm sure, I would add my best to
it. 

Me ?

I'm 28 years old, computer science engineering graduate from India. Out
of college, I joined Novell, and 8 years on, still there. First 2 years,
I was working on BIND and Apache projects. Since 2003, I'm with GNOME,
contributing to various GNOME projects and OpenOffice.org. Notably, I'm
the project maintainer for Evolution (and friends) for the last ~3
years. I'm the author of Anjal, the mailer for Netbooks. 


What have I done till now in GNOME?

I have been writing code for ~6 years. Mostly patches, bugs
enhancements. I'm maintain Evolution. I have contributed to create a
self-sustaining Evolution community. I have brought new module
maintainers in Evolution, who were active contributing. I have
streamlined patch reviews in Evolution, and enabled more contributions
to Evolution .Evolution adds to at least 50 new contributors every major
release. I have been the top patch reviewer in GNOME for the last two
years. I'm currently writing (Anjal) new mail client for low-power, low
memory devices and mobile devices. I manage an Open Source Internship
program in India (through Novell & GNOME Bangalore chapter), which
enable students to contribute to Open source projects in GNOME, Open
Office, LDTP and Mono. I still mentor few students in contributing to
GNOME and other open source projects. 


What will I do if I'm on the board?

 - The release team has done an amazing road map and schedule for
GNOME3. I would stand by and support release team when required and then
GNOME to have a successful in GNOME 3.0 release.
 - We have an amazing Desktop, great hackers,  a wonderful community and
users. We have good marketing as well. But I feel, there a lot of room
for improvement. I would give more focus on GNOME marketing.
 - I love GNOME, the community and the users. I'm would keep my ears
wide open and listen to everyone and be a people representative on the
board.
 - I would do my best for arranging hack fests, meetings and
conferences.
 - I was successful with the open source internship program that I
started in India. It helped in adding a few consistent contributors to
GNOME. But India has a lot more potential contributors to GNOME and free
software. Being part of the board, I would strive hard towards making
more GNOME contributors from India. 

When I first told my friends, some of them asked me, 'Do I have time?'.
Time is something that everyone lacks. I swear, I'll do better planning
and dedicate necessary time for the board activities.


If I win, this will be my first term for the GNOME board. Vote for me.

Thanks,
Srini.