Alan Cox goes for a seat on the GNOME board, sort of

– by Tina Gasperson –
November 8 is the deadline for announcing a candidacy for the GNOME foundation board of directors. The roll is filling up quickly, and even kernel hacker Alan Cox posted his intentions — of “remaining a nuisance,” that is.Cox said he was throwing his hat in the ring “to encourage other people to ensure I don’t get voted in.” He wrote that if voted in, he would continue to be a nuisance. “So don’t vote for me, stand as a candidate.” He also wanted to know “how come the gnome desktop isn’t fitting nicely into 64Mb when over 50%
of PC’s in the USA today have 64Mb?”

The election atmosphere is casual and self-deprecating. “I would like to publicly denounce … I mean announce…my candidacy to the GNOME Foundation Board,” wrote Glynn Foster, who also boasts of having an @goatsex.org email address.

Rhett Creighton, who could boast about his @mit.edu address but doesn’t, registered his candidacy with these comments: “I haven’t done doodly squat for GNOME. There is absolutely no reason to
vote for me. I ran last year and got the least number of votes (3,
including my own).

“I believe that free software is overrated. If elected, I will try to
adopt a for-profit software model to the GNOME foundation. Actually,
GNOME will stop making software altogether. Instead, it will make bowling
balls.”

Wrote the venerable George Lebl: “The GNOME world has been subjected to my crack since sometime
in ’97. At one point I have even been paid for my madness by
Eazel. By the time they realized their mistake of hiring me
it was too late.” He said if elected, he’ll press for world peace and a cure for cancer.

Maciej Stachowiak is not running for re-election, but was kind enough to proffer a voting list for others. “I would like to mention a few
of the current board members that I feel most deserve to be
re-elected, and a few non-members that I think deserve a seat. I don’t
know if the people I mention will choose to run, but I hope they do.”

Current board member Havoc Pennington was the only person who sounded really serious about getting elected. He was almost somber in comparison to others when announcing his candidacy. Pennington pointed out that things are going smoothly now and are expected to continue doing so. “The thing I
like best is the huge range of people working on things pretty
autonomously — we have the translation team, docs team, usability
team, release team, all of these building up their own communities and
getting stuff done.

“I think I only missed one or two board meetings this year, and
generally try to do a good job.”

All 11 spots on the GNOME foundation board are up for re-election. The election will be held by email from November 13 to 20. Only GNOME foundation members are eligible to vote. If you’d like to become a member, you must turn in an application by November 8. According to the Membership Policy, any contributor to GNOME is eligible for membership. Contributions may be code, documentation, translations, maintenance, or other “non-trivial activities.”