Candidacy: Behdad Esfahbod

Name: Behdad Esfahbod
Email: behdad gnome org
Affiliation: Red Hat, Inc.


Summary:

I run for the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, because I care about
GNOME and I think the Board is very important.  I contribute to GNOME on
a daily basis, and the board is yet another area of the project I want
to challenge myself with.


Why:

GNOME is People.  So is the Board too.  I look at the board as a group
of trusted people caring about GNOME, elected to make sure the
Foundation, and GNOME consequently, performs as good as it can.  Most of
us prefer to be hacking instead.  I would have been happily watching the
elections if the current Board members were mostly running again.  But
seeing many "pass it on", I feel like I should offer my share.

The current board has done a marvelous job so far, and a lot of their
work is still going on.  As a board member I like to see we get the
revamped website online, and the online store become a reality.  I also
want to see the Foundation have better writers, possibly funded by the
foundation.  I want to help better documenting board's events and
procedures, and make sure incoming board email is processed as fast as
possible.  I like to help make a broader and more successful Summer of
Code experience next year (I will do regardless).  Last but not least, I
want to note that in light of the the powerful Ultra-20 machine I was
given by the board recently (thanks to Sun), I will be joining the
release-team if I'm not elected to serve on the board.


GNOME Background:

I've been around for a few years, but got seriously involved since last
summer.  I do a lot of coding and maintenance (although I like to do
more!).  I maintain Pango, vte, and gucharmap, co-maintain cairo, and
hack around glib and gtk+.

I also joined the Accounts Team this past January and helped keeping the
account request queue short for a couple of months.  I still do accounts
work from time to time, mostly when someone needs help on IRC.

During the summer, I helped the board manage, what I call, a successful
Google Summer of Code presence of GNOME.  I also mentored a SoC and a
Women Summer Outreach Program student.  Both finished their project
successfully.

I was in GUADEC 2006, running a couple of sessions, and Boston Summit
2006, coordinating the very successful Text Layout Summit.  I was a
candidate last year.  I have never been on the Board before.


behdad