Election 2017

In April 2017 we are running the ninth annual vote for a Fellowship representative to represent the community and the FSFE's Fellowship in the FSFE's general assembly. The General Assembly acts as a board of the FSFE and serves the Council with advisory.

• Candidate's self-nominations: January 10, 2017 - February 10, 2017
• Election campaign period: February 10, 2017 - April 03, 2017
• Election period: April 04, 2016 - April 17, 2016

In accordance with FSFE's constitution, two seats in the General Assembly are reserved for the Fellowship representatives. The winner of this election will be a Fellowship representative inside FSFE's General Assembly for a period of two years. The elected person shall represent FSFE's community and have an influence inside FSFE's highest decision level. A Fellowship representatives is a full member of the General Assembly, and have all the rights and obligations of other members. This election will replace Nicolas Dietrich's position as his two year period is ending.

The election is organised by Erik Albers in his role as the Fellowship coordinator.

Most important information in a nutshell:

• Who can vote? All orderly Fellows who regularly pay their yearly or monthly Fellowship contribution (reference date is January 15, 2017)

• Who can be elected? To be a candidate, you need to have been an active Fellow for at least a year before the election (so April 4th, 2016). This helps to make sure that the people elected into the GA are familiar with the organisation and its work.

• Election Platform: All candidates should promote their candidature via the FSFE wiki and other media platforms if they like.

• Voting System: For the voting process we will use the Schulze method, a popular voting system used by Debian, Wikimedia and others. It is a well tested method and has proven to be resistant to voting anomalies.

More information on the voting procedure can be found in FSFE`s constitution

For any further questions contact contact@fsfe.org

Candidates 2017

Candidates are ordered in aphabetical order of their first names:

Carsten Agger

Candidacy

My special interest with regard to free software is the use of free software to empower local communities through DIY networking, multimedia production, chat/video conferencing, and so on. I'm against hacker elitism and believe working with free software infrastructure, the GNU/Linux command line, etc., is a craft that everyone could and should learn. Professionally, and on a different note, I am also very interested in the viability of companies committed to only delivering software to their clients under a free license. If elected to the GA, I'd like to focus on these main issues:

• How do we create software infrastructures to connect and empower communities from the bottom up, and how do reach out to non-technical people so they can work on these infrastructures themselves?
• What can be done to make it easier for companies committed to selling free software only to operate?

About me

I am a software developer, writer and political activist. I'm an FSFE Fellow since 2011.

My free software adventure started in 2005 when I discovered the free software philosophy and started using GNU/Linux exclusively, at home and eventually at work. After that, I spent several years advocating free software and Ubuntu on my Danish-language blog. In 2009, I co-founded the local Ubuntu group in Aarhus, Denmark, which has now spread to the smaller towns of Hinnerup and Randers.

In 2012, I founded the FSFE Fellowship group in Aarhus, whose last effort was helping out with the 2015 LibreOffice conference.

I work for the Danish (free license-only) software company Magenta and volunteer for the Brasilian Baobáxia project, which is an important inspiration for my thoughts on local communities and free software.

You can read more about my free software activism on my FSFE blog.

Daniel Pocock

Candidacy

FSFE plays a significant leadership role in the free software community and society in general. Effective leadership comes from action. As the fellowship representative, I would continue to do many of the things I have already been doing for some time: public speaking, writing and blogging, mentoring and contributing to free software projects. If you follow my blog you may already have seen examples of all these activities.

About

Pocock graduated B.CompSc from The University of Melbourne in 2002. He has had an interest in computing and technology since an early age, beginning assembly language programming in primary school and passing the full theory exam for an amateur radio license at 14. Pocock is most widely known as a Debian Developer but is also a contributor to F-droid, Fedora, Ubuntu and OpenCSW distributions and an active upstream developer in numerous projects, including several where he is project leader or release manager. He has a particular interest in real-time communications and financial software. Pocock's professional career spans a wide range of firms in financial services, software development, Internet services and telecommunications in the UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Singapore and Australia. He is an Irish Australian with a basic knowledge of several European languages, including French, German and Spanish.

Florian Snow

Candidacy

I think that as a Fellowship representative, I can contribute to and shape the future of the FSFE even better. I have been very active within the FSFE already, but there are some parts that feel cut off from volunteers. There has been some criticism about transparency of the General Assembly and I would like to work with the other members on improving transparency to a level that most people find satisfactory. I think more transparency can be achieved by asking for feedback from volunteers and reporting back to them. That way, I hope to establish a two-way communication channel between the General Assembly and interested volunteers. In that process, I would also like to define the relationship between the core organs of the FSFE and the wider community more clearly.

Generally, I am pretty good at communicating with others, I get along well with almost anyone, I am patient, and I can work constructively, so I think I have a realistic chance of achieving my goals if I get elected.

I am very excited to run together with so many other candidates, many of which I admire for their Free Software work. I am happy that this means voters will have an actual choice between different suitable candidates.

About me

I work as a software developer and during my studies to become a teacher, I learned a lot about sociology, civics, and philosophy. That means I find myself at an interesting intersection of technology and philosophy, a skill set that can be immensely useful in the Free Software world.

I have been involved with Free Software since around 1999, even if I didn't know back then what Free Software was. Since then, I have continuously learned about Free Software and I am dedicated to software freedom for everyone. For a more detailed overview of my Free Software history, have a look at my wiki page.

Joe Awni

Are you joe Awni? Please tell us something about you.

Maurice Verheesen

Are you Maurice Verheesen? Please tell us something about you.

Mia Eley

Are you Mia Eley? Please tell us something about you.

Patrick Moelands

Candidacy

For several years I am Fellow and I would like to do more. That is why I would like to run for a seat as Fellowship representative. From the day that I discovered GNU/Linux, I became a firm believer of Free/Libre Open Source Software. Everybody should have a choice to which operating system or software they want to use instead of being forced to use only proprietary software.

I prefer direct communication with a positive approach and will always try to find a constructive solution for challenges I come across. I try to be positve and polite towards others. It is my believe we should work together to shape the future of free software because together we can make a difference. I believe there is a reason why there is no "I" in FSFE.

Having several candidates for this election is awesome. Because like the many colourful distro's we have, this means that people can really make a choice to their liking.

If I would be elected for the seat in the GA, I want to represent the users. The common man or woman who does not know what Free Software is. The ordinary person I speak who says "Open Source?", the person who thinks they have no choice. That the proprietary operating system on their computer is not all there is. That they do have a choice.

About me

I work as a QA/QC Manager and work with quality systems, standards and analyse processes. Because of my work, I am used to analyse and discuss with others (mind you, a constructive discussion should be something useful instead turning into a bickering). In 2003 moved from proprietary software to GNU/Linux and still use it with much pleasure. I have never regretted it. I have been involved in several Open Source project over the years.

More details about myself and how to contact me can be found on my wiki page.

Thomas Kandler

Are you Thomas Kandler? Please tell us something about you.

Hustings

Hustings will be held on March 31, 5:30 PM UTC to 7:30 PM UTC, in #fsfe at <irc.freenode.net>. This is the opportunity for the candidates to present themselves and for the community to quiz the candidates on their views. During the hustings, the channel will be moderated. Our Vice President Heiki Lõhmus will be accepting requests to question the candidates via private messages and voicing (and devoicing) the participants as necessary. The candidates will be asked for opening and concluding remarks at the beginning and in the end; the time between is reserved for questions from the community. The hustings will be logged and the logs will be made public for the benefit of Fellows unable to participate.

Connecting

Please see the instructions for connecting to freenode if you are new to IRC. Once connected to the network, type '/join #fsfe' (omit the quotation marks) and press enter to join our channel. If you wish to ask a question during the hustings, type '/msg Repentinus I want to ask a question' and press enter. You can vary the message from the third word (I) onwards. If you tune in on time, the procedure will also be explained at the beginning of the hustings.