Board Election 2007 Process

The OSGeo Board of Directors is required to have more members added, making room for at least half of them to be replaced or at least stand for re-election along with new candidates. See Proposed Board Election Procedure for detailed steps. This page is for showing progress and status. For current Board members see Board of Directors page.

There are 3 phases to this years Board of Directors election, see following sections for more details:

1. Turnover of existing board: selecting 5 members from the Board to stand for re-election or, at their discretion, to step down completely. This is to make spaces available for new or re-elected candidates. The resulting Board will still be made up of 9 members - 4 existing plus 5 elected this year.
2. Nominations: Charter Members can nominate other Charter Members to be part of the election.
3. Voting: Charter Members will vote, choosing from the final list of nominees.

Turnover

5 members of the Board were randomly chosen to step down from the board following the close of the new election, but with the option of standing for re-election. This process makes 5 spaces available on the Board of Directors - to be filled through an upcoming election (see next section).

Stepping Down

1. Gary Lang
2. Mark Lucas

Mark and Gary do not expect to have as much time as they would like to commit to their board positions. They have declined to stand for re-election, so that their seats on the board can be made available to other, new, directors who will have more time to commit.

Running for Re-election

1. Markus Neteler
2. Venkatesh Raghavan
3. Jo Walsh

Markus, Venka and Jo will all stand for re-election into their board positions.

Nominations (CURRENTLY OPEN)

The nomination period is now open, as described in the Proposed Board Election Procedure. Please review that page before nominating anyone.

• Existing Charter Members can now nominate other Charter Members for the Board of Director election.
• Nominees must be chosen from this list.
• Nominators must also be from that list.
• Nominations open today (11-July-07) and close at end of day-midnight UTC 19-July-07.
• Nominations must be sent to cro@osgeo.org - subject line: Board Nomination.
• You must supply a description/rationale for anyone you nominate - this will ensure that others are aware of their involvement/accomplishments and experience and can consider the same value you see in the individual. For example, list involvement so far in OSGeo, vision they have for promoting FOSS, management experience they would bring to the board, and other Positive Attributes.
• Nominees will be verified that they are willing to stand, Tyler will contact them if the nominator has not already done so. If you can verify with the candidate before sending in the nomination, it will help the process run faster.
• As nominees are confirmed, they will be added to this page, along with your rationale and the name of the nominators.
• After all nominees are confirmed, Tyler will notify Charter Members to start the voting.
• Voting is tentatively scheduled to start 23-July-07 and to run for 10 days.

Unconfirmed

• Rob Atkinson

Confirmed

• Venkatesh Raghavan

• Tyler Mitchell: Venka has served as a major international influence over OSGeo in its first year of formation. He has helped start several local chapters, has helped bring ideas for involving the larger community and is a committed supporter of OSS.

• Jo Walsh

• Tyler Mitchell: Jo has brought an unending flow of fresh ideas to the OSGeo Board while serving over the past year. She is 200% devoted to improve public access to information, data, tools, communities and more. Her knowledge of the higher level processes is deep, but so is her knowledge on technical matters. She is also well aware of the European issues around these ideas and helps to build bridges between people and communities.
• Jeroen Ticheler: Jo has an impressive track record when it comes to promoting access to public geodata, raising public awareness around policy development like the European INSPIRE and promoting the use of FOSS as a valid alternative to proprietary software. She's an amazing communicator & blogger with a broad vision that is an inspiration to many in the community. It would be great to see her on the board for another term.
• Lorenzo Becchi: I would like to underline her work over Public Geospatial Data, Metadata and the INSPIRE directive. These all are complex threads but her effort to make them "human readable" is really useful to our community.

• Markus Neteler

• Lorenzo Becchi: Markus is a very present person over many FOSS4G communities from OSGeo to Germany passing through Italy. He's one of the faces that OSGeo can proudly show everywhere. More from here: Markus is the leader of the GRASS GIS project, and has played a pivotal role in the revitalization of the project and it's community. Markus is also a founding member of OSGeo and has been active in building the broader FOSS4G community for many years. At the FOSS4G 2006 conference, Markus Neteler was honored with the Sol Katz GFOSS Award for 2006.
• Tyler Mitchell: Markus has a deep commitment to the FOSS model and has been a leading advocate in the international communities. His work, education and programming contributions give him a unique perspective on how FOSS can be applied and how OSGeo can help. I support his re-election to the board to continue contributing in these many ways.

• Robert (Bob) Bray

• Frank W: Bob brings a voice for two OSGeo projects, MapGuide OS and FDO, for which he leads the project steering committees. He also represents the the support of Autodesk, our earliest and most substantial corporate sponsor. But more importantly he is a voice for the *joy* of open source, and the transformative power it can have in a corporate, and previously proprietary environment. I would love to have his energy and intellect with us on the board.

• Michael Gerlek

• Frank W: Michael has shown passion for the OSGeo cause since our inception and has worked very hard in the past on VisCom activities - addressing issues from the esoteric (membership rules) to the concrete (OSGeo shirt guy). Based on his background, I think he can help us promote and position FOSS4G software for use in the pre-packaged commercial software world. But most importantly I think he has passion, and is prepared to commit the time to fulfill a role on the OSGeo board.

• Jeroen Ticheler

• Lorenzo Becchi: Jeroen is the leader of GeoNetwork project, a catalogue application that's member of OSGeo. Since long, Jeroen has been active in FOSS4G and he's a key person to support OSGeo projects inside United Nations (he's working at FAO) and other institutions such as OGC.
• Frank W: Jeroen Ticheler is leader of the UN FAO GeoNetwork project and has demonstrated great community leadership capabilities in building the GeoNetwork community. He also brings great contacts, and understanding of organizations at various government levels around the world building SDIs of various degrees of formality. This includes efforts in the developed and developing world. I think his perspective and energy would be a great addition to the board.

• V. Ravi Kumar

• Venkatesh Raghavan: Ravi is presently the Director for Centre for Geoinformation and Management Training Institute, Geological Survey of India, Hyderabad. Ravi is very strongly commited to Free and Open Source Geospatial technology and has been responsible inpromoting OSGeo through workshops, seminars, training program and curricula. He is a very active member of OSGeo India and chairs the OSGeo-India Events Committee.

• Paul Ramsey
  • Tyler Mitchell: Paul has been an avid supporter and contributor to open source for many years. His company, Refractions Research, has played a critical role in developing several FOSS technologies used worldwide, not the least of which is the PostGIS project. He regularly presents overviews of FOSS solutions at major conferences, helped started OSGeo as an initial Charter Member and he is sought after for his down-to-earth advice. He is an encouraging leader in the current FOSS4G planning team and brings real-world business experience, plus developer familiarity that is often hard to find in one person.
  • Landon Blake: Paul Ramsey is an important member of the open source Java GIS Community, of which his company Refractions Research is a key member. I have had the pleasure to interact with him on occasion as part of my work on OpenJUMP, and would fully support his nomination to the OSGeo Board of Directors.
• Gary Sherman
  • Tyler Mitchell: Gary has been active in open source software projects for many years and in various positions. As the father of Quantum GIS (QGIS) he watched a spare-time personal project move into the spotlight attracting more than a dozen committers. It is now being used as an increasingly important part of end-user toolsets. He has experience in many roles: programmer, web administration, project manager, community developer, financial manager, and more. He is chair of the QGIS Project Steering Committe and active in helping the community. I believe that his experience and his trusthworthy reputation would make him a good board member.

Declined

• Daniel Morissette - declined due to lack of time on his part
• Toru Mori - declined due to lack of time on his part
• Jan-Oliver - declined due to lack of time on his part
• Howard Butler - focused on other areas in OSGeo at present
• Rafael Sperb - hoping to be more involved in future first