Board Member Nominations 2010

The following nominations have been received for the OSGeo Board in 2010 through the Election 2010 process. The end of Thursday, August 12th 2010 is the latest that new nominations, sent to cro@osgeo.org and the discuss list, will be accepted.

This list is presented in the order nominations were received.

Incumbent board members are marked with an asterisk (*).

Candidate statements, if they have been provided, are indented and provided immediately after the candidate name.

Arnulf Christl*

I would like to suggest the nomination of Arnulf for the OSGeo Board Election 2010 again. He did a good job the last years, so it would be nice to have him in the Board again.

He is active in the Open Source community for many years. Very early he discovered the sense of open standards and promoted the OGC and the standards.

He is active world wide - doing lots of presentations, trainings, articles, consulting and has the ability to inspire people for open source. With his company he set up lots of solutions based on open source.

He also is active in the OSGeo as president, in the OGC, in the FOSSGIS e.V. which is the german speaking local chapter of the OSGeo and in the Mapbender project.

He has a lot of energy to push things forward, to motivate and encourage people and he has a lot of ideas. He walks around with an open mind and is open when he steps up to other people.

He is dedicated for the idea of open source and puts a lot of his energy and time in this idea.

From: Astrid Emde

A little belated note from Arnulf (who was away for three weeks): If selected, I would be pleased to serve on the OSGeo board for another two years. I believe I can offer continuity in the operation of OSGeo due to my involvement at the board, and others levels from the launch of the foundation. (This is a verbatim copy of Frank's nomination acceptance. I can only add that I would also be prepared to continue as president of the foundation if that is commonly supported).

From: Arnulf Christl

Frank Warmerdam*

I would like to nominate Frank Warmerdam for re-election in the 2010 OSGeo Board Election.

Frank doesn't need to be introduced, he has been recognized as a leader in the Open Source Geospatial field for several years before the OSGeo Foundation was created, and has been one of the key people who made the launch and operation of the Foundation possible in its early days.

Frank has served on the OSGeo board since the creation of the Foundation and plays a key role in many (all?) of its committees. It makes no doubt that he is committed to OSGeo's mission and that he can continue to make significant contributions as an OSGeo board member.

From: Daniel Morissette

If selected, I would be pleased to serve on the OSGeo board for another two years. I believe I can offer continuity in the operation of OSGeo due to my involvement at the board, and others levels from the launch of the foundation.

From: Frank Warmerdam

Venkatesh Raghavan

I would like to nominate Venkatesh Raghavan for his work in the OSGeo fields, making event in Japan, making OSGeo Members able to visit Japan with him and go to the Japanese event (FOSS4G Japan).

Venkatesh makes lot of training session all over Asia to present and promote lot of OSGeo projects. He makes some charter member able to do the training in Asia also or other events to promote OSGeo projects. He came to all the FOSS4G and help in finding the name of this event. He also promote OSGeo projects in many papers he wrote or some of his students wrote, write or will write.

From: Gérald Fenoy

Venkatesh is the soul behind many an Asian FOSS4G endeavors. A very friendly guy who can take OSGeo initiatives far and wide. He will make a very valuable member of the OSGeo board.

V.Ravi Kumar

Thanks to Gerald for nominating me and for Ravi for his kind words. I have been involved with OSGeo since its inception in 2006 and served the OSGeo board in 2006. I have also been involved in organizing FOSS/GRASS Users Conference in Bangkok in 2004 which, I believe, led to the birth of the present FOSS4G conferences. I have been active with promoting FOSS4G in south east Asia and also helping some of the local chapters in Asia to get started.

If elected, I would like to pursue issues such as a) curriculum development b)finding possible ways of getting some sort certification for users and trainers c) pursue tie-ups with institutions OSGeo based educational program b) finding ways to make some of the OSGeo technologies more "User-friendly" along with being "developer-friendly" (as they are presently are).

From: Venkatesh Raghavan

Tim Schaub

I would like to nominate Tim Schaub for the OSGeo Board.

Tim has shown strong leadership in both the OpenLayers and the GeoExt community. He has got excellent technical skills, but above all he also has excellent communication skills. Normally this is a rare combination to find.

Tim is part of both the OpenLayers as well as the GeoExt Project Steering Committee (PSC), for the OpenLayers PSC he is the chair.

Tim is working for OpenGeo, a company which has changed open source GIS for sure in the last few years, and continues to do so more and more, with adding great support packages and productizing a stack of excellent software components.

I believe Tim would be a very valuable addition to the OSGeo board. Thanks in advance.

From: Bart van den Eijnden

I was introduced to what became the OSGeo community when I attended the OSG'05 conference in Minneapolis. Since then, I have become involved in a number of client side projects - including KaMap, OpenLayers, and GeoExt. I've enjoyed speaking and presenting workshops on OSGeo related projects around the world. Throughout this time I have been committed to promoting the use and collaborative development of open source mapping software.

I've watched OSGeo gain in maturity, stability, and popularity since its inception. If elected to the board, I would bring a fresh perspective and enthusiasm for spreading the OSGeo message. I appreciate the nomination and the kind words from Bart. Thanks for your consideration.

From: Tim Schaub

Daniel Morissette

I am proud to nominate Daniel Morissette for the OSGeo Board election 2010.

Daniel is one of the early pioneers in the geospatial free and open source domain. He has been involved in the OSGeo Foundation since its inception. He is one of the main contributors of the MapServer project (for that he is often called the "Mother" of MapServer ;-) ) and he is a member of the GDAL/OGR Project Steering Committee (PSC). Due to his significant contribution to the advancement of open source ideals in the geospatial realm, he was awarded the Sol Katz Award in 2009. Daniel is also very active at a more local level. He is one of the co-founding members of the OSGeo Quebec local chapter and has recently chaired the organisation committee of the first and successful edition of the Rendez-vous OSGeo-Quebec (see http://rendez-vous-osgeo-qc.org/2010/). His addition to the board could thus be very valuable as he knows very well how local chapters work, the problems local users are facing in the adoption of geospatial open source technologies (including the cultural, linguistic and local peculiarities) and how local chapters can contribute to the achievement of the OSGeo Foundation mission.

Daniel is also one of the most patient people I know. He is always open to new ideas or points of view, but he also knows how to federate energies to carry out ambitious and difficult project. It is an actual pleasure to work with him. It is a man of passion and he knows how to share his passion of geospatial open source technologies with everyone.

It makes no doubt to me that he is committed to OSGeo's mission and he would be a very valuable addition to the OSGeo board.

From: Theirry Badard

I have been involved in OSGeo software projects and committees and following the activities of the board since the creation of the Foundation, so if I am elected I would be glad to join and serve the board in a spirit of continuity in the day to day running of the Foundation.

One aspect that I would bring to the board is the perspective of the local chapters and their communities given my experience co-founding and running the Quebec local chapter and also participating in the Francophone local chapter. There is lots of energy and momentum building up in those local communities, but yet OSGeo (the Foundation) is perceived by members of those communities as an anonymous body and they do not feel legitimized to participate and contribute at the Foundation level. It took me a little while to figure that out, but having been active at both the local and the global level in the last couple of years, I am starting to understand what some the blockers are. In addition to spreading the OSGeo message locally, I believe the role of local chapters is very important to help break those barriers and bring in more contributors into the Foundation, its projects and its committees... helping with the sustainability of the Foundation in the long run.

Thank you for considering my nomination (and to Thierry for submitting my name).

From: Daniel Morissette

Paolo Cavallini

It is an honour for me to be nominated. What I can bring to OSGeo if elected:

• the experience of building up a large and successful community in Italy, and giving some help to the Portuguese community
• a long standing, direct involvement in QuantumGIS and GRASS communities and development, with minor input in several other projects.

What I would like for OSGeo:

• more development, by strengthening the IT infrastructure, attracting additional projects, and sharing more resources across projects
• more marketing, promoting free geographic software through the presence in media and conferences
• closer relationships with all local chapters.

Further details about me at: http://www.faunalia.it/pc and http://www.faunalia.it/en/pc

From: Paolo Cavallini

I would like to nominate Paolo Cavallini, for his role in developing OSGeo Italy, and in developing and promoting QGIS.

From: Duarte Carreira