2026 Board Endorsements

Community Elections and Referendums
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I seconded quite a few candidacies this election season. Because a number of people have asked for it, I am submitting my recommended voting block:

  1. Allan Day - Allan’s hard work, clarity, and leadership skills are on clear display on his blog. I want to highlight two other aspects of Allan’s directorship. First, his integrity: I have never once questioned Allan’s ethics or his dedication to GNOME. Second, his unflinching optimism: from the outside, Allan’s contributions may seem effortless. They are not. But regardless of the difficulty, he always sees the sunrise on the horizon. Allan and I disagree on many things but his Presidency has precisely what the GNOME Foundation needs right now: vision.

  2. Deepa Venkatraman - Deepa has perhaps the highest integrity of anyone I have ever worked with. Her interest in GNOME goes beyond Free Software – she’s been lecturing me on privacy and escaping walled gardens for over a decade. The Fellowship could not have happened without her steady hand on the GNOME Foundation’s finances as Treasurer. I encourage you to re-read her candidacy carefully. She’s not as loud of some of us, so you can also see her Treasurer announcement if you’d like to revisit her credentials.

  3. Julian Sparber - Julian has been a cornerstone of the Foundation’s improvements during his time as a director. Like Allan and Deepa, he is a high-integrity person. He raised #endof10 to the board’s attention. He has positive contributions to make in nearly every discussion. He served the Executive Committee selflessly. He was an excellent Secretary. (In English! Probably the most annoying language he knows!) Most importantly, Julian carries himself with a warmth and consideration for others. Board work can be a challenge for a team of volunteers and it’s great to have someone like Julian in the room, sanding off the rough edges.

  4. Adrian Vovk - Working with Adrian is a reward. I met him in New York for the UN Open Source Week last year and he spent all his time networking, bridging to FreeDesktop.org, and discussing GNOME in detail with anyone who would listen. He’s an active community member and, as far as I can tell, lives and breathes GNOME. He’s had a lot of good ideas for the GNOME Foundation over the past year, and I look forward to watching his dreams get crushed as he learns to file 990s or whatever. :wink: Jokes aside, Adrian will absolutely be a force for good on the Foundation board.

Finally, I would like to endorse the candidates I have not worked with directly but I believe would each make strong directors, in their own way:

  • Guillaume Bernard - I do not know Guillaume personally, but I was instantly sold by his comment regarding CoC Reform. tl;dr - transparency and independent oversight. Excellent. I can’t wait to hear more!
  • Aaditya Singh - Although he’s been very quiet this election cycle, perhaps some of the discussions scared him off? :wink: I have enjoyed all my interactions with Aaditya and I believe very strongly in his campaign and the mission behind it.
  • Sri Ramkrishna - I believe Sri would make an excellent director, as a highly involved community member. Thank you for answering my questions regarding staffing and fundraising, Sri!

Thank you to all the candidates running in this election. And special thanks to @averi for running these elections for us every year. There would be no GNOME Foundation without you.

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Thank you for endorsing me along with other amazing candidates. You have been the biggest motivator for me to start contributing to multiple areas of the foundation.

This isn’t the case, haha :grin:. Last year’s Aaditya would have jumped at answering all the questions to the BOD candidates. But this year, things are different.

I will be fast to answer the questions that seem to primarily target my focused topics, which I have discussed in candidacy, or the ones in which I particularly feel I have more to say and that I have been more involved in.

But for the other important topics on which fellow candidates have more focus, I am trying to be an active listener/reader to the answers of fellow candidates, who think the questions best suits thier expertise to answer. I surely will add my views to it sooner or later.

I am not thinking of answering similar things that have already been mentioned in previous answers to be seen as an active participant in the discussion, haha, but trying to add more value if I can bring any different views and additional importance.

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