Board of Directors Elections 2021 - Candidacy - Alberto Ruiz

[Alberto Ruiz <aruiz gnome org>]

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to announce my candidacy for the board of directors.

This is a decision I've been seriously thinking about since 2017 but however becoming a dad, switching jobs and moving cities has gotten in the way.

Why do I want to run?

Mostly out of sense of duty. I think that while being part of the board may not the most rewarding thing to do at GNOME  it is an essential function to enable the work of others. I think it is long overdue for me to pick up the torch and give it a go.

What would be my focus?

The short answer is, wherever I am most useful.

To be more concrete, here are some of the things I care about:
I worry a lot about the sustainability of GNOME as a project, I want to make sure our stack is positioned to attract more contributors both corporate and individual. I want our community to be a welcoming place to everyone so that we keep being excelent to one another. I want our events to have the biggest impact in terms of catalysing the efforts of the developers and attracting new talent.

I also want the foundation to be as transparent as possible and ensure that foundation members and the community at large are aware of the impact our staff is having.

Who are you anyway?

I've been a GNOME contributor ever since 2004, I started focusing on Python GTK bindings and Windows support and then started having impact in other areas. I have never been a rockstar hacker so my code contributions are modest, but I have participated in many initiatives within GNOME such as organizing the first Desktop Summit, countless hackfests, GUADEC in Manchester. For a long time I was the main Planet GNOME editor and I also started our journey towards GitLab (although Carlos Soriano and Andrea Veri deserve praise for most of the heavy lifting) a few years after I built the GitHub mirror and noticed all the casual contributions that started to happen there.

I've worked at Sun, Codethink, Canonical, AWS and Red Hat, and most of my jobs have been tightly tied to my experience and impact within GNOME, something for which I am forever grateful and for which I try to give back to the community in every possible way.

Affiliation:

I currently work for Red Hat

Thank you and happy hacking.

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Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz