A series of e-mails from Luke Faraone reminded me that the 2011 Sugar Labs Oversight Board Elections are coming closer. Just in case you're wondering what the role of the Oversight Board is please take a look at the corresponding page on the Sugar Labs Web site where you can find its mission statement:
Sweet Voting!
The mission of the oversight board is to ensure that the Sugar Labs community has clarity of purpose and the means to collaborate in achieving its goals.
All members of the Sugar Labs community will be able to vote in these elections. If you're not sure whether you're a registered member then please take a look at the information on this page. Please note that the deadline for applications for membership is this Saturday, 2011-11-07 at 23:59 EST.
Since the last elections the board consists of the following seven people:
- Chris Ball (One Laptop per Child)
- Walter Bender *
- Aleksey Lim
- Mel Chua (Red Hat) *
- Adam Holt (One Laptop per Child)
- Bernie Innocenti (Free Software Foundation) *
- Sebastian Silva (Somosazucar)
In this upcoming election three of these seats (marked with an *) are open. As of today the list of candidates for these seats is only four people long but I do hope that as the deadline for entering a candidacy draws closer (November 15) more people will add themselves to it:
- Gerald Ardito 2011 Statement
- Walter Bender 2011 Position Statement
- Nick Doiron 2011-2012 Candidacy
- David Farning Candidacy post
I think it's well worth reading the candidates' position statements in order to be able to make an informed decision. Per the full timeline below the election itself will take place in the second half of November:
- 2011-11-07 (this Saturday!) 23:59 EST: Deadline for applications for membership.
- 2011-11-12 23:59 EST: All membership applications processed.
- 2011-11-15 23:59 EST: Candidate list closed.
- 2011-11-16 17:00 EST: Ballots sent by email, start of voting period.
- 2011-11-30 17:00 EST: Voting period ends.
As mentioned above I personally still hope that additional candidates will be on the ballot. I'd be particularly interested in seeing folks from OLPC deployments - both small and large - and more educators make it onto the board.
