The seats up for election include one Novell-employed position and two non-Novell-employed positions. Pavol Rusnak is running for the Novell-employed seat and Rupert Horstkötter and Bryen M Yunashko are running for the non-Novell seats.

The election committee will declare the candidates as elected by end of Monday, 7th of December, if nobody else steps up in the respective group to run for the election. Otherwise we will have an election in that group.

This means that if further candidates for the non-Novell seats declare candidacy, we will do an election for these two seats – and if further candidates for the Novell seat step up, we run an election for that one seat – and if candidates for both step up, we elect all seats.

So, here’s the final call: If you’re happy with the three candidates, thank them – and if not, step up and declare your candidacy by announcing it on opensuse-project@opensuse.org and election-officials@opensuse.org. You can find more information on candidacy and the election in general here.

The Election committee is also open for comments on the election before the December 7th deadline when the Election Committee will declare and certify the winners.

We’d like to thank Bryen, Rupert and Pavol for stepping up and volunteering to serve on the openSUSE board. For next election the election committee will adapt the rules to cover cases like this one.

So now it’s up to you to announce your candidacy or just request membership

Have a lot of fun!

Stephen Shaw (decriptor) and Bryen Yunashko (suseROCKS) have completed their tenure on the Board, and their seats are up for election. There is also a new seat available to be occupied by a non-Novell member. Henne Vogelsang (henne) and Pascal Bleser (yaloki) have another year to complete and will remain, Michael Löffler (michl) as chairman will remain as well. This means that as of this year’s election the openSUSE Board will be made up of equal numbers of Novell and non-Novell employees, 2 seats+Chairperson and 3 seats respectively. Candidates for this election will be voted in for a two (2) year term, ensuring that there is continuity within the Board.

The election is broken into three phases similar to last year:

October 26th, 2009 (Phase 0) (Now Complete)

• Start of 4 week period for non-members to apply for an openSUSE membership (in order to vote).
• Start of 4 week phase for members to stand for a position in the openSUSE Board.

November 23rd, 2009 (End of Phase 0)

• Notification of intent to run, and application for an openSUSE membership close .

November 24th, 2009 (Phase 1)

• Start of 2 week campaign for the Board Candidates before the ballots open. Candidates may campaign until the final bell when ballots close, should they wish.

December 8th, 2009 (Phase 2)

• Ballots open

December 22nd, 2009 (End of Phase 1 & 2)

• Ballots close

Should anyone have any questions, you can contact the Election Committee by emailing election-officials@opensuse.org or speaking to one of the members on IRC. It is best to always email the committee even if you speak to someone on IRC. Full details of the election can be found on the wiki here. Prospective candidates are highly encouraged to read this lwn.net article on some of the tasks required of Board members.

Stephen Shaw (decriptor) and Bryen Yunashko (suseROCKS) have completed their tenure on the Board, and their seats are up for election.  There is also a new seat available to be occupied by a non-Novell member.  Henne Vogelsang (henne) and Pascal Bleser (yaloki) have another year to complete and will remain, Michael Löffler (michl) as chairman will remain as well.  This means that as of this year’s election the openSUSE Board will be made up of equal numbers of Novell and non-Novell employees, 2 seats+Chairperson and 3 seats respectively.  Candidates for this election will be voted in for a two (2) year term, ensuring that there is continuity within the Board.

The election is broken into three phases similar to last year:

October 26th, 2009 (Phase 0)

• Start of 4 week period for non-members to apply for an openSUSE membership (in order to vote).
• Start of 4 week phase for members to stand for a position in the openSUSE Board.

November 23rd, 2009 (End of Phase 0)

• Notification of intent to run, and application for an openSUSE membership close .

November 24th, 2009 (Phase 1)

• Start of 2 week campaign for the Board Candidates before the ballots open.  Candidates may campaign until the final bell when ballots close, should they wish.

December 8th, 2009 (Phase 2)

• Ballots open

December 22nd, 2009 (End of Phase 1 & 2)

• Ballots close

Should anyone have any questions, you can contact the Election Committee by emailing election-officials@opensuse.org or speaking to one of the members on IRC.  It is best to always email the committee even if you speak to someone on IRC.  Full details of the election can be found on the wiki here.  Prospective candidates are highly encouraged to read this lwn.net article on some of the tasks required of Board members.

The new board members are, from the Non-Novell side of the community Pascal Bleser and Bryen Yunashko and from the Novell side we have Henne Vogelsang and Federico Mena-Quintero. We are proud to announce that Michael Löffler has been appointed by Novell as chairman of the new board. Being the candidates with the most votes in their category, Pascal and Henne already agreed to serve the board for the next two years. Bryen and Federico have been elected for one next year, hence the next election will take place about the same time next year.

The election committee would like to congratulate them on their election and wish them all the best in steering our fine community and project. We would also like to thank all of the candidates for their interest in serving on the board, and we’re proud to have so many excellent candidates to choose from for the board.

For those that like numbers, the spread of votes is as follows:

Non-Novell
Bleser, Pascal	148	45.96 %
Yunashko, Bryen	69	21.43 %
Linnell, Peter	42	13.04 %
Rodriguez, Alex	30	9.32 %
Pasanen, Tuukka	18	5.59 %
Rusinek, Jakub	15	4.66 %
Total:	322
Novell
Vogelsang, Henne	126	38.18 %
Mena-Quintero, Federico	86	26.06 %
Shaw, Stephen	71	21.52 %
Michna, Marco	47	14.24 %
Total:	330

A total of 75.11% (178 of 237) voters participated in the poll. Voters had the option of casting two votes for each category, for a possible total of 356 votes per category for the election. Some voters, however, choose not to use both of their votes for each category.

The final count does not convey how close the election was in some parts, but it does show that the openSUSE community is committed to ensuring that they take a stake in their own project and that the understand that to make the project prosper they need to be active.

The election committee wants to thank the first openSUSE Board, Marcus ‘darix’ Rückert and Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier for their ongoing support. In addition to this we want to thank again all openSUSE members for their participation.

As it stands now, over 57% of votes have been cast. Hopefully the extension will enable all voters the chance to have their voice heard. Remember, this is the community’s chance to influence the governance of the openSUSE project. If you don’t vote your chance to influence the project will be reduced. If you have questions about the candidates, ask them. They won’t bite, but they may be able to give you the answers to enable you to vote with a clearer consience.

The election committee encourages all openSUSE contributors to apply for an openSUSE membership to gain voting rights, and to consider running for a position in the board. Being a member of the first community elected board is an unique opportunity to help the openSUSE Project mature and grow. There is less than one week left to get this done – application deadline ends September 24th, 12:00 UTC. The full schedule and much more information can be found on the election wiki pages.

The openSUSE board leads the overall project and provides guidance and support existing governance structures, but doesn’t direct or control development, since community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project. The board consists of five members, four elected by the openSUSE members (2 Novell and 2 non-Novell) and a Novell appointed chairman. Pascal Bleser (Part 2) and Andreas Jaeger have written some blog posts on the first year of the board and gave some interesting insight views on what should be done next.

This is going to be a very important year in the growth of the openSUSE Project, and we want to start it off right. Whether you want to run for a board seat, or just vote for the candidates you trust to do the best job, don’t wait! The deadline for board candidacy and to have openSUSE membership approved in time for the election is less than one week away!

The new board members will be elected for either one or two years, starting first week of November.

openSUSE membership is granted to those who have made continued and substantial contributions to the openSUSE Project. Members are approved by the openSUSE Board, and membership must be submitted by September 24th for members to be eligible to vote in this election.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the election committee.

The election committee encourages all openSUSE contributors to apply for an openSUSE membership to gain voting rights, and to consider running for a position in the board. Being a member of the first community elected board is an unique opportunity to help the openSUSE Project mature and grow. There are only two weeks left to get this done – application deadline ends September 24th, 12:00 UTC. Find the full schedule and much more information on the election wiki pages.

The openSUSE board leads the overall project and provides guidance and support existing governance structures, but doesn’t direct or control development, since community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project. The board consists of five members, four elected by the openSUSE members (2 Novell and 2 non-Novell) and a Novell appointed chairman. Pascal Bleser (Part 2) and Andreas Jaeger have written some blog posts on the first year of the board and gave some interesting insight views on what should be done next.

This is going to be a very important year in the growth of the openSUSE Project, and we want to start it off right. Whether you want to run for a board seat, or just vote for the candidates you trust to do the best job, don’t wait! The deadline for board candidacy and to have openSUSE membership approved in time for the election is less than two weeks away!

The new board members will be elected for either one or two years, starting first week of November.

openSUSE membership is granted to those who have made continued and substantial contributions to the openSUSE Project. Members are approved by the openSUSE Board, and membership must be submitted by September 24th for members to be eligible to vote in this election.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the election committee.

• Claes Backstrom (Community)
• Andrew Wafaa (Community)
• Marko Jung (Novell)
• Vincent Untz (Novell, deputy)

The openSUSE election committee will organize and oversee the first openSUSE Board election, the board has authorized it to decide any open questions on the elections. Members of the committee have agreed to refrain from standing for the election to ensure a fair and impartial process.

The openSUSE board consists of four selected members (two Novell employees, two non-Novell employees) and the Novell appointed chairperson.

For details of the Board election, see http://en.opensuse.org/Board_Election/2008.

The Election Committee will soon write their own announcements about the elections.  You can reach them via election-officials@opensuse.org.

If you like to vote for the new board, please apply as member, details are available in the wiki.

On behalf of the current board, I’d like to thank the committee members for stepping up and look forward to a good election,

Andreas

The board should provide guidance and support existing governance structures, but shouldn’t direct or control development, since community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project. The board should document decisions and policies.

The initial board has been appointed by Novell — in the future, the board members will be elected by the community and the chair person appointed by Novell. One of the missions of the board is to define a process to elect the next board.

The chosen members are as follows:

	Pascal Bleser lives in Belgium and works as a software architect and developer at a large European ISV in Germany. He contributes most of his time building packages for openSUSE in the Packman and openSUSE Build Service repositories. He is also a member of the team that organizes FOSDEM, one of the largest and most appreciated opensource developer conferences in Europe.
	Francis Giannaros is a Mathematics and Philosophy undergraduate studying at King’s College London. He is working on pulling together, along with many others, the openSUSE Community; a big part of this is demonstrated through openSUSE-Community.org. Other involvements include wiki handling, openSUSE News editing and further coordination tasks.
	Andreas Jaeger works for Novell now as director openSUSE and platform where he’s responsible for the openSUSE project. He’s been involved with the openSUSE project from the beginning and helped to launch it. Previously he was project manager for the openSUSE and SUSE Linux distribution. He has driven the port of Linux to x86-64 and ported the GNU C Library to the x86-64 architecture. Andreas has been appointed as chair person for the initial openSUSE board.
	Stephan Kulow works for Novell as project manager of the openSUSE distribution. Part of his duties there is the release management. Before changing into the project manager role, he worked as lead of the KDE and Usability teams. He is also widely known for having served as release manager for the KDE project for many years.
	Federico Mena-Quintero is one of the founders of the GNOME Project. Before that, he worked as maintainer of the GIMP. In the early days of GNOME he was responsible for some of the original code and documentation for the GNOME libraries, games, and applications. He also worked on Evolution, the GTK+ toolkit, the GNOME platform libraries, and the Nautilus file manager. Federico started the GNOME Performance project during the 2005 GNOME Summit in Boston. He currently works for Novell, Inc.

You can reach the board directly via email board@opensuse.org. The board invites everybody to start general discussions on the opensuse-project (subscribe) mailing list.

I’m glad to announce this board and thank the members for taking on this duty. I wish the board and the community all the best for a constructive collaboration in making openSUSE even better.

Michael Löffler