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Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee Election 2009: Nominations

Nominations are closed.

Candidates may be any member of the Ambassadors group in the Fedora Accounts System. This helps ensure FAmSCo members have some experience with the processes of Fedora Ambassadors but still allows relatively new contributors to sit on FAmSCo and bring fresh ideas to the table.

Ambassadors will be following the Fedora general election timeline.

You may self-nominate. If you wish to nominate someone else, please consult with that person ahead of time. Wiki nomination pages carry additional details about the nominee which the nominee is expected to write.

David Nalley (ke4qqq)

  • Candidate statement

I am pleased with many of the steps that the current FAmSCo has taken, and am happy that I could be a part of those decisions. In particular I am happy with the decision to instantiate a formal mentoring process, and am largely happy with the results.

I do wish that we could have accomplished more, but there is always want for that.

I do find that there are many who question the continued relevance of FAmSCo with the rise of excellent regional leadership. It is a great situation to be in, local Ambassadors on the ground taking control of what goes on is indeed the goal. Going forward, I hope FAmSCo continues encouraging the regional uptake of responsibility. I also hope that FAmSCo will constantly reevaluate it's performance and place, and continue to make sure it is relevant.

  • Contributor Profile

I have been a Linux user since ~2001 and am employed as a Unix administrator as a $dayjob. I've been involved with the Fedora Project since early 2006, and am currently involved in the Ambassadors, and Docs Project, though the past few months I have been more absent than normal due to a recent $dayjob change, and relegated myself largely to fixing a few bugs in the install guide. I am also a packager, and maintain around a dozen packages, and am co-maintainer for a few more. I am involved in a number of other open source projects, and also serving on the board of the Southeast Linuxfest.

  • Future Plans
    • Push for more openness within FAmSCo - I find much questioning of the reason FAmSCo continues to exist. There is much that goes on that for one reason or another isn't publicly seen, and I see that as generally bad for community. While there indeed exists some reasoning to keep some things private, the vast majority is not that way.
    • Continuing to improve and build on our mentoring program
    • Facilitate the growth of Fedora, in particular contributors, to underrepresented regions.
    • I hope to not run again for FAmSCo

Jean-Francois Saucier (djf_jeff)

  • Candidate statement

As some of you may already know, I am an Ambassador from Canada, specifically from Quebec City. One thing that I would like to do as a FAmSCo member would be the creation of a well defined workflow to help Canadian Ambassadors represent Fedora by : 

 * Setting up a Canadian Event Box (already started)
 * Helping Canadian Ambassadors in getting resources they need
 * Help them with the sponsoring of events in Canada
 * Represent Canada in FAmNA and FAmSCo meetings

The big goal I have for this term is to have Canada be an included part of FAmNA.

I know that my goals sound very Canada centric but I think that creating and documenting this process will benefit Ambassadors in regions less represented.

  • Contributor profile

I started working with Linux ten years ago when I was in high school. Since that moment, the interest in learning more never left. That led me to work in an Open Source related environment. Currently, I mostly do deployment, development and security work with RHEL.

My involvement in the community is with bugzilla and trying to help people on irc and multiple boards across the net. I recently started to use Rawhide daily on a separate box at home, helping with tests and use cases. I plan on doing some packaging effort, submitting some packages that I maintain for my personal use.

I am also very active in local events, mainly "Install Fest" and LUG meetings. I love to make presentations, sharing knowledge with other people in the room, having some great discussions about a subject, etc.

  • Future plans
 * Promote Fedora in Quebec and Canada
 * Be sure to have a strong Fedora image and presence across Canada
 * Recruit and mentor new Canadian Ambassadors
 * Try to facilitate new Ambassadors contributions
 * Document every step to make them accessible to other Ambassadors

Joerg Simon (kital)

  • Candidate statement

I am proud that major goals i had planned last year for my first FAmSCo candidature are achieved:

But i also failed with some goals:

  • the process to find new ways to encourage people for contributions needs improvement
  • i was not sustainable enough to enforce that the Ambassador Group has liasons to the other important Groups in the Fedora Project

Once doesn't count ;) - i would be really happy if you trust me again. As a FAmSCo member i will further do all my best to help all Fedora Ambassadors to achieve their best contributions.

  • Contributor profile

After a history as Linux user/enthusiast/contributor since 1995, my involvement with Fedora started with my first FUDCon in 2005, today i contribute to multiple groups in the Fedora Project. My main focus in Fedora right now is: the work on membership Community Development and Mentoring, Fedora as Security Testing Platform and the Fedora Security Spin, Fedora mailing list- and membership-administration and working on strong support for the Fedora Community in underrepresented regions in the world! Promoting Fedora on Events is another major part of my work and so i work as organizer, driver, helper, slogger, promoter on a lot Events every year and i produce, store and ship a lot of the EMEA SWAG and Booth Material.

  • Future plans
  • more transparency for the work that is done by FAmSCo
  • further - enhance Fedora´s presence in underrepresented Regions - concrete: a translation marathon in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 and more focus on Africa!
  • further - improve the Membership and regional Mentoring Process
  • establish measurability not only for Membership also for Success of Events!
  • ongoing - Establish liasons to other subprojects! - especally to marketing, artwork and docs!
  • ongoing - Invent new ways to encourage people to contribute to the Fedora Project

Luca Foppiano (lfoppiano)

  • Candidate statement

I'm an Ambassador coming from Italy, I'm and I was involved also in different project under Fedora's hat. The main goal is to bring new ideas and new ways to operate and communicate around the world, in order to improve and simplify the way people are involved in event and within the fedoraproject.

  • Contributor profile
    • Ambassador since 2008, Fedora User since 2007, Linux user since 2002
    • I've Joined some EMEA and Italy events: FOSDEM, Linux TAG, Linux Day for e.g.
    • Actually running the Italian Fedora Community
  • Future plans
    • Keep FAmSCo up to date on Local groups activities/problems/improvements;
    • Improve communication within and outside the FAmSCo and the fedora ambassadors project
    • Help Ambassadors with events organization, supporting Ambassadors ideas and initiatives.

Maria Gracia Leandro (tatica)

Quieres leer mi Declaración en Español? Accede a: 
(Would you like to read my Statement in Spanish? Go to: )
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tatica/FamscoStatement_ES

Nominated by Paul Mellors

  • Candidate statement

As a Fedora Ambassador, I have been able to help several users and new ambassadors on this learning and teaching journey. My main goal is to make users heard and understood, make them be part of everything and give them answers to their needs. We all know that ambassadors are the knowledge gate into fedora and a connecting part between users and developers.

Fedora is one of the best communities, solid and organized but fedora is a lot more. We need to encourage our ambassadors not only to spread fedora to users, we also need to spread fedora to governments, developers, schools and also to ourselves. We need to teach people how to use fedora, but also how to contribute.

I'm really unsure about getting into FAmSCo, I know I'm one of the newest ambassadors running for this position, but maybe we need a new approach to get some issues solved, new ideas, more feed back, something. Let's keep fedora be what it is for us and work to grow up.

2008) http://flisol.org.ve http://flisol.net/FLISOL2010/Venezuela


  • Future plans
    • Reach more people than I do now, and be able to make them be part of fedora community and help with in our organization, planning and presence tasks.
    • Get to countries and communities where there aren't fedora users or built communities
    • Help to improve fedora merchandising on LatinAmerica.
    • Increase communication/cooperation with Red Hat in LATAM
    • Motivate all ambassadors to share their knowledge/experience in terms of how to organize/run a event/booth.
    • Possibly I will run a research about what do we need as community, what are we doing wrong and what can we improve, because all these efforts is for our users.
    • Next month will be release Fedora-Latam Magazine.
    • Help to latinamerican community and try to set a new strategy for merchandising supply to all.
    • We start the "fedora-route" in Venezuela, and I'll like to get some support, ideas and help to make this an international event; making several events with a close schedule (maybe a month or two)
    • Help to improve Freemedia project held on LATAM
    • I have a big concern about inactive ambassadors, I've see some numbers growing up and we need to do something about it. Maybe offer some prize, bi-monthly contest (just for fun) or something else
    • more ideas are coming.


Max Spevack (spevack)

  • Candidate statement -- My goal in running for FAMSCo is to continue to be the primary worldwide budget coordinator for the Fedora Project. In the past year, my primary goal with FAMSCo was to initiate and kickoff the Fedora Activity Day idea, which is an expansion of the Fedora Ambassador Day. I am very proud of the achievements in mentoring that FAMSCo achieved this past year. My small contribution to that was to teach a "How to be a Fedora Ambassador" class in #fedora-classroom a few times, and to produce a template for that class which anyone can use.
  • Contributor profile -- I've been doing Fedora stuff for quite a while now. See my user page for more information.
  • Future plans -- Just to keep doing what I'm doing.

Robert Scheck (rsc)

  • Candidate statement -- As Fedora Ambassador and a Fedora Mentor, I would like to link our ambassadors a bit more with other teams and groups around Fedora, for example with technical parts like packaging, QA, bugzapping or artistic parts like our Artwork team. As Fedora only lives by contributors, we should try to get new ambassadors at parts and regions where we actually really need ambassadors to make Fedora better. That includes countries with (right now) less or even no Fedora Ambassadors as well as new (wo)manpower in understaffed teams or groups around Fedora.
  • Contributor profile -- I'm using Linux since Red Hat Linux 6.2, thus Fedora from the very first beginning. I started contributing with Red Hat Linux 9; later in Fedora Core and Extras days, I got packager and with the Core and Extras merge, I got an ambassador. Today I'm maintaining about 60 packages on all active Fedora and EPEL branches (if technically possible). I'm supporting the websites team as well as the German translation team, too. Beside of that, I try to be a good mentor for new Fedora ambassadors and packagers and if there's still time, I use my provenpackager status to give a bit love to broken packages.
  • Future plans -- Try to help FAmSCo whenever and whereever needed to get work somehow done.

Rodrigo Padula de Oliveira (RodrigoPadula)

  • Candidate statement
    • Currently member of FAmSCo , running for re-election.
    • I'm a FAMSCO's member, since the first election, working to improve the ambassadors program and to spread Fedora around the world
  • Contributor profile
    • Gnu/Linux user since 1996.
    • Fedora contributor since 2005.
    • Founder of the Brazilian Fedora Project
    • Founder of the Latin American Fedora Project ( providing infra for all latam communities)
  • Past plans - Added in the 2008 Famsco Nomination
    • [DONE Increase the LATAM community (We were 8 countries with 25 ambassadors, now we are 14 countries with ~130 ambassadors)
    • [IN PROGRESS] Work to increase the Packaging group and the Fedora time support (We have ~12 packagers from Latam but we have a lot of work to do)
    • [DONE] Contribute with the organization of local Fedora Projects.
    • [IN PROGRESS] Strengthen the participation of Latin American contributors in Fedora Project (We are a great team but we can do more!).
    • [DONE] Spread Fedora in events, with media distribution, lectures and booths (~48 events in all Latam with ~60.000 attendees ).
    • [IN PROGRESS] Be the voice of the community and ambassadors in the FAMSCO / Fedora Project / Red Hat.
    • [DONE] Support the local projects with all that they needs ( With the limited resources we did a great job).
    • [DONE] Create and organize the III Latin American Conference and the I FUDCON Latin American (Some pictures [[4]])
    • [DONE] Increase the free media program (~14.000 Medias produced and distributed)
  • Future plans
    • Keep doing what I'm doing now.
    • Help FAMSCO to improve the ambassadors program.
    • Recruit new members to keep Fedora as main Free Software technology developer/contributor.
    • Share experiences (Try to apply in other countries/regions all great things that we realized in Latam and Brasil specially).
    • Increase the FLOSS contribution in Latin America.
    • Help to create a link between Fedora and Universities opening doors for RHA/OSU program and POSSE.
    • Increase the number of packagers from our community to help with the LTS dream.
    • Convert fedora users and ambassadors(potential contributors) in real contributors.

Scott Seiersen (sseiersen)

  • Candidate statement-To be updated in the near future.
  • Contributor profile-Will be updated.
  • Future plans

Shakthi Kannan (mbuf)

  • Candidate statement
 * Streamline delivery of content to scale down the learning curve in using F/OSS with the help of Fedora.
 * Fedora marketing to regions that require attention and support.
 * Work on providing more hands-on workshops for newbies starting to work with Fedora.
  • Contributor profile

I help with the following: 

 * Conduct free workshops, and training sessions during weekends /work.
 * Create F/OSS content /downloads.
 * Assist newbies on starting to work on F/OSS projects.
 * Work on Fedora Electronic Lab packaging Fedora Electronic Lab.
  • Future plans

I don't make long term plans, but would like to focus on the above mentioned objectives for the next one year (to begin with).

Susmit Shannigrahi (susmit)

  • Candidate statement:
    • I won't list the things that I did during my last tenure. However, if you are really interested, please take a look at my my blog. Or you may also google it. I am not being rude but as I was a part of a team, I can not claim those as my accomplishment. :)
    • I shall work towards mentoring new faces, and work with APAC countries (which I promised but could not do very well).
  • Contributor profile: Here
  • Future plan: That I leave to the ambassadors. Whatever problems they put forward, I am ready to work on it.

Sandro Mathys (red_alert)

Nominated by Christoph Wickert

  • Candidate statement
    • Currently Ambassador in Switzerland, working together with lots of EMEA Ambassadors (particularly those from Germany due to the shared language) and looking forward to get involved in another event outside EMEA ASAP.
  • Contributor profile
    • Linux user since 1999 (Red Hat Linux)
    • Fedora user since 2003
    • Fedora ambassador since 2007
    • Actively participated in many events since then
    • For the marketing project, I wrote the press release for LinuxTag 2008/FUDCon Berlin 2008/F9. To have this distributed, Joerg Simon and I worked closely together with Red Hat EMEA's marketing division.
    • I organized the FAD EMEA 2008 in Basel
    • Also active as a package maintainer (some irrelevant packages) and in Fedora hosted (not too active tho, but helping out)
  • Future plans
    • Extend own activities to outside EMEA (been at one NA event so far)
    • Help the NA and APAC ambassadors to maintain and extend their recent successes
    • Help the EMEA ambassadors to find back to their earlier successes
    • Be a reference point to all ambassadors, particularly those from EMEA
    • Support all ambassadors in their activities and ideas
    • Make FUDCon EMEA even more successful
      • Lead the organization in Zurich if that city is chosen to host FUDCon EMEA 2010
    • Organize FADs whenever a group of Fedora ambassadors/contributors is in need of one
    • Increase the number of contributors all over the world
    • Start to build up ambassador teams in parts of the world, where no such exist yet
    • Have a public Fedora merchandising store for Europe created
    • Increase communication/cooperation with Red Hat in EMEA
    • Motivate all ambassadors to share their knowledge/experience in terms of how to organize/run a event/booth
    • Continue the recent FAmSCo projects
    • Promote Fedora at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich (12k employees, 8k students) - where I work
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