[Linux-aus] Candidacy support statement - President

[Hugh Blemings]

Hi,

After kicking things off with a few tentative but ultimately encouraging
side conversations I am grateful, indeed somewhat humbled to have been
nominated as a candidate for President of Linux Australia.

By way of background, in addition to having long been involved in Free
and Open Source Software and Hardware (Slackware, back in the day!,
Linux Kernel development, Ubuntu, Arduino and OpenStack since then) I
have been fortunate to serve on the council of Linux Australia in the
past; I was an ordinary council member in 2003 and Vice President in
2013/14.  I maintain a rudimentary web presence and blog here [0]

I hadn't started 2016 specifically planning to nominate for the Council
but had given it the occasional thought during 2015.  After some of the
quite encouraging conversations on the Linux-aus mailing list I
reflected on it more deeply and things evolved from there.

I was also mindful that none of the other excellent candidates for
President were looking like they'd accept and while LA's constitution
allows for this eventuality, there seemed to be something to be said for
certainty and a degree of mandate.

To the matter of mandate, were I elected I will strive to lead by
consensus and bring out the best in what is already shaping up to be a
very strong council indeed.

Specifically I will work with the broader FOSS/Linux community and LA
Council to implement a hybrid of the ideas put forward on the linux-aus
mailing list by Kathy Reid [1], Anthony Towns [2] and the discussions
sparked by those initial posts.

In the interests of transparency I note that prior commitments will see
me with limited availability for voluntary activities until late March
2016 after which time I can direct my attention more fully to LA
matters.  That said, I am confident that useful work can be accomplished
in these key early weeks of the Committee's term.

I will, naturally, commit to a full one year term in the role and will
review both my own commitments and the contribution I have been able to
make towards the end of 2016.  From this I will make clear my intent for
2017 in time for others to consider taking up the role if I do not plan
to re-nominate myself.

Further in the interests of openness and transparency, I will note that
while I am no longer a full time desktop Linux user I work on FOSS full
time as part of my employment [3] and naturally have numerous
Linux/FOSS/OSH based bits of hardware, devices and servers that I
continue to enjoy tinkering with.

I remain of the view that an entirely FOSS based software
stack/environment is the ideal and one I am happy to advocate for, but I
acknowledge that a hybrid of FOSS and other (proprietary and shareware)
software is a practical if sub-optimal reality for most.  In my view
both "camps" should be made welcome under the LA umbrella.

I am also of the view that Open Standards for information interchange in
its many forms and layers in the software stack is, arguably, more
important than the underlying software itself.  Clearly both being Libre
is the ideal for which we must strive.

Should I be successful in being elected into the role of President I
shall do my utmost to work towards the furtherment of Free and Open
Source software in Australia and the local region and Linux Australia as
an organisation itself.

I add that my expectation is that as a President and Council we will
rely heavily on the considerable abilities, intellect and time of
members of the Australia FOSS community to accomplish our goals.

We will not do all the heavy lifting ourselves.  To that extent our
success, or otherwise, equally rests in the hands of you gentle reader!

Thank you for your consideration of my candidacy.

Cheers,
Hugh


[0] http://hugh.blemings.id.au
[1] http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2016-January/022356.html
[2] http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2016-January/022419.html
[3] http://rackspace.com