The X.Org Foundation is holding elections for
- The Board of Directors
- Adoption of changes to the Foundation By-Laws.
Election Results
The Board of Directors election and the vote on the By-laws concluded at 14:00 UTC on May 1st 2023 and these are the results:
We had 75 members this year, of which 55 cast a vote, so the turnout is 73.3%.
On the question "Do you accept the proposed By-Law changes to make SFC the new fiscal sponsor of the X.Org foundation, replacing SPI?" 52 of the 55 members voted yes (94.5%). Among all 75 members, approval is 69.3% (52/75, over 2/3), so we can consider this change approved using the current by-law rules.
On the question "Do you accept the proposed By-Law changes to modify the special voting quorum requirements to be limited to present (meaning voting) members?" 48 of the 55 members voted yes (87.3%). Despite this, 48 votes represent only 64% of the members, which means the by-laws change does not pass.
In the election of the Directors to the Board of the X.Org Foundation, the results were that Daniel Vetter, Lyude Paul, Arkadiusz Hiler and Christopher Michael were elected for two-year terms.
The old full board is: Emma Anholt, Mark Filion, Ricardo Garcia, Samuel Iglesias Gonsálvez, Manasi D Navare, Lyude Paul, Alyssa Rosenzweig and Daniel Vetter.
The new full board is: Emma Anholt, Mark Filion, Ricardo Garcia, Arkadiusz Hiler, Christopher Michael, Lyude Paul, Alyssa Rosenzweig and Daniel Vetter.
Full election results, sorted by points:
- Daniel Vetter (367 points)
- Lyude Paul (348 points)
- Arkadiusz Hiler (286 points)
- Christopher Michael (263 points)
- Manasi Navare (195 points)
- Uma Shankar (157 points)
- Thomas Adam (105 points)
- William Weeks-Balconi (51 points)
Election Schedule
Note the schedule was delayed by 2 weeks due to not receiving enough candidates on the first round.
- Nomination period Start: Wed February 15th
- Nomination period End: Sun April 2nd
- Publication of Candidates & start of Candidate QA: Mon April 10th
- Deadline of X.Org membership application or renewal: Sun April 23rd
- Election Planned Start: Mon April 24th 14:00 UTC
- Election Planned End: Mon May 1st 14:00 UTC
PLEASE NOTE: The memberships of all X.Org Members have been expired, to participate in this election you MUST renew your membership by the deadline mentioned above! Please go to the Members page for your membership application or renewal.
Board Election
The terms of the following Board Members will end this year:
- Samuel Iglesias Gonsálvez
- Manasi D Navare
- Lyude Paul
- Daniel Vetter
There are 4 seats on the X.Org Board of Directors up for reelection.
The Elections overview page describes the voting methods and process.
The election process starts with a 2 week nomination period. If you would like to nominate yourself please send email to the election committee elections@x.org, giving your
- name
- current professional affiliation
- a statement of contribution to X.Org or related technologies
- a personal statement.
To vote or to be elected to the Board you needed to be a Member of the X.Org Foundation. To be a Member of the X.Org Foundation you need to apply or renew your membership until the end of the nomination period.
Changes to the By Laws of the X.Org Foundation
For the past few years, X.Org's parent organization has been SPI (Sofware in the Public Interest). While we have been greatful for SPI's support, the growing needs of the Foundation, including administrative & financial tasks, require us to look for a larger organization to work with. After looking at available options, the X.Org Foundation Board of Directors has decided to propose joining SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy), whose philosophies align perfectly with those of the Foundation and will more closely approach the level of support and response times that the Foundation needs.
While SFC has given its formal approval and are very enthusiastic at the prospect of the Foundation joining, the decision comes down to the X.Org members who must vote to approve this move.
Separately, members must also vote to approve a change to the By Laws of the X.Org Foundation. The change modifies the special voting quorum requirements to be limited to present (meaning voting) members from the current rule of all members.
This vote of the members on joining SFC and on changing the By Laws & voting quorum requirements will take place alongside the election to the BoD.
Please take a look at the proposed By-Law changes for more information.
Nominees
Thomas Adam
Current Affiliation: None
Personal Statement:
Even though I'm aware that despite nominating myself, I might not be successful, it should be noted that I am personally motivated to help keep xorg alive, and this is what I will do.
Statement of Contribution:
I've been using x.org for sometime, being the underlying platform which the fvwm window manager runs on. For some years now, I have been an active participant, and more recently in the last three years, the sole maintainer of that window manager in its current guise: fvwm3. See: https://fvwm.org
In addition to that, I started the x11cp (rather dubiously named "X11 Conservancy Project"), which aims to bring to life, and maintain older X11 applications from the mid-to-late 90s and onward. From a heritage perspective it's important, I feel, that such applications are continued to be supported. See: https://x11cp.org
Because of both these projects, I've always been having to diagnose problems with xlib, and other areas -- especially where fvwm might flag up interesting problems with xorg. This is also true of much older specifications such as the ICCCM2 and EWMH protocols.
I'd like to increase my involvement within the xorg project, and be more active. Despite the apparent interest with Wayland, I still firmly believe that xorg is still relevant and deserves a future -- so anything I can do to help maintain it can only be a good thing.
Arkadiusz Hiler
Current Affiliation: CodeWeavers
Personal Statement:
Since gaming on Linux seems to be one of the driving forces for development of X.Org technologies it would be nice to get some representation of this sector on the board.
I also have experience with conferences and I'm happy to help any future XDC organizers.
Statement of Contribution:
I've co-hosted the first virtual XDC 2020 and co-organized and co-hosted the hybrid virtual / in-person XDC + WineConf 2022.
I'm working on Proton / Wine which helps to make more games playable Linux.
I used to work on i915 drvier.
Christopher Michael
Current Affiliation: Igalia
Personal Statement:
I am currently working as a Software Engineer at Igalia and would like to help the X.org foundation continue to provide valuable support to open source developers. I feel that my 25+ years of open source experience make me an ideal candidate to assist the X.org foundation in matters such as XDC event organization. If elected to the board, I would also be interested in helping the Papers Committee with organizing the Call for papers, and handling some paper reviews.
Statement of Contribution:
I have been an open source user since 1996, and a contributor since 1997 to various open source projects. My current work at Igalia involves work on the X11 modesetting driver to support hardware acceleration without using glamor, along with Wayland window system integration on Raspberry Pi devices. I have been involved with open source for about 26 years now and would like the chance to take on a more leadership role by helping to organize events such as XDC, and to help in promoting open source graphics.
Manasi Navare
Current Affiliation: Google
Personal Statement:
I would like to continue my contributions to i915, DRM, Gnome and Chrome OS on enabling enhanced display features. Also if I get elected on X.org board, I would like to help with XDC organization and paper reviews. Being in Google, I would also like to mentor for Google Summer of Code and help give Gsoc students an exposure and opportunity to present at various X.org events. Last but not the least I would like to continue to serve on Code of Conduct committees to ensure an inclusive and supportive culture in the open source community.
Statement of Contribution:
I have been leading the Linux graphics display kernel development for past 9 years as part of Intel where I have enabled and usptreamed display features like DP compliance, link training fallback support, Display stream compression for enabling high resolution 8K displays, variable refresh rate for gaming. I recently moved to Chrome OS display team at Google and have been actively driving open source discussions on supporting variable refresh rate enhancements on Chrome OS stack. I have been also involved in Gnome VRR and DSC discussions and will be presenting at Gnome Shell and display hackfest later this year to drive these topics and work on fixing the gaps in Gnome.
Some of my past contributions to X.org include presenting at past XDC conferences, serving on BOD committee for last 4 years, being on XDC code of conduct committee, part of XDC paper review committee and being a X.org Treasurer briefly for a few months. I also volunteer currently on Freedesktop CoC committee and I am passionate about helping ensure a healthy, inclusive and motivating culture in all open source projects.
Lyude Paul
Current Affiliation: Red Hat
Personal Statement:
Hi! My name is Lyude Paul, and I'm currently employed at Red Hat as a Software Engineer. I'm also currently on the X.org Board of Directors as X.org's Secretary, and am also a member of the CoC team. I've also been a member of X.org for multiple years now and have contributed to a plethora of various projects in the X.org/freedesktop.org/linux kernel space such as: nouveau, i915, amdgpu, the wayland protocol, igt-gpu-tools, libinput, and more.
During my tenure on the board I've accomplished a couple of cool things:
- Restarted X.org's relationship with VESA in order to give X.org members access to various VESA specifications that they might not have access to otherwise without already having a VESA membership
- Worked to enable X.org to provide funding for professional CoC training for any X.org/freedesktop.org project that requests it
- (In progress) working with the rest of the board in order to prepare for a possible transition to SFC as our parent organization, provided that members approve the relevant By-law changes in this upcoming election. If this goes through, we will have greater access to resources including paid sysadmins to help run our GitLab instance.
I've quite enjoyed being able to serve this community, and will continue to do so if re-elected to the board of directors.
Statement of Contribution:
Hi! It's Lyude, I work on tons of projects on FDO such as mesa, Xorg, libinput, wayland, multiple linux kernel drivers, weston, and more! I also now happen to be a member of the X.Org board, along with being X.Org's official secretary.
Uma Shankar
Current Affiliation: Intel
Personal Statement:
Working as Graphics Software developer at Intel Corporation and passionate about opensource development. I want to contribute and engage more tightly with community and bring hardware vendors on same page and drive complex graphics features with a tighter collaboration with various stakeholders. Keeping the spirit of open source, benefitting the community at large with no bias for any individual corporate. I would be honoured to serve and contribute to X.Org foundation.
Statement of Contribution:
Worked as Linux Driver Developer for more than 15years across various subsystems. More than 10years of Display Driver Development experience, with contribution of more than 65+ patches in Linux kernel. Instrumental in getting HDR, Color Space and Color Management support in upstream Linux, working with driver and userspace communities. Reviewed more than 100+ patches in Linux DRM KMS driver and involved in various discussions in upstream. Leading the middleware development in the organization, with a vision to tightly collaborate with community working with various hardware vendors, community developers and benefit the larger opensource ecosystem.
Daniel Vetter
Current Affiliation: Intel
Personal Statement:
I've been hacking on graphics drivers for a few years now, mostly stuck on the kernel side of things. More recently I've also started to work on community issues, trying to make it easier to contribute to upstream, improve processes all around and reduces barriers to get drivers merged and new people integrated into our community.
In previous terms I've served as secretary but stepped down a while ago. I've served on the papers committee for XDC, and I lead the sponsor drive, continuing to secure over 10 sponsors each year, despite Covid and all that. I'd like to continue this work and making sure we have a great conference to meet and exchange ideas, open and accessible to everyone.
Statement of Contribution:
DRM maintainer and other stuff.
William Weeks-Balconi
Current Affiliation: Microsoft
Personal Statement:
I am an avid user of Xorg. My kids use Trisquel Sugar on a stick, so after each reboot I need to use the xrandr command to configure the display. I am a user that will strive to maintain xorg. I am an average user of the X Window system.
Statement of Contribution:
I enjoy Linux, eMacs, and Clojure. This month’s distribution of choice is Trisquel KDE. I was watching an interview with RDS, and he mentioned that he uses it.