openSUSE:Board election 2012 platform cfletcher
Platform
Introduction and Biography
I'm Carl Fletcher AKA (caf4926), I go by that in all the openSUSE areas. I'm just pushing the big 50! I'm English, born in the UK and living in the South Lakes. I'm married with 2 grown up Sons, though one continues to live at home.
Working Life
My upbringing and early life never really brought me close to technology, which meant I was educated with a view to a different profession.....the result being that I worked in Horticulture for the most part until I was 40. It was only due to illness that I moved away from that line of work. I think it was my son Jason that introduced me to Linux (his school IT teacher had been showing them that there were alternatives to M$), the rest is history, I latched on to it and really am self taught. Meaning, today, whilst continuing to struggle with illness I do free lance writing and work as an independent computer and network security professional.
Using Linux
I mentioned already that my son Jason was instrumental in my enlightenment and he has gone on to work in the IT industry. But I remember clearly the day he came home after first hearing about Linux. He was so excited...., we ended up downloading SuSe Linux 8.5 Professional. The result was, I was hooked and never looked back. Sure I played with all sorts of distributions, but from v10.0 I was only using SUSE as my main OS, that continues today, though I still test all the main distributions and keep up to date generally so as to assist my work in writing.
openSUSE Forums and Novell
I always frequented the forums, even long before the 2 forums were replaced by the one we have now. It's actually a great learning environment too. I worked for some time as a Global Moderator and almost 3 years ago I was appointed as one of the Administrators. Most of my involvement with openSUSE is done in a support role, helping users with problems via the forum and sometimes in the IRC. I have a hard working and knowledgeable Team of forum staff and enjoy working with them. We all endeavour to provide the very best support we can and we make every effort to provide technical support that is made simple by clear, well written guides. I'm also, for some years now, a Novell Knowledge Partner, which apart from the fact that I am very pleased to be considered suitable for that privilege, it also gives me access to some great online educational tools. I work with the development release of openSUSE too, helping with bug reports and I do some work in the Mailing Lists, particularly KDE, as I am a KDE user.
The Board
I'd like to see the board's profile raised, but not in some over authoritative way, but as an integrated part of the overall body of users. It needs to be listening and acting on behalf of the majority, but balancing that with the needs of the distribution.
Users and developers are currently somewhat segregated, mostly by the way they communicate across the openSUSE platform. As someone who dabbles in all areas, it's all too clear. The board can be a force to bring a tighter integration, which can only help with communication of issues, ideas and principles for the project as whole.
Why you should vote for me?
- If there is a job to do I can do it
- I use openSUSE 100%
- I want everyone to be able say...openSUSE IS The Best out there
- I truly have my finger on the pulse of users feelings, needs, expectations...
Aims/Goals
- Have the board develop a less fragmented/divided community
- A board that wants to listen to the views of it's user base
- To create a less fractious/competitive environment between teams..(KDE/Gnome)
- Bring the support platforms (forum/mailing lists/irc) to the land of mutual respect
Endorsements
Room for your supporters to leave a word about you
(CarlosRibeiro) +1 It was very hard to choose one by after few questions and answers, I have no doubt I really endorse Carl for the board