I'd love to say I'm writing this a few days late because I've been thinking carefully about what to say. Sadly not, this will be as off the cuff as ever.
It was an interesting election this year. There were four seats up for grabs, and three of the four incumbents decided not to run. The first thing I want to do is thank them for this, as it's allowed space for some new faces on the board. Though I'm not sure how well the incumbents would have done, since the one who did run didn't get re-elected.
The first thing I notice about the newly elected members, relative to the rest of the field is that they are the most well-known names. The only person I hadn't really heard of was Afi until the ever-gregarious Sarah Abderemane clued me into who she is. And now I'm looking forward to working with her and the rest of the board.
I don't think it's a bad thing that the most well-known people won. They're well-known for a reason after all, there is little doubt of their sustained dedication. And I feel this is the most important characteristic of any board member.
I also wanted to address my own, personal goals for the board in the two year term I've been elected for. Some people came to me and told me that they thought my pitch was a bit too technical. I'm inclined to reject this as this is a technical project. What are the goals of the board if not to support the technical (and non-technical) success of Django? Still, I have my own doubts about my ability to contribute in the non-technical ways required. A case of imposter syndrome, I'm hoping 🙂
I also think my pitch was quite populist, but hey, it worked for Thibaud in the previous year. Though really it's the end of the pitch that's important. Yes I want all these fancy things for the framework to ensure it's sustained success. The path to that is clear to me:
We need an executive director. This was mentioned by a lot of candidates. Not by myself, ironically, though it was supposed to be implied. The truth is that the board is juggling work, life, other open source contributions, and Django can only be a part of that. By paying someone, we unlock someone's time that we just don't have right now. I can't speak for others, but for myself, fundraising is not something I have any idea how to do. It's just not in my bones. Having an ED means we have someone with both the time and the skills to do this much more effectively than we can with volunteers. I'm happy to see that the board seems fairly aligned on making this happen.
The second thing is to use all this newly raised money to pay for fellows that can not only tread the water of triage, reviewing, merging and releasing, but actively spend time developing new features.
I could ramble more but I have my own things to juggle.
I will leave with thanking all the candidates that ran. I am a bit wary of mentioning specific names, because I know I will leave people out, but I'm going to do it anyway. I want to especially encourage Lilian and Priya to run again, and I single you both out only because I don't talk to you much elsewhere. For anyone else I do talk to, you should already know this 🙂