For the last four years I’ve served as a member of the X.Org Foundation Board of Directors, but some days ago I stepped down after my term ended and not having run for re-election.
I started contributing to Mesa in 2014 and joined the amazing freedesktop community. Soon after, I joined the X.Org Foundation as an regular member in order to participate in the elections and get access to some interesting perks (VESA, Khronos Group). You can learn more about what X.Org Foundation does in Ricardo’s blogpost.
But everything changed in 2018. That year, Chema and I organized XDC 2018 in A Coruña, Spain.
The following year, I ran for the yearly election of X.Org Foundation’s board of directors (as it is a two years term, we renew half of the board every year)… and I was elected! It was awesome! Almost immediately, I started coordinating XDC, and looking for organization proposals for the following XDC. I documented my experience organizing XDC 2018 in an attempt to make the job easier for future organizers, reducing the burden that organizing such a conference entails.
In 2021, I was re-elected and everything continued without changes (well, except the pandemic and having our first 2 virtual XDCs: 2020 and 2021).
Unfortunately, my term finished this year… and I did not re-run for election. The reasons were a mix of personal life commitments (having 2 kids change your life completely) and new professional responsibilities. After those changes, I could not contribute as much as I wanted, and that was enough to me to pass the torch and let others contribute to the X.Org Foundation instead. Congratulations to Christopher Michale and Arek Hiler, I’m pretty sure you are going to do great!
Surprisingly enough, I am closing the cycle as it started: organizing X.Org Developers Conference 2023 in A Coruña, Spain from 17th to 19th October 2023.
I leave the board of directors but I won friends and great memories. In case you are interested on participating to the community via the board of directors, prepare your candidancy for next year!
See you in A Coruña!