I recently received some bittersweet news, my good friend Vincent Untz is stepping down as Chairman of the openSUSE Board as a result of a happy personal event that I'm sure is going to keep him busy in the months and years ahead.
In addition the formal thanks as part of the official announcements, I'd like to add my own personal thanks to Vincent. I owe much to Vincent's help and support throughout the years, both technically as a maintainer of GNOME in openSUSE, and as an Board Member to the Project. I know this isn't goodbye, and look forward to still seeing Vincent around the Geeko world in the future.
As a result of Vincent's decision, the openSUSE Board requires a new Chairman. I'm excited and humbled to be able to announce that I have been appointed by SUSE to serve as the new Chairman of the openSUSE Board, effective from today.
When I started contributing to openSUSE in 2005, I never thought I could find myself in a position like this. I'm looking forward to doing the best I can to help keep openSUSE moving forward and become more recognised as the exceptional, wonderful, and successful open source project that it already is.
For anyone who doesn't know the governance structure of openSUSE, the Board is a group of six members, five who are elected by the community and a Chairperson who is appointed by SUSE. It's the Board's job to 'lead' the openSUSE Project, by providing guidance, governance and support to the rest of the project. As I was one of those elected Board members, the Board are currently discussing our options regarding my now vacant Board member seat, and we hope to be able to announce something soon.
I'm also very pleased to be able to be able to share that this October 18th-19th openSUSE will be having an openSUSE Summit Asia in Bejing!
Sunny and her team have put together a great website with all the information, please Check It Out!
There's also lots of very interesting developments happening around openSUSE Factory, which is progressing towards becoming a fully rolling release. You can download the latest snapshots HERE. And to provide feedback or learn more, you can join the conversation in our openSUSE Factory mailing list or in IRC at #opensuse-factory in irc.freenode.org
Have a lot of fun!