All, I'd like to send a belated but no less warm welcome to the new Council members, Olivier Hallot and Eike Rathke. Welcome to the Council!
Both new members are longtime contributors to and representatives of active communities. Olivier has been one of the leads of the Brazilian OpenOffice.org team (BrOffice) for some years, now, and was elected to represent the Native Language Confederation, whose mansion includes all the linguistic (and increasingly, regional) houses. He replaces—well, that's an inadequate term, as no one can—Pavel Janík, who served in the Council for years representing the NLC, among other groups. I, along with the others on the Council who recall the early period, shall miss Pavel, but look forward to working with him on other lists and OOo efforts. And I, like the others on the Council, look forward to working with Olivier and learning from him about the success of BrOffice, and his ideas for OpenOffice.org as it moves forward. Eike represents the Code Contributor constituency, and there are few who work with OOo's code and its contributors who have the breadth and experience he brings now to the Council. He sits, so to speak, in Martin Hollmichel's seat; Martin was one of the first Council members and long represented similar interests. It's hard to conceive of a Council meeting without Martin, and I, along with the others, thank Martin for his dedication. He's a friend, a colleague, a mentor. And by no means likely to disappear into any sunset. Thanks, Martin. But this change gives the Council new life and the chance for new (or at least fresh) ideas to be presented. Eike, I've known, of course, for years; we all have: that's one reason he was elected. But the Council is a new forum for him, and will be new to us all now for his and Olivier's presence. We welcome this change. Already the Council has changed in ways that were not by any means expected. The continuing, tireless work of Christoph Noack, Charles Schulz, and Juergen Schmidt (all elected late last year) has significantly changed the spirit and work of the Council, and I believe for the better. It's more open to the Community, for starters (something we always strive for), and it represents the community more directly (thanks to the changes suggested by André Schnabel and voted into effect last year). It is more the Community's Council. And it's still evolving: we will have yet another round of elections later this summer. But we welcome now the new members! Best, Louis -- Louis Suarez-Potts, PhD Community Development Manager, Oracle OpenOffice.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@marketing.openoffice.org
