Dear Members,
I would like to stand for the elections to the Board of Directors of The Document Foundation.
Who I am
Eric Ficheux, 40, married, 4 children.
I live near Nantes, France.
TDF member since 2016 and certified migration professional.
I contribute in various areas of the projet both with my current job and from personal initiatives.
I speak at various events about LibreOffice migrations and free software contribution.
After technical and IT engineering studies I started my career in 2000 as a developer and evolved towards project management. I currently focus on acquiring non technical skills around change management, UX, sales …
I have work experience in the private and public sector, mostly in France but also in international environments.
I currently work as an IT project manager for Nantes Métropole while launching a freelance consulting activity around LibreOffice.
Why being a candidate for the Board of Directors
IT has changed rapidly in a few years with Cloud Computing and UX now central and in demand in the IT market.
These two challenges add up to previously existing technical, marketing, quality, community building, business ecosystem building, financial (and many other) challenges for LibreOffice and the community.
While all this is very important and shouldn’t be forgotten, my belief is that the future of LibreOffice depends widely on our ability to make it more appealing to our market and to the end users.
Cloud and UX are two things we must develop quickly and this also means we need to get more feedback and get closer to our end users and market.
I also think that the Free Software economical model is far from being understood and shared enough yet.
I believe that LibreOffice must remain free to download, use or operate but there is also a need to bring more professional end-users to contribute directly, indirectly or donate to the project.
My main motivation is to help the LibreOffice community overtake these challenges.
Full name: Eric Ficheux
Contact: eric.ficheux+TDFBoardElection@gmail.com
Affiliations (although I won’t represent them officially at the board): Nantes Métropole
Please note that I am standing from my personal initiative and won’t be representing Nantes Métropole at the Board if elected.
In complete transparency, my candidacy is being checked for compatibility with my current work in the administration as required in such a situation by French regulations.
I’ll keep you informed about the outcome. There’s a strong probability that it will be OK, I wouldn’t be candidate otherwise.
Formal statement
I’m standing for a seat at the TDF Board of Directors for the first time.
I believe in the LibreOffice project, in the community and in the power of our Free Software model.
I will commit to do my best to help the project tackle the UX and Cloud challenges, to help grow the user and contributor base and make our Free software model better known, understood and supported.
Regards,
Eric Ficheux