A Debian first: female candidate in running for leader

Sam Varghese
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 11:16

Opinion and Analysis

For the first time in its 16-year history, the Debian GNU/Linux project has a woman in the running to become leader of the project when voting for the post takes place between April 2 and April 15.

Margarita Manterola, a software developer from Argentina, mostly Python, teaches programming at a university. She has been involved with Debian since 2003, became a developer in 2005 and has been part of the Debian Women project since it kicked off in 2004.

Manterola, who submitted her nomination just before the deadline, will have to defeat three others if she is to win.

Stefano Zacchiroli, who ran last year and lost to the current leader, Steve McIntyre, was the first to cast his hat in the ring.

Also in the running is Wouter Verhelst, who says he decided to contest simply because for quite some time Zacchiroli was the only candidate and that would not be good for the project. Verhelst ran for the post in 2007 but was not successful.

Charles Plessy makes up the quartet of candidates.

Zacchiroli is a post-doctoral fellow at a university in Paris, France, Verhelst runs his own free and open source software business, and Plessy is a molecular biologist whose main contribution has been to the Debian Med project.

Campaigning ends on March 31. The new leader's term begins on April 17.