Withdrawing my nomination for Fedora Council

The deadline for Fedora Council nominations is tomorrow, 11 November. I've decided to withdraw my nomination and I'd like to do so publicly so that anybody else who wants to contest the position has an opportunity to hastily submit a nomination in the hours that remain before the deadline.

Even without going as far as the voting stage, I believe my brief campaign has already achieved some remarkable things.

First of all, my email nominating myself on the Fedora Council list was delayed for approximately 14 hours.

Received: from mailman01.iad2.fedoraproject.org (localhost [IPv6:::1])
 by mailman01.iad2.fedoraproject.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7505B7605D96F;
 Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:54:59 +0000 (UTC)
Received: by mailman01.iad2.fedoraproject.org (Postfix, from userid 991)
 id 4F9CF7607184F; Wed, 28 Oct 2020 22:52:32 +0000 (UTC)

This strikes me as a strong hint that I'm an independent candidate who is not afraid to ask the important questions. If I was to suggest the election was about to be rigged then I would risk looking like the world's biggest clown but nonetheless, messages delayed like that makes it feel like the playing field is not quite level. It is an all-too-familiar feeling in the free software world. This was an important revelation about transparency achieved without even getting to a vote.

Secondly, there has been increased attention on the difference between real harassment as opposed to the counter-accusations that appear all too frequently from leaders covering up their own rogue behavior. Harvey Weinstein's lawyer publicly blamed his victims and the outgoing US president claimed to be a victim of lynching. Leaders of certain free software organizations cry the same crocodile tears. Let us remember the original words chosen by young women coming into our environment are the only genuine examples of harassment. With or without a vote, I remain committed to allocating a share of my time to courageous volunteers like this. Their willingness to speak up gives me hope that the leaders of tomorrow may be better than the office holders of yesterday.

The ultimate achievement of my short campaign is to depart gracefully. I couldn't think of a better time to do so. This is what leadership looks like. Either you understand that or you don't.

I didn't nominate simply to resign. While the censorship of my nomination email was unpleasant, I'm about to take on another responsibility and ensure I prioritize correctly and ensure the right balance exists between my free and open source software activities. I continue to dedicate time to the OpenPOWER / Talos II platform, the Domoticz, Zigate and Zigbee integration and my bread-and-butter, free real-time communications, which is more important than ever right now.

I wish all the candidates good luck.