Carl Schwan is an open-source developer from the KDE community. As part of his involvement in KDE, he focuses on providing excellent open-source and accessible end-user applications for mobile and desktop Linux usage. Over the years, Carl worked on many parts of the project, from C++ application development to promotion, release management, maintenance of the websites and wikis, fundraising activities, GSoC mentoring, translation, accessibility, REUSE/SPDX compliance and more. Aside from contributing to KDE in his free time, he regularly contributes to other open-source projects like Qt, Fedora, and the Matrix ecosystem. Carl is also a big proponent of open and federated networks like Matrix and ActivityPub. He currently works on a Matrix and a Mastodon client (called NeoChat and Tokodon) and in the past, he worked on ActivityPub server implementation called Nextcloud Social.
On the professional side, Carl worked as a software engineer on the open-source cloud service Nextcloud and was an IT consultant at KDAB. He works at GnuPG on integrating PGP into KMail, Kleopatra and other KDE-related projects for usage in the European public sector.
He currently lives in Berlin but is originally from France and he maintains a blog: https://carlschwan.eu/
How the candidate will contribute to the board
My experience inside the KDE community can be precious to OSI, as KDE is an almost 30-year-old open-source organization and one of the largest open-source communities not backed by a company. I want to help the OSI by sharing some experience accumulated by the KDE project over the years.
I also enjoy helping open-source projects on the technical side, which might not be that helpful for OSI, but also on everything else. For example, I can represent OSI at local and international events, help with fundraising, and handle the social media presence of OSI and its websites.
Why the candidate should be elected
I’m passionate about Open Source software and want to help the open-source movement in any way possible. Getting elected to the OSI board would be a continuation of the work I’ve been doing for years in promoting open source to companies and the public sector. While I am not a lawyer, I have always been interested in open-source licenses and appreciate some projects like REUSE and SPDX, which simplify licensing for open-source projects.