Vox Pupuli Leadership Edit

Project Management Committee

Open-Source Communities nowadays gain a lot from having a structure that can take action when bad things happens, and also when improvement is needed. We already have a Code of Conduct in place, but we obviously need to ensure it is respected.

On August 22, 2016, after about 2 months of discussions, we merged the Governance Document. It describes the responsibilities of the actors of Vox Pupuli: Users, Collaborators, Contributors… and it describes a Committee, the Project Management Committee (PMC).

TL;DR: The Committees members are elected by the community for 1 year. They take care of the Code of Conduct and its values, participate in strategic planning, and decision making using lazy consensus, amongst other things.

The current list of PMC members can be found on GitHub. You need to be part of the Vox Pupuli GitHub organisation and logged in at GitHub to access the list.

Current PMC

Those are the current people in the 2025 PMC. The elections started with the announcement at config management camp in Ghent, on 2025-02-05.

Alex Fisher (alexjfisher)

My name is Alex Fisher. I’ve been a Linux system administrator, network, and DevOps engineer for over 20 years. I first contributed to Vox Pupuli in 2015 and was re-elected to the PMC last year. Originally working for myself as a freelance Puppet engineer, I later took a full-time job during COVID.

Luckily, I still get to do plenty of Puppet work—even if it’s sometimes on older operating systems. I know I’m not alone in this, and I believe this experience enables me to provide value to the community by representing those in similar situations.

Tim Meusel (bastelfreak)

My name is Tim Meusel, also known as bastelfreak. I am a Vox Pupuli collaborator since 2014 and a PMC member since the beginning. Puppet is my preferred automation toolkit since 2012. In the past decade I contributed to all major modules and tools within the Puppet ecosystem. I had the pleasure to get to know many other contributors and companies that use Vox Pupuli projects and I want to continue this journey.

Ben Ford (binford2k)

Ben is a software engineer and community leader with extensive knowledge and expertise in the Puppet ecosystem. He’s honored to call many of you friend and learn from you every day. He’s been organizing Linux Users Groups, run clubs, and roller derby teams for most of his adult life and even a bit before that. Before coming to Puppet, he taught Anthropology grad students how to code in Java and then used that experience to introduce Puppet to many of you.

He has been in this community for ages and has always played a very active role. In a past life, he was in charge of community at Puppet Labs / Puppet / Puppet by Perforce and, as a result, couldn’t really be on the PMC due to a conflict of interest… that is no longer the case.

Ewoud Kohl van Wijngaarden (ewoud)

My name is Ewoud Kohl van Wijngaarden, more commonly known as ekohl on GitHub. I’ve been around in the Vox Pupuli community since 2016 and a PMC member for the past 2 years. I was going to say not a lot has changed since my 2023 & 2024 nominations but then we forget the OpenVox situation. In my next term OpenVox and the increased demands it puts on Vox Pupuli will have my focus.

Garrett Honeycutt

Garrett Honeycutt is a contributor to the Puppet ecosystem since 2007. He authored the first style guide and helped create the first certification. In his time working with Puppet, he has trained thousands and spoken around the globe at various events on the value of Puppet automation tools. Recognized as a Puppet Champion, he is invested in our community and wants to see it thrive. He is an organizer of Configuration Management Camp and led a session on Vox Pupuli’s governance. With Vox Pupuli taking on OpenVox, he would like to join the PMC to ensure we have a well-designed and effective governance structure to support these new responsibilities and ensure the success of OpenVox and our community.

Robert Waffen

My Name is Robert Waffen. I’m a german Automation Engineer @ betadots. I often code for customers but also do some codeing for myself. Next to Puppet I also like to write some Ruby code. In my free time I like to play pc games, watch every scifi available to me, or read manags and comics.

Sebastian Rakel (Spritzgebaeck)

My name is Sebastian Rakel, I’m a german cloud engineer/devops dude in a small company named ServiceERP and love to automate things. In my free time I’m chairman of a hackerspace (Forschung und Technik e.V.), husband of a beautiful wife and father of an awesome daughter.

I was a PMC Member for the last two years, my work was mostly to review things and do some work on tools/pages.

Terms and Dates

Terms begin each year and start with the election anouncement. Usually during config management camp.

The nomination and voting periods will be held during the months of November and December, with each lasting for approximately two weeks. Precise dates will be announced each year by the Election Officer. When possible, the dates will be chosen to coincide with Puppet’s Contributor Summit, so as to reach a large number of community members with the announcement.

Elections

All elections are listed in the Vox Pupuli plumbing repository. Each election document is dated, so it should be easy to find the current election. Nominations are managed via the current election document. To nominate yourself or someone else, open an issue or submit a Pull Request adding the candidate to the candidate list. The dates for nomination and voting periods are listed within the document.

When nominations close, the election officer will create a Condorcet Poll of all eligible candidates and announce the voting period. Watch your email or check the election document for the link. You’ll be asked to rank your top 5 candidate choices.

After the election, the election officer will announce the results, and the newly elected PMC will take office on January 1.

In the case where 5 or fewer candidates are nominated, the voting process may be skipped.

Election Officer

The Election Officer should be appointed by the existing PMC and will be in charge of the following tasks:

According to our rules, the Election Officers can not run in the Election.

If the existing PMC term has expired, then the Election Officer will also assume the duties of project communication until a new Committee is elected and terms begin.