Stuart Mackintosh Nominated for TPF President
Mon, 17-Jun-2019 by
Jim Brandt
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< since 1999.
Over that time, he has worked with several open source organizations including OFE, FSFE and other Open Source industry associations around the globe. Most recently Stuart lead [OpenUK](https://openuk.uk/about-us/openuk-board/) - a not-for-profit organization that advocates the use of open source in the UK and supports the development of the supply chain and customer base.
He is an avid advocate for Perl and has worked through his company to support Perl community initiatives.
Below are Stuart's answers to the questions we ask of all board nominees:
* Why do you want to become a member of the TPF Board?
> I have been involved with Perl for 25 years, firstly as a developer, then building on Perl to develop an Open Source solution implementation business.
> Additionally, I lead OpenUK the not-for-profit UK Open Source industry association and a couple of other business interests.
> Perl has enabled a great deal to be achieved for my customers and many have gone on to be highly successful.
> Perl has given a great deal but also has missed many opportunities. I am not one to throw stones but seek the part I can play in making things better. An invitation to join TPF means that I can return something back to the community and also see if I am able to help TPF take a bigger step forward.
* What existing TPF initiative(s) are most important to you and why?
> TPF provides a valuable role within the overall steering of Perl and the conferences are an essential part of the technical progression. Managing revenues and grants is important to developing the communities and having this function on neutral grounds supports integrity and sustainability of Perl as a whole.
> Of greatest importance are the established Perl communities.
* What goals would you like to see TPF pursue in the future?
> 1. Pragmatic advocacy: Perl is excellent, and is a standard component of most digital things. I would like more people to know how and why they should also know this. The reasons that I selected Perl 25 years ago are as relevant today to the new generations of digital pioneers.
>> With my Perl team, an initiative was launched [some years back](http://whyperl.info/) however in isolation we were not able to gain traction and develop further. Although the site is outdated, the reasoning is not so I propose that we set goals for communications and awareness.
> 2. Sponsors: An increase in breadth of sponsors is important to strengthen the TPF foundation and to do this, a value proposition is required.
> 3. Student resources: Developing appropriate resources as 'on-ramps' to Perl for beginners and students would enable them to get more done as well as broaden the Perl communities.
> Also important to me is the security profile of Perl, it's brand identity, and maintaining quality of everything we do under the Perl name.
Following our standard policy, we invite the community to comment or ask questions of Stuart for a period of two weeks.
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Comments (3)
Thank you for considering joining TPF!
Glad to hear you mention revenues & grants, which are very important to the Grants Committee.
Looking forward to the discussion.
Welcome!
What are your thoughts on Perl 6 in the future of Perl ?
Thank you Elizabeth. I was involved in the development of a P6 app recently.
My early thoughts are that it is promising and if the P6 approach can be augmented with the P5 breadth, it has quite some potential.
However, it will take more than just a strong language to gain adoption.
We (the community) need to work out what future we want for P6 and Perl as a whole so before I can add any value to you and I propose this as the first activity.
It will likely draw debate and probably rekindle some of those debates that have been swept under the carpet - then we should be able to look forward, choose what we want, and get on with it.
