Skip to main content

2012 Candidate:
Ed Merks

President, Macro Modeling

Nominee for Committer Member representative

Eclipse Modeling Project Lead
Eclipse Modeling Framework Project Lead

email:  Ed.Merks at gmail.com

Vision

Eclipse has evolved over the years to become something quite different from its inception. Today it's driven by a vastly more diverse constellation of contributors: large and small commercial interests, educational institutions, and of course an ever growing dedicated committer community, i.e., people like you and me. With this increasing diversity, our influence as individuals grows unabated, presenting new challenges and exciting opportunities. As your committer representative on the board, I will employ my five years of experience to continue promoting the rights and privileges of committers and to fight for the issues and concerns near and dear to developers' hearts. As always, I intend to be a visible and approachable technical representative, who navigates the political landscape on your behalf. I feel I've demonstrated this with my track record over the years.

No doubt it sounds cliche, but I believe strongly that helping is its own reward. With many thousands of answers to questions across a wide range of Eclipse's newsgroups last year, and with active blogging to promote a sense of community, my track record is demonstrated with deeds not merely with words. I believe in being a positive influence, of balancing the drive to fix problems and to make improvements with recognition of the fact that real problems are difficult to solve and that what constitutes improvement is often highly subjective. A case in point is the issue of one committer one vote which required a change to the by-laws that was approved by the membership last year. Not everyone agrees this is an improvement, but I'm quite sure the vast majority of the committers will feel their vote this year is more influential than ever.

I will continue to work hard to ensure that Eclipse's processes are the best they can be and are ever improving. I believe in minimal processes that focus on best practices and achievable realistic results. I oppose restrictions that seek to coerce compliance to arbitrary questionable rules, particularly rules that are primarily designed to exclude certain groups or to make first and second class citizens in our community. I can be counted upon as the person who will speak up diplomatically even when personal risk is involved. As your representative I commit to working tirelessly to promote not only Eclipse itself but also the community that drives it. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your representative these past years. If reelected, you can count on the fact that Merks works for you.

About the Candidate

Ed Merks founded his own small consulting company, Macro Modeling. He is a coauthor of the authoritative book "EMF: Eclipse Modeling Framework" which is published as a second expanded edition. He has been an elected member of the Eclipse Foundation Board of Directors for the past five years and has been recognized by the Eclipse Community Awards as Top New Comer Evangelist, Top Ambassador, and Top Committer. Ed is well known for his dedication to the Eclipse community, posting literally thousands of newsgroup answers each year. He spent 16 years at IBM, achieving the level of Senior Technical Staff Member after completing his Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University. He is a partner of itemis AG and is currently living in Berlin. His experience in modeling technology spans twenty-seven years.

Affiliation

Macro Modeling, President
itemis AG, Partner

Back to the top