xorg/ BoardOfDirectors/ Elections/ 2026

The X.Org Foundation is holding elections for

  • The Board of Directors
  • Adoption of changes to the Foundation By-Laws to align our fiscal year with SFC's

Election Schedule

  • Nomination period Start: Mon February 9th
  • Nomination period End: Mon March 9th
  • Publication of Candidates & start of Candidate QA: Mon March 16th
  • Deadline of X.Org membership application or renewal: Mon March 16th
  • Election Planned Start: Mon March 23rd
  • Election Planned End: Mon April 13th

PLEASE NOTE: The memberships of all X.Org Members have been expired, to participate in this election you MUST renew your membership by the deadline mentioned above! Please go to the Members page for your membership application or renewal.

The membership signup period has closed. It will re-open after the election is finished.

Board Election

The terms of the following Board Members will end this year:

Current directors whose term expires in 2026 are

  • Mark Filion
  • Erik Faye-Lund
  • Simon Ser
  • Neal Gompa

The Elections overview page describes the voting methods and process.

The election process starts with a 2 week nomination period. If you would like to nominate yourself please send email to the election committee elections@x.org, giving your

  • name
  • current professional affiliation
  • a statement of contribution to X.Org or related technologies
  • a personal statement.

The nomination period is now closed since March 9th.

To vote or to be elected to the Board you needed to be a Member of the X.Org Foundation. To be a Member of the X.Org Foundation you need to apply or renew your membership until the end of the nomination period.

Nominees (in alphabetical order)

Erik Faye-Lund

Current Affiliation: Collabora

Personal Statement:

Hey, I'm Erik and I work at Collabora as a principal engineer. My work there mostly evolves around Mesa, Panfrost, and open-source graphics in general. I also currently serve on the X.Org board.

I've been in the graphics industry for over two decades now, and I have some experience with organizational work as well. I've been arranging demoscene parties since the late 90s, and are on the board of a Norwegian demoscene interest organization as well.

If elected, I plan on trying to help out wherever I can. I have no big ambitions for radical change, but I'm also not opposed to modernizing things a bit where it makes sense.

Statement of Contribution:

I've been actively contributing to Mesa and the related projects since early 2013, touching almost every part of the stack on the way, from drivers to documentation.

I've also regularly attended XDC since 2018, and I usually come with some sort of presentation. It's one of my favorite conferences, and I would love to contribute to ensuring its future.

Mark Filion

Current Affiliation: Collabora

Personal Statement:

I have served on the X.Org board since 2020, elected as the first non-technical member (I am not a developer but a marketing guy). I organized the 2019 and 2024 editions of XDC in Montreal. In recent years, I have also taken on a recurring role in sponsorship renewals and have acted as an advisor to the organizers of both XDC 2025 and XDC 2026, helping ensure continuity and shared knowledge across events.

I have assisted with a number of tasks on the board including elections and the recurring sponsor drive. It has been really great to see open source graphics drivers flourish in recent years, and if re-elected, I hope to continue putting my marketing knowledge to use to make more noise for X.Org and support its ongoing growth. I am also proud to have played a role in the successful completion of X.Org's transition to a new fiscal sponsor, a key milestone for the Foundation.

Statement of Contribution:

Senior Marketing Manager @ Collabora. Organizer of XDC 2019 & 2024 in Montreal.

Neal Gompa

Current Affiliation: Velocity Limitless

Personal Statement:

I'm a big believer in trying to contribute to the success of what I use as a way to pay things forward. Admittedly, I'm no amazingly super-wise desktop developer (though I do get around and contribute code to a variety of projects...), but I've been a Linux desktop user for most of my life now, and I appreciate all the amazing work everyone does. If my being part of the X.Org Board of Directors can help with the growth and success of the FOSS desktop community, then I'm happy to step up and help out.

Statement of Contribution:

In the context of the Xorg/FreeDesktop space, I participate in the Wayland protocol discussions and help with reviews in various components in the graphics stack. I also attempt to contribute to a variety of projects in order to support the growth and adoption of the next generation of FOSS desktops. I am also one of the lead maintainers for Wayback.

Timur Kristóf

Current Affiliation: Valve (contractor)

Personal Statement:

My goal is to improve the Linux open source driver stack to make gaming on Linux more viable for a wider audience and make the drivers more stable and fully featured. We've experienced an unprecedented growth in this space in the past few years. I've been at it since 2019. When I started, it was rare for a game to perform well (or even work well) on Linux. Thanks to the efforts of our community, it is now the norm.

I am looking forward to contributing more than just code and learning about the organizational aspects of X.org too. I'd be happy to help organize events such as XDC and more.

Statement of Contribution:

I've been working on Mesa professionally since 2019 as a contractor for Valve. I've participated in the development of the ACO backend compiler, the RADV Vulkan driver, as well as the NIR compiler infrastructure. I led the development of mesh shading in Mesa. Starting from 2025 I also contribute to the amdgpu kernel driver. My latest pet project is making the driver stack work better on older AMD GPUs so that Linux gaming becomes feasible for an even wider user base.

Manasi D Navare

Current Affiliation: Graphics Software Engineer @Google

Personal Statement:

I have passionately contributed to open source for the last 12 years, working on the Intel Linux Graphics kernel driver to upstream DRM support for VESA display features like Display Stream Compression, Adaptive Sync, enabling DP 2.1 UHBR rates for Intel platforms and worked on enabling these on Chromium OS for Google Chromebooks.

I previously served on the X.org Board of Directors where I helped review XDC submissions. I was also on the Freedesktop Code of Conduct committee and served as Treasurer. I have also worked to mentor upstream contributors at Intel and Google.

If I get elected again, I aim to continue foster a collaborative and inclusive environment in open source graphics community by helping with Code of Conduct and help with XDC planning/reviewing/organizing.

Statement of Contribution:

I am a Graphics Software Engineer at Google and an open source contributor to enable and upstream display features in DRM and enable them in Chromium OS. Recently I have also been contributing to the upstream DRM Hardware Composer HAL to interface with DRM/KMS. My most favorite contribution has been to fix the Linux black screen issues by adding DRM KMS property to signal link training failures which is now used by all Open source drivers.

Alyssa Rosenzweig

Personal Statement:

I've been in the Mesa community since 2018, when I brought up the free OpenGL drivers for contemporary Mali GPUs (Panfrost). After a five year detour reverse-engineering Apple's GPU and bringing conformant OpenGL/Vulkan/OpenCL to Apple Silicon via Asahi Linux, I'm now hacking on Mesa's Intel drivers.

I see software freedom as one prong of a collective fight for a better world in the digital era. While small, our community has a role to play. Our work matters. Doing our jobs well while staying true to our values matters. Above all, our values matter.

I previously served on the X.Org Foundation board from 2022-2024. Due to personal reasons I did not run again in 2024.

Simon Ser

Personal statement:

I've been involved in FreeDesktop.Org for a few years now, starting with Wayland then DRM + Mesa. I'm part of the sysadmin and CoC teams. I've been serving in the BoD for the last two years, with a focus on securing sponsors for XDC. I'd like to continue helping out for the next two years!