Most people know me as "Sean" and the guy behind BRL-CAD.  Elected to the board, some of my goals are to increase adoption of open source within federal and state governments, foster open source within academic contexts, and better promote awareness of the open source definition.  I offer fresh perspective, energy, hands-on experience, and a deep passion for open source.

About me

I'm a research scientist with more than 20 years experience working with academia, government, and commercial industry.  My primary areas of expertise and research include open source strategy and project management, software development, code hardening, computer graphics, and government open source licensing.  I have particularly extensive background managing and promoting open source in international federal government contexts and am an actively involved within the Military Open Source Software (Mil-OSS) community.

        I'm intimately familiar with open source.

In addition to CAD, I'm also contributor to a number of other open source projects including BZFlag, Haiku, Mediawiki, FTGL, FreeBSD, and others.  I've authored articles for the Open Source Business Resource, given technical talks on open source to the U.S. National Research Council, and generally promote open source at every opportunity.  I tirelessly worked for 5+ years to get BRL-CAD released as open source software.  Along the way and at a time when legal opinion was hard to come by, I became intimately familiar with particulars of free and open source software licensing, U.S. government regulations, international copyright issues, and common misconceptions about open source common among managers and developers alike.

        I believe there's outstanding potential in the public service sectors for an explosion of notable open source and open data activities.

Some stats just for fun, Ohloh indicates I've sustained π (pi) commits per day to open source over the past 15 years ranking me in the top 0.085%.  I love open source.  It's a better way to develop software and build communities.

        With me, you get hands-on experience.

My education is a B.S. in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and am an active professional member and supporter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and Solid Modeling Association (SMA).  I grew up and have lived around the world, speak multiple languages, and am proficient in 20+ programming languages.  I am currently pursuing a masters, a single malt Scotch zealot, a rower (crew), a coach (crew and STEM), a culinarian, a woodworker, and a dad.

        I embrace community and communication, living with balance and harmony.

Why I'm running for election

Because I can.  I truly believe in the power of engaging individuals, having them step up and take on leadership opportunities, and bringing in fresh perspective.  I've been involved with open source since the 80's -- long before the term was coined and OSI became established -- and have been an outspoken advocate since 2001.  I saw first hand the power and potential of the open source community.  Since making it part of my life, both personally and professionally, it's become a fantastic way to make the world a better place.

I would like to serve on the board for selfish and selfless reasons.  Collaborating with board and open source community members is a fantastic opportunity to learn, broaden perspective, and observe how our initiatives influence the greater community.  More importantly, though, I want to make a difference, directly contribute, help set policy, expand awareness, and encourage adoption of open source.  

Contact information

The best way to get in touch is by sending a message to 'brlcad' on the Freenode IRC network or send e-mail to morrison at brlcad dot org.
IRC | LinkedIn | Ohloh

Cheers!