I know this decision is tough, as all the candidates in the list deserve an award. However, I hope that you'll chose to vote for my friend and colleague, Karen Sandler, for the 2015 Red Hat Women in Open Source Community Award. Admittedly, most of Karen's work has been for software freedom, not Open Source (i.e., her work has been community and charity-oriented, not for-profit oriented). However, giving her an “Open Source” award is a great way to spread the message of software freedom to the for-profit corporate Open Source world.
I realize that there are some amazingly good candidates, and I admit I'd be posting a blog post to endorse someone else (No, I won't say who :) if Karen wasn't on the ballot for the Community Award. So, I wouldn't say you backed the wrong candidate you if you vote for someone else. And, I'm imminently biased since Karen and I have worked together on Conservancy since its inception. But, if you can see your way through to it, I hope you'll give Karen your vote.
(BTW, I'm not endorsing a candidate in the Academic Award race. I am just not familiar enough with the work of the candidates involved to make an endorsement. I even abstained from voting in that race myself because I didn't want to make an uninformed vote.)
