New Maintainers
This is a summary of the AM report for Week Ending 23 Jan 2005.
12 applicants became maintainers.
Gaudenz Steinlin <gaudenz>
"As you probably already know, my name is Gaudenz Steinlin and I live in
Bern, Switzerland. I'm 28 year old. I'm currently studying Sociology and
Mathematics at the University of Bern. I will finish my studies with a
masters degree in about a year.
I came to Unix and Linux in summer 1995 when I was attending a Computer
Science Camp for high school/college students at the Computing Center of
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. There we were using some
flavour of UNIX and another student told me about Linux which he said
was licensed under Copyleft so anyone can download it for free. I then
downloaded some Slackware disk sets with my modem at home and started
playing with Linux. Later I tried SuSE because it was the only
distribution available on CD in most Swiss book stores. About three
years ago I started using Debian because I got annoyed by all those
wizards SuSE implemented in YaST. They changed things I strange ways.
Debian is my primary choice as Linux Distribution since then.
Most of my Linux skills I learned while working for the Computer
Services Department of the University of Bern. I implemented the first
Linux solutions there. Among other things I set up a cluster for "High
Performance Computing" and gave introductory courses to Linux for system
administrators. Currently I'm teaching basic Linux System Administration
for the Swiss Institute of Intellectual Property. They want to do a LPI
L1 certification for some of their Windows System Administrators.
Since about half a year I'm working on the debian-installer project. I
was looking for a free software project to get involved with and this
project was listed on debians /devel/todo website. I also attended the
Oldenburg d-i debcamp. After becoming a Debian Developer I intend to
continue to work on debian-installer. If someday d-i will be perfect and
nothing more needs to be done (I don't expect this to happen in the next
few months :-) ) I will look for another part of Debian that needs help.
I'm also interested in making Debian more friendly to computer newbies
while still having a good distribution for experts. I will probably also
maintain some packages (see below) but this is not my main interest and
I'm more interested in team efforts where I can learn from others and
work with them (and hopefully someone can also learn from my experience)
than in doing packaging work all on my own.
I'm really convinced of the idea of free software and I think that this
software development model is superior to proprietary software for
practical and philosophical reasons. This is the main reason why I want
to contribute to Debian. After using free software for several years and
also earning some money with it I think it's time to give something
back. Free Software is also a great way to learn more and I hope that my
skills will constantly improve while working for Debian."
Pascal Giard <pascal>
"I've been using GNU/Linux for about 6 or 7 years now. i'm a student in
electric engineering, mostly interested in asynchronous electronics
(asynch cpu design using VHDL, implemented in FPGAs). I'm also
interested in building free (still as in freedom) hardware (see
http://www.opencores.org/faq.cgi/section/2/2.1#2.1)
I've being trying to use GHDL and IVI for my VHDL compilation and
simulation needs, but failed so far (briefly, it's because the support
for ieee.std_logic.{arith,signed,unsigned} isn't fully working yet)
Piracy, a domain from which i've retired 5 years ago, brought my
attention on GNU/Linux and free software in general. The more i got to
know free software and GNU/Linux (the moral motivations, cooperation
habits, ethics) the more i was losing interest in piracy.
About ethics, i consider myself as a part of the free software
movement, not open source (as explained at www.gnu.org). I want to
contribute time to Debian because its structure as proven it's
efficiency and mostly because Debian is the closest to my philosophy
(even tho there's a president (i know he's not irrevocable, but
still...)).
It's also because i feel it's very important to share knowledge
(knowledge shouldn't be selled even less applications/softwares),
volonteer time to build a free platform and eventually a free
computer."
A Google search turns up his homepage at http://organact.mine.nu/ .
Bruno Barrera <bruno>
"I am a nineteen years old student currently studying
engineering at the Universidad del Mar of Chile. I first started using
Linux in July 2001, and then Debian in January 2002. I am currently
working at Computacion Integral S.A [1] as a system administrator.
I am also an editor of the "Linux Users from Chile"[2] portal,
where I usually post news related to Debian, and give some support to
new users.
I first started working on Debian by translating man-pages to
Spanish for programs such as dselect, dpkg-deb and dpkg-name, and I
then moved on to become a package maintainer. I currently maintain
aget, giFToxic and xmms-defx which are all in the archive.
I intend to continue doing translation work in Debian as I
feel it is an important part of the project. I also want to continue
maintaining packages, and fixing bugs, as well as looking for good
projects which I could package for Debian. Finally, I intend to
continue helping people on mailing lists such as debian-mentors where
a lot of people are asking for sponsors, or at least for someone to
take a look a their packages, as it is an important job."
[1]: http://www.debian.org/users/#ComputacionIntegral
[2]: http://www.linuxchile.cl
Max Vozeler <xam>
"I'm 21, living in Berlin (Germany) and currently finishing the
compulsory civilian service that we have over here working in an
IT youth education center. I have worked as a system administrator
mostly for Linux systems before that.
There was one key event that got me curious about Linux and the
Free Software community. Some weeks after I had gotten access to
the internet for the first time in 1995, I found someone on IRC
who knew Linux well and was happy to answer my questions. This
nice guy from the UK spent literally days walking me through my
first Linux installation, patiently explaining each step and
much more in between.
We didnt get the system to boot, but the enthusiasm that he had
put into explaining things to me had made a strong impression.
I tried again some time later with a Slackware and then a SuSE
with a good printed manual. After a few days the system was
working and I was hooked up, joined the local LUG and continued
to use Linux. The switch to Debian Bo came after SuSE recklessly
destroyed my newly discovered configuration tweakings."
Luk Claes <luk>
"I was born on the 12th of February 1980. I just graduated as Master in
Computer Science. I live in Belgium (Ghent). I have tried many (GNU-)
Linux distributions: Mandrake, Redhat, Corel, Suse, Debian and maybe
others I can't remember ;-) The main reasons why I chose Debian were the
security and apt. I keep using Debian because I like the freeness (in
beer as well as in speech), the security (in general as well as the
quick updates), the high packaging standards (policy and best
practices), the release system (experimental - unstable - testing -
stable), the BTS, the PTS and apt of course ;-) I want to give back to
the community by being a package maintainer, by reporting and solving
bugs in general. As a DD I would like to squash bugs (NMU simple and
maybe harder RC-bugs ...), help qa and nm, and maybe help with
autobuilding (I have no 'exotic' hardware yet though ;-) )."
Lucas Wall <lwall>
"My name is Lucas Wall. I'm 27 years old and I'm currently studying
computer engineering. I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. My regular
job is as a developer, but I also worked (and still put out fires) as
a Linux sysadmin. On my free time I develop free software. My first
contact with Linux was 10 years ago, with Slackware, and I immediately
fell in love with the concept of "free software". A couple of years
ago I had to relinquish some of my sysadmin tasks to spend more time
developing, so I decided to look for a distro with a good package
distribution system. I had tested Debian in the past (Potato) and I
decided to give it a try once again. Now Debian is my distro of choice
and the one I recommend. I'm currently maintaining the popfile package
and would like to help in the continual effort to translate Debian to
Spanish. I think that what makes Debian great is the effort lots of
people do to make an excellent job and I would like to put my grain of
sand."
Lionel Elie Mamane <lmamane>
"I became involved with the local free software crowd there (mostly
introduced by Joost van Baal). In November 2001, due to the lacking of
any LUG, UUG, BUG or similar group open to anyone (the local
university has a computers enthusiast club (which for all practical
purposes is an Unix users group, in the strictest interpretation of
"Unix": BSD's, Solaris, Ultrix, ..., but no "written-from-scratch"
clone like GNU/Linux or the GNU), but it is open only to students
(maybe staff, too)), Joost van Baal created Enosig, the "Eindhoven
Open Source Interest Group" to serve that purpose.
One year later, noticing that it wasn't going anywhere, I had a chat
with Joost. We agreed that starting immediately, Enosig would stand
for "Eindhoven Free Software Users Group", and I started advertising
it a bit. My hope was to attract newbies in need of help, which we
did not achieve, but it got us a few more people subscribed to the
mailing list, and an interesting Debian GNU/Hurd install party... We
recently did a "coup", when Bruce Perens was in Eindhoven, and we
organised dinner with him + talk by him."
Florent Rougon <frn>
"Hello! My name is Florent Rougon, I'm 24 years old and I live in France,
at about 10 km south of Paris. I've been a Debian user since 1999-2000.
That experience, following my first contacts with TeX&friends and Emacs
on MS-Windows in 1999, gradually made me appreciate the whole value of
free software---that is, not only its technical merits.
As I started to feel at ease as a Debian user, I became interested in
understanding how the fine packaging system worked and applied the newly
acquired skills to small pieces of software I had written in the
meantime (PyXMMS, PyXMMS-remote). That is basically how I got on the
track of doing something about, instead of only following, Debian
development. I intend to contribute what is needed in my eyes for Debian
to provide a decent service to its users in the areas I care most about
(i.e. currently, mainly Python, Emacs and TeX)---and that is precisely
how I got to package lmodern."
László Böszörményi <gcs>
"I am Laszlo Boszormenyi, from Hungary. You can use the nick GCS, or call
me Laszlo. I am working for a chemical factory as a software engineer in
the process industry field, and also a Linux related company as a
developer. Meanwhile I am doing my second degree at University of
Miskolc. As when I was young, I was a demo coder on C64 (thus few of you
may already know me, like David Weinehall do), I somewhat experienced with
assembly too, but I was not followed assembly on other platforms.
My plans for Debian is to help out with packages, mainly with server
side ones, as I am already a member of Mailman, XML related packages and
Grub packaging groups, but I really contributed only to Mailman yet. But
I am experienced with kernel, Subversion, Apache and Gnome packages as
well, and C/C++/Java/Perl in general. Also with time I would like to help
new maintainers to work on existing packages in Debian instead of
providing new ones. I really would like to see timely releases."
Mattia Dongili <malattia>
"I'm a quite experienced developer (IMO :)), and I'd like to help
debian development mainly. I've already packaged my own software and
I'm going to package a 3rd party sw at the moment. I'd like to go on
packaging and I will adopt some orphaned package soon. If my spare
time will grow I'd also like to put my efforts helping some bigger
debian project. Well... How this fits the SC... Seems obvious, I'll
try to explain: I want Debian to grow, to be used more and more in
many different areas, I can help for what my experience in some of
those areas. Being used means users are to happy with Debian. Other
than that, I absolutely agree Debian has to stay free, I 'm convinced
about the fact that the progress is absolutely related to knowledge
sharing, in software development this means publicly available code
and expecially ideas, algorithms...
I start using linux at the University in Verona, Italy, in 1994/5
without being aware of the FS/OS. A couple of years later when I had
my first home computer I had the possibility to better understand what
GNU/Linux is. Again, I think this obvious in scientific communities to
share one's knowledge. I want to volunteer to give my contribution in
a shared environment. I chose Debian because it meets my ideas and we
are going the same direction."
Micah Anderson <micah>
"What I particularly like about the Debian Social Contract is that it
is a contract explicitly made between Debian and the Free Software
community. This contract ensures that the elements of the Debian
system that are distributed will be done so with an intentionality
towards preserving and propogating Free Software, and the freedom
inherant therein. It is an assurance to the upstream developers that
their software, their hard work, their ideals which compose their
motiviation and beliefs for making this software, will not be
corrupted, misused, co-opted or otherwise diluted in the packaging,
distribution and work involved in the Debian project. While Free
Software is packaged and distributed by other distributions which do
not have a social contract, the Debian social contract, and the DFSG,
is what makes Debian unique and enables upstream developers to have
the freedom to develop in a safe haven, or open space. It provides a
space where the freedom imbued in each piece of free software is
encouraged to grow, rather than be stifled, in a community devoted to
the very fundamental ideals which comprise its elements. It is the
base by which all aspects of the Debian project are able to flourish,
instead of being a project motivated by some other underlying
foundation (such as proftit, service, etc.), it is instead motivated
and driven by the same ideals that comprise the software by which it
is composed. It inspires growth and revitilization back into the
upstream software which is beneficial to Debian, but also to the
greater community of Free Software. The fact that Debian makes this
explicit that it is part of a community that gives back to itself in
maintaining the freedom of its packages, and working in an open and
transparant way is very powerful and has been the primary reason why I
choose Debian over any other GNU/Linux distribution or any of the BSDs."
Florian Ernst <florian>
"I was born on September, the 25th, 1977 in Detmold, Germany, as the
second of (later) four sons in my family.
[...]
After finishing school and social service (mandatory) I started to
study mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of
Heidelberg, Germany, but had to realize how I fooled myself into
believing this could work out and had to reorientate with respect to
my future career. Some lessons in philosophy, macro- and
microeconomics later I finally settled down on japanology, psychology
and sociology which I'm still studying today, slowly approaching my
master degree now and all this time being accompanied by my (now)
fiancée.
[...]
Back in Germany I installed Debian in March, the 17th, 2003. I can
tell for sure, as this was basically the only Debian installation I've
ever done... Since then I explored the system and read a lot,
including lurking on the Debian mailinglists.
On June, the 16th, 2003 I couldn't keep my mouth shut and started to
post to the mailinglists. Somehow I didn't really manage to stop doing
so... ;)
But over time this proved not to be enough so I started to do some
real work for Debian, and that's how I finally came here to NM."
The longer text he provided about himself can be found at
http://ernst.uni-hd.de/debian/myintro.asc
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
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