1. Identification & Account Data -------------------------------- First name: Axel Last name: Beckert Key fingerprint: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE Account: abe Forward email: abe@deuxchevaux.org ID check passed, key signed by 51 existing developers. I do not include the output of keycheck.sh as it would be much longer than the rest of the mail. For a list of the signatures you need to get a msd ranking of 129, have a look at http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/mk_path.cgi?STAT=95930ede&STATS=statistics 2. Background ------------- Applicant writes: > Finally, please tell me about yourself, Studied Computer Science with minor Biology at Saarland University. Currently working as system administrator at Department of Physics at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich), mainly responsible for web, mail, dhcp and some infrastructure servers, but also helping out with file servers, linux workstations and Linux thin clients. > > how you came to GNU/Linux and free software, All the computers in the students' pools at university ran SunOS. I quickly started to like the far better commandline compared to DOS. In the very beginning, Linux was for me just a way to get those neat features also at home. A student fellow gave a SuSE 4.4 CD box during my first semester, that became my first personal Linux box which survived my whole study time. From my second semester until I left university, I was active at the computer science students' council. They had quite a mixture of unixoid boxes (SunOS, Nextstep, Sinix), but all their Linux boxes were running Debian GNU/Linux at that time. So after I made my first experiences with SuSE and YaST, I tried Debian which my friends at the council already praised as stable and easy to upgrade at that time. If I remember correctly, I started with Debian 2.0, skipped 2.1 (can't remember why), then worked quite a while with 2.2. Potato was the version which started to draw my attention to Debian. I remembered I got a set of Woody pre-release CDs for my birthday, so my friends already knew I preferred Debian. During the Woody time I also started contributing to Debian. Things I clearly remember are the Linuxday.lu 2003 where I installed Woody on my Hamilton Hamstation (a SparcStation 4 clone) with assistance of Andreas Tille and Sven Luther. Later I carried this machine to a Sarge-Release BSP to test the Sarge upgrade. Can't tell when my interest in the political part of free software started, but Debian surely played an not so unimportant part in it. Since FrOSCon 2009, I'm also an FSFE Fellow. During my studies I also started to write my own software which I published under GPL. One of these programs is wApua which was the first software I packaged for Debian. With that software I also learned what the GPL is about and what not after noticing that someone used the code in one of his products. > > and why you want to volunteer your time. Because I think, Debian is the best Linux (and FreeBSD :-) distribution for me. And probably for many other people, too. I would like to make it even better, fit into even more niches, becoming even closer to the universal operating system it aims to be > > Please describe the contributions you have made to Debian, Maintaining several packages, the most important ones are: conkeror -- my most popular package. My packaging also brought me upstream commit access. amora-server -- adopted from upstream packager, also have upstream commit access. dphys-config -- software which is developed at my employer, adopted from a coworker blosxom -- co-maintainer and upstream release manager, helped Rhonda bringing the Debian enhancements back into upstream. Caring about ftp.ch.debian.org. This is part of my job, but not only done during work times. Helping aurel32 and tarzeau to run and maintain io.debian.net and asdfasdf.debian.net, the first two Debian GNU/kFreeBSD porter machines. Writing porter patches (last two I remember: aiccu and i3status 1.x for kfreebsd-*). Running my own kFreeBSD box, giving access to porters (screen, bash and ksh have been fixed for kFreeBSD on that box by Hessophanes) and presenting it at Debian booths as show-case like last weekend at BLIT. Organized several Debian booths at fairs and other events, at least Linuxdays.lu 2003, BLIT 2009, helped organizing the booths at ApacheCon 2005 and FOSDEM 2008. Staffed Debian booths at many other events. Attended several bug-squashing parties. Helped organizing some local Debian birthday, release and bug-squashing parties. > > your primary areas of interest within Debian, There are several main interests which partially overlap: * Ports, mostly Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, but also Sparc, Alpha, and ARM(EL). * Debian on low-end / embedded machines including NSLU2, * OpenMoko, Alix boards, MicroClient/eBox and netbooks like the early EeePCs. * Keyboard-focussed X applications (window managers, browsers, etc.) and everything text-mode and commandline. > > and any goals you wish to accomplish. Helping Debian to keep the big choice of software it offers. The big amount of software is one of the things I like a lot with Debian, I know it's hard to maintain such a big amount of software, so that's one point where I want to help. Keeping good contact between package maintainers and upstream authors, independent on which side I am. Keeping good contact to downstream distributions (especially Ubuntu and grml) for my packages, especially conkeror and amora-server. 2a. Advocate writes -------------------------------------------- From: Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org> I know Axel since studying at the Saarland University. We were both members of the student's council in the CS department. I think it was him who teached me how to really configure fvwm. He's been a close follower of the open source world in general and Debian in specific much longer than I have been, being an editor of symlink.ch. I have been sponsoring uploads for him for some years now. The packages were always in good shape, and discussing ideas for improvements with Axel was always a source of inspiration for both sides. He is well connected to other parts of Debian as well, with co-maintenance of two packages, and having uploads sponsored by several people. On IRC, XTaran is an #debian.de regular helping users, and often keen to dig into issues to find the root of the problem. I wholeheartedly recommend Axel to become a Debian Developer. 3. Philosophy and Procedures ----------------------------- Axel has a good understanding of Debian's philosophy and procedures and answered all my questions about the social contract, DFSG, BTS, etc. in a good way. He committed to uphold the SC and DFSG in his Debian work and accepts the DMUP. 4. Tasks and Skills ------------------- Axel has a good understanding of the technical side of Debian. He is maintainer of several packages, for some of them he is also the upstream developer. All packages are in good shape. He also answered my other questions regarding T&S without problems. 5. Recommendation ----------------- I wholeheartedly recommend to accept Axel Beckert as a Debian Developer, especially since Axel is doing a lot of good work for Debian for a lot of years now (definitely longer than myself), even without being an official Debian Developer. He is not only helpful on irc, but also spends a lot of his 'real life' time on travelling to conferences and meetings to run Debian booths and/or hold talks about Debian or related themes. -- Bernd Zeimetz Debian GNU/Linux Developer http://bzed.de http://www.debian.org GPG Fingerprints: 06C8 C9A2 EAAD E37E 5B2C BE93 067A AD04 C93B FF79 ECA1 E3F2 8E11 2432 D485 DD95 EB36 171A 6FF9 435F
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