I recommend to accept Boris Pek as a Debian Developer. 1. Identification & Account Data -------------------------------- First name: Boris Middle name: - Last name: Pek Key fingerprint: EF83 5978 1239 A919 4D2D 7F59 D001 5BD1 28F3 9278 Account: tehnick 2. Background ------------- *** Who I am *** I am 25-year-old engineer living in Sevastopol, Ukraine. Unfortunately, everywhere around me (at my current job and at University where I studied) MS Windows and proprietary software are used. So FOSS (and Debian in particular) is just my hobby in a spare time. *** How I came to Debian *** First own laptop I bought only in 2006. I had no administrative control on other machines before and I started to experiment with pre-installed system. I installed BlackBox for Windows, made a lot of tweaks and other crazy things, but faced with few annoying limitations. Somewhere in the Internet I read about GNU/Linux ecosystem and decided to try few Linux distributions from iso-images which I found in local network of our Campus. (At that time we had quite fast and free local network vs. very slow and expensive Internet.) IIRC in dual-boot I tested Mandriva, Ubuntu and openSUSE before I stopped on Debian testing. The main reason was that we had regularly updated Debian mirror in our local network. Some time later I persuaded mirror owner to sync also unstable branch and since that time I use Debian Sid on all personal computers which I administrate. (Now there are six such devices and all users look satisfied.) At that time for chatting in our local network people were using some instant messengers based on ugly protocol which worked above UDP. I was not satisfied by available programs using this protocol and began leaning C++ and Qt to write own instant messenger. Except it I wrote also own smb- and ftp- searchers (we used these protocols for file-sharing up to 2009 year). Of course all my programs were under free licenses. Both sources and pre-compiled binaries were available. Then I made my first deb-packages and added them into my Debian mirror. Some people requested me to make packages for few other programs which were not available in official Debian repo and I made them. At that time tens of users were using my packages. After restructuring of Campus network people began using Direct Connect protocol for chatting and file-sharing. And again I was not satisfied by existing programs (LinuxDC++, Valknut and etc.), so I had been involved into developing of EiskaltDC++. Since our Internet connection became faster and cheaper I began using PPAs in Launchpad for maintaining my packages. At that time hundred of users were using my packages. Next step was an adding my packages into official Debian repository. I sent my first ITP and by a lucky coincidence I contacted with Dmitry E. Oboukhov who sponsored my first packages. It was a turning point. Looking back and considering my impression from debian-mentors mailing list I am not sure that I would became a Debian contributor without Dmitry's support on first steps. Thanks a lot to him. Currently thousands of users are using my packages. And this is nice. *** Why Debian now *** There are a lot of well-known reasons for using and contributing Debian. I think the most important are: * Debian is developing by community and any commercial company do not point to direction where it should go. Opposite examples are Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva and etc. * Debian Social Contract and DFSG. No comments required... * Strict Debian Policy. And hight quality of system as a result. * Debian is really universal OS. It can be used on embedded devices as well as on powerful supercomputers based on different architectures. But it is also convenient on usual PCs, laptops and netbooks. * Debian is an international OS. It is used by people from all over the world. Opposite examples are ALT Linux, Russian Fedora, AgiliaLinux and many other projects with small local FOSS communities. * Debian is a basis for many Debian-based distributions. Once you add packages into Debian they automatically will be available for many users who do not use Debian directly. And maybe something else which I forgot right now. *** My interests in Debian *** Currently I am mostly interested in: * IM (XMPP) and VoIP (SIP, Jingle) clients software. * File sharing (mostly p2p protocols like Direct Connect and BitTorrent). * Software for Numerical Simulations. * Cross-platform software. * QA work.
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