Report for 'Debian Developer, uploading' applicant Afif Elghraoui
Hello,
I recommend to accept Afif Elghraoui as a new Debian Developer, uploading.
The account name is afif.
* Applicant background
My name is Afif Elghraoui, my educational background is in physics and
bioinformatics, and I'm currently working as a bioinformatics scientist.
I started using Linux-based operating systems eight years ago after I was
introduced to it in my first programming class. I was immediately drawn to
the idea of unrestricted ("free") software for the reason that work done once
should not be billed multiple times, and that we can more easily build on
past achievements if we don't have to deal with restrictions like
those imposed by proprietary software.
Debian 4 was the first OS I ever used on my own machines after leaving Windows.
I then tried other distributions for some time and finally came back to using
Debian again over a year ago.
Some of the things I love about Debian are that it is a large community with
principles, that it aims to prioritize users' needs instead of developers'
philosophies, and that it has a governance structure that promotes consistency
in the system while not being controlled by a single business to the exclusion
of qualified community members.
I maintain seven packages (with five more currently in queue, and others still
as ITP on my to-do list) as part of the Debian Med team, largely in the areas
of genomics and systems biology. I also maintain one unrelated package (ori),
because I thought it was interesting and useful.
There are many parts of Debian that I'd like to work in, but I am primarily
interested in facilitating biological and medical research
and usability in general. Scientific software tends to
be difficult to install for many users, or may lack adequate test coverage
yet still have influential results in publications. While packaging the
software and assisting the upstream developers with QA helps, many users of such
software do not have administrative access to easily install and use our
packages. For this usability issue, for example, I would consider contributing to dpkg development.
I also understand that there are jobs nobody really wants to do, like checking
license texts, and I'd be willing to contribute some time to help minimize the
amount of work any single person has to put into such tasks.
Regards,
Jonathan McDowell
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