arklixs
I don't like the "Open-Source" approach that most projects these days take. Free Software in my definition a software that doesn't control the way you use your computer or hell not even have a say in your life and just lets you do your thing.
My philosophy closely aligns with Debian's Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) and that's the reason why I spend more time with Debian.
I'm an engineer first, developer second so I always prefer to license my research or scientific work under BSD as I always want derivative works to be used by others be it disclosing the modifications or not. BSD is my go-to license for all of my research work as research shouldn't be disturbed by politics.
I have, as a young teenager, never cared about open source or free software. In fact, I never heard of those terms during my childhood or teenage.
The only thing I knew was tinkering with electronics and playing games and browsing the internet. The first piece of free software that I probably used was VLC Media Player which still is a popular free media player. Second is probably Ubuntu 16 that eventually got bricked and I didn't know how to fix it.
It wasn't well until 2020 during my late teens that I discovered the browser wars and ditched Chrome to move to Firefox, the first free software app that I still use after 5 years.
Writing code was foreign to me until 2020 as well as I learnt Python during that time at high school. Until 2024, I haven't made any contributions to other projects other than my worthless projects.
It all changed in 2024 with my visit to UbuCon Asia 2024, my first ever big conference as well as my first ever solo trip. The trip was hella fun and I enjoyed the trip a lot but I also learnt that there's an entire community out there that works on the development of operating systems such as Ubuntu.
I began contributing to Ubuntu and Linux Mint in 2024 in the form of translations and soon extended my contributions to some GNOME software.
I got bored of translation real quick and one day during my Research Internship at National Institute of Technology, Warangal, I invented a really good tool during workhours to make debugging errors a lot easier. After I was done making the first few versions, I wanted to distribute the app and I asked for a bit of help from Debian community.
Unknowingly, I became a Debian packager. I came to Debian to package quickoverflow, my debugging helper tool but never packaged it but ended up working on packaging a lot of Python libraries into Debian. Soon, I also started contributing ports to FreeBSD as I found FreeBSD to have a really good future.
Debian
Current Role in the Debian Project: Sponsored Maintainer
Links:
- Debian Developer Dashboard (DDPO)
- Debian Salsa
- Debian Wiki Page
- portfolio.debian.net
- Debian Bug Reports
- contributors.debian.org
FreeBSD
Current Role in the Project: Ports Maintainer
Links: