BenjaminMakoHill
I'm Benjamin Mako Hill and this is my page in the Ubuntu Wiki. I'm been contributing to free software for nearly 15 years now(!) and was a member of the small team of people that founded the company that became Canonical Ltd. and the project that became Ubuntu.
I'm also running for another term on Ubuntu Community Council which you can read about below. If you are a voting UbuntuMember -- and even if you're not -- I'd appreciate your support!
You can lots more about me on this page or on:
Copyrighteous (my blog)
[https://launchpad.net/~mako|My Launchpad Page]]
You can get ahold of me by emailing mako@ubuntu.com or by any of the ways listed on my contact page.
My Work in Ubuntu
Over the years, I've been lucky enough to play a number of roles in Ubuntu that have allowed to watch the Ubuntu community grow and, in some situations, have allowed me help influence it as well. Here's a list of some of some highlights:
I was part of the founding team of a dozen or so people originally codenamed The Warthogs that help come up with the idea for Ubuntu and helped put together Ubuntu's first release (4.10 Warty Warthog) over the middle part of 2004.
In addition to some technical work at the project, I was Ubuntu's first "community guy" for the first 18 months of the project -- a role now filled wondefuly by JonoBacon.
As the community guy, I was lucky enough to be the person who announced Ubuntu to the world!
I ended up writing many of what have become the foundational documents of Ubuntu project. This includes the Code of Conduct, the Leadership Code of Conduct, the Community Governance pages, and many more.
I was a founding member of CommunityCouncil and I've served on it since the beginning. I'd like to think that I've played a productive role in many of the toughest community issues that Ubuntu has faced to date!
I am the first author of the Official Ubuntu Book which is now in its 4th edition and which is distributed under a Free Culture license. I've had the pleasure of working with a long list of other Ubuntu contributors including JonoBacon, CoreyBurger, MatthewHelmke, JonathanJesse, IvanKrstic, and others!
I am also an author of the Official Ubuntu Server Book where I played a supporting role to KyleRankin.
I continue to be a CoreDeveloper for Ubuntu, although these days I don't upload to Ubuntu very frequenly as most of my contributions fall into the broad category of community and documentation work.
My Work Outside of Ubuntu
Free, Libre, and Open Source Software -- I usually call it free software -- has been the center of my professional and social life what is now a majority of the time that I've spent on earth! Ubuntu has been an important piece of it, but it's only one part.
I currently work as a Fellow and PhD Candidate in a joint program between the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Media Lab. I study how free software communities like Ubuntu work with a specific eye to understanding how we might make them work better!
I also spend a ton of my time volunteering on free software projects. The two major projects I work are are Ubuntu (of course) and Debian. I continue to be active in Debian although most of my work there boils down to maintaining [http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mako%40debian.org&comaint=yes [a handful of packages]].
I am also active involved in free software advocacy and outreach outside of work on specific projects. As part of this work, I sit on the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation.
Community Council Elections
Related pages: