JuhaSiltala
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== Community cheers == |
I have been active in the Ubuntu community since its inception in 2004. Since then, I have remained active within the IRC community, helped with bugs, participated in discussions, and promoted Ubuntu and free software locally and globally. I am a member of the IRC Team.
Many people know me better as 'topyli' online.
I have a Launchpad page. I signed the Ubuntu Code Of Conduct in March 2006.
I work at the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, University of Helsinki, as a researcher and a grad student. My work concentrates on the organization of distributed work, particularly of large free software projects and firm/community relationships.
History of contributions
Community and support
In 2004, I was a Debian user increasingly frustrated by the slow (at the time) progress of new stable GNOME versions into Debian Sid. I first heard about a new, very gnomish distribution that would always release right after GNOME, on GIMPnet's #gnome-hackers. I soon got a copy from no-name-yet.com, and as soon as I found out about Freenode's #ubuntu channel, I joined. Over there I spent a lot of time in the early years discussing Ubuntu, supporting newbies (my Debian knowledge put to good use), and of course learning a lot.
I cannot remember exactly when #ubuntu became too big for general community chat and #ubuntu-offtopic was created. I joined there as well, and never left. I did, however, eventually leave #ubuntu in favor of #ubuntu-fi, the support channel of my LoCo team.
I joined the IRC operator team in late 2008. Despite frequenting numerous Ubuntu channels, I am one of the few "offtopic-only" operators on the team. I only work on #ubuntu-offtopic (and #ubuntu-fi-offtopic). I see it as my responsibility as a senior community member to work for a pleasant atmosphere in the lounge areas of the Ubuntu project, to welcome newcomers, and to try and show them how the community works.
I infrequently create a web comic based on witty or funny dialog heard on #ubuntu-offtopic, titled 'tales from the offtopic' on my blog. It is the most popular feature on my web site. Other popular topics have been
- HOWTO-like articles on mobile devices and GNU/Linux. Fortunately, these are rarely needed with Ubuntu these days
- Desktop organization and productivity tutorials
- Semi-political features on software freedom.
All in all, the site is not a major bandwidth hog.
LoCo and marketing
I am active in the #ubuntu-fi support channel, and an operator and cheerleader in #ubuntu-fi-offtopic. I am less active in official LoCo business than I would like to be, but I do try to give what I can.
I am a member of the Board of the Finnish Linux User Group since the beginning of 2009. I deal with and support our LoCo people also in this role. I was Chairman of the Committee to elect the Finnish Linux Contributor of 2009.
I am a very active Ubuntu evangelist both locally and in the international academic world. I started my ongoing academic work on free software and open development models around 2002. I like to think my work has raised interest and awareness there as well.
Technical work
I have never written a line of code for Ubuntu or any other project in my entire life. I have never fixed a single bug in any piece of software.
I do report bugs quite often though, in both Ubuntu and upstream, and do my best to assist those who eventually do fix them. Specifically, I file wishlist bugs when I find usability problems, desktop inconsistencies or suboptimal design. I also encourage others to ruthlessly do so. Yes, I am one of those annoying people.
Future plans
I want to become more active in my LoCo. I have an immediate opportunity coming up in the form of next year's aKademy conference, which will need support from both Ubuntu-fi and FLUG. I will continue my work on the IRC community and the IRC operators team. I want to push Ubuntu more actively in the Finnish public sector and education through evangelism, academic work and consulting.
I hope I can recognize as many opportunities as possible for making Ubuntu a little bit more awesome as they come by. Because they always do.
Community cheers
JuhaSiltala (last edited 2015-10-19 17:59:28 by topyli)