On 2/16/25 8:21 AM, Dan "Strit" Johansen wrote:
# Package Maintainer Application
Hi everyone
My name is Dan Johansen, but known around the interwebs, Matrix and AUR as Strit, and I am sending in my application to become an Arch Linux Package Maintainer.
Hey Dan, Thanks for applying as a Package Maintainer, good luck!
Morten Linderud (Foxboron) and Carl Smedstad (carsme) have kindly agreed to be my sponsors in this adventure.
I’m a family man, with a wife and 2 kids, we are from Denmark and currently living in the southern region.
My first run-in with Linux was just over 20 years ago at school where I was tasked to setup a firewall using Red Hat. Then I had a break for about 10 years and came back in around 2013, where I started on Ubuntu, then switched to Manjaro in 2015-2016, where I became part of the dev team and a package maintainer of the ARM branch of the distribution and started maintaining some AUR packages. In 2021 I then switched to regular Arch and have been enjoying my time ever since.
Interesting journey! You experience with ARM will surely be beneficial for our eventual future endeavors :)
My PKGBUILDs in the AUR are not perfect, so I am still learning standards and best practices. But I’ve been eager to contribute to Arch any way I can. I tend to help open source projects with bug reports, support assistance and translations where ever I can.
Actually, your PKGBUILDs generally looks pretty good! I haven't done an "in-depth" review off all of them (as you maintain quite a bunch) but, after a quick glance, they generally look to be high quality and seem to apply the "recent" expected standards, such as SPDX license identifiers! I could still spot some things here and there that could be improved, from the quick review I made: - Declaring the same packages both in the "depends" and "makedepends" array (e.g. in gretd-qtgreet [1]) serves no purpose. If such packages are needed at both buildtime and runtime, listing them in the "depends" array is enough [2]. - Creating config files during the `prepare()` function by redirecting "echoed" output into it (e.g. as done in tui-mines [3] & tui-sudoku [4]) isn't so "elegant" in my opinion. I would personally distribute them as a local file within the AUR repo, which would allow for a better readability of the PKGBUILD and an increased transparency / security, as said files can then be locked & verified checksum wise (like other element of the source array). - Apart from some specific cases, doing modifications on users' system via an install script is unexpected and discouraged. For instance, the "intune-portal-bin" [5] install script replacing the `/etc/os-release` file by an Ubuntu one on people's system without any prior notice is pretty unconventional and unexpected (despite being necessary for the software to work properly). In my opinion, it should (at best) give instructions about it, but not perform the action itself (specifically without any form of notice beforehand, which could lead to unexpected issues for users). But again, generally your PKGBUILDs look good and seem to be high quality! :)
In my personal life, I work for a cloud company that specializes in Microsoft software, but I am full Linux nerd at home. Even my home server is running Arch. I was invited to join the community dinner at FOSDEM 2024 where I met some of the team members.
Oh, so we probably met there actually!
I’m not very forward and a bit shy when I am around other people, but I believe I am a kind and helpful person. I’m a huge movie fan[1], I play TTRPGs like D&D, World of Darkness and other small games. In the recent couple of years I’ve also been out “viking-camping”[2], which is a nice break from technology and notifications.
Here is a list of all my current AUR packages [3].
As package maintainer I would like to include and maintain the following packages: • `python-tmdbsimple` (a python package to access the TMDB api) • `gpu-viewer` (a python application to view GPU information) • `greetd-qtgreet` (a qt based greeter for greetd) • `dfl-*` (a set of libraries written in qt for use in building desktop environments)
As time goes on and I get more experience I would like to also include: • `CoreApps` (a lightweight qt based application suite) • `watchmate` (companion app for PineTime watch) • `wayfire` and some AUR packages that depend on it
Wayfire seems quite popular, sounds like it would be an appreciated addition to the official repo :)
I would also like to co-maintain: • `griffith` (as I am responsible for the source of that application at this time)
Oh oh, this sounds like it would allow for an easy communication between upstream and downstream! ;)
I have also found the following orphaned packages in the repository that I would be able to maintain: • `aspell-da` • `reflector` • `stress` • `vcdimager` (if needed) • `xdhg-desktop-portal-xapp` (maybe)
Thanks for taking a look at orphan packages as well :D
In Manjaro I was packaging some Qt and Electron based apps, so I would like to help in that realm as well.
I hope this application is worth consideration and that I have described who I am to a satisfactory degree, if not you are always welcome to ask.
Given that Dan was present at our FOSDEM 2024 dinner, we most likely met but probably didn't get a chance to discuss unfortunately (as far as I remember at least...). It's a shame because, after reading Dan's application, he definitely seems like a nice and interesting person that would have had valuable input and experience to bring to the table (pun *semi-*intended I guess :P). I have no doubt that Dan's packaging skill and past experience with ARM will be beneficial and I think he would be a great addition to the team! @Dan, again, thanks for applying and good luck!
GPG Public key: `084A 7FC0 035B 1D49`
Links: [1]: https://movies.strits.dk [2]: https://blog.strits.dk/2023-viking-season-highlights/ [3]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages? O=0&SeB=m&K=Strit&outdated=&SB=p&SO=d&PP=50&submit=Go
[1] https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=greetd-qtgreet [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PKGBUILD#depends [3] https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=tui-mines [4] https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=tui-sudoku [5] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/intune-portal-bin -- Regards, Robin Candau / Antiz