[aur-general] TU application - speps

[speps]

I postponed this task too many times in latest months.

My application is an extract of the conversations between me and
my sponsor, Thorsten Töpper, after his proposal in the end of 2011.

-
Introduction
-

I thought a lot of times about applying for becoming a TU before,
and it would be surely a great experience and possibility for me.

I'm really into free software, as in its principles, and I try contributing
every day and in every form according to my possibilities as much as I can.
Indeed, this would be the next step to let me contribute more efficiently.

The AUR is a fascinating and innovative community driven project, that
evolves a distribution development into a more bottom-up approach,
letting users be part of it acting in a self learning machine.

Keeping the AUR clean and productive so, has a central role in the Arch
development and it would be great to cover.

-
About me
-

I'm a 26yo curious Italian guy with a more self driven than academic
programming preparation who believes in and randomly contribute to free
software, mainly by reporting bugs and submitting patches to upstream
projects and of course maintaining a good amount of packages on AUR [1].

I'm an active Arch user/contributor/KISSophile since 4 years now,
an half of my total Linux experience as my main and only OS.

I'm interested in every form of mind and life expression exploration, and in
any instrument that may grow up our knowledge about us and what's around us.

[1] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?SeB=m&K=speps

-
Resolutions
-

Since I'm involved into the Arch Audio project by submitting several build
scripts and binary packages to its repository, I'd surely add the most popular
in [community] (ex. supercollider, csound, pd, lv2 plugins), and I would 
help Ray Rashif maintaining the ones already there, of course.

Being an out-of-the-box pro-audio ready distro (in terms of officially
distributed packages) would be great for Arch, since the number of
multimedia-oriented users, developers and projects using Arch as their
main platform is growing day by day (LAC 2012 has been a testimonial ;)).

Also, I would contribute adopting and maintaining orphans and of course
taking care of bug reports.

-
Identity (WARNING: heavily verbose)
-

On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 22:24:20 +0100
Thorsten Töpper <atsutane at freethoughts.de> wrote:

> Though due to the recent signature introduction a GPG Key is also
> necessary and as I can't find your real name anywhere, this would also
> be necessary, there were strong internal discussions because of Xyne
> who can't reveal his identity. If that also a matter for you I fear
> that you won't be accepted.

I followed the whole discussion on ML, as it is of my interest,
and I must admit the Xyne presence in the Arch team was always a
good point for me to assert the possibility of contributing "officially"
and "anonymously" at the same time, in the hope that is not just an
exception.

The meaning of identity on the Internet is still something not so defined
to me through its limits, consequences and abuses.
So, from the beginning of my Internet experience, I never referenced to
myself through my real name/life, but using a nickname, a digital identity.
This could be perceived as stupid or too paranoid for some, but for me
is just a way to taste things without risking to be too much implied till
the point of no return. I'm not referring to responsibilities, but to the
possibility of having a choice.

The adoption of GPG Keys for signing packages intention is to prevent
malicious hijacking through mirrors and to certificate their provenance,
and not to identify a packager in his real life.
Also, even using a "real name" is not a way to assume a real existence,
since hypothetically a real life identity could be easily faked too.

As you can see I sign mails with my GPG Key, and I really do not see
a real difference between mine and your or the one of another TU, since
actually we do not personally know each others.

I like to think that a digital identity just deals with the reputation
that comes from the quality of the work done like from the behaviours in
social relations, and a nickname is enough to cover its identification.

This is just my point till now, not a way to convince someone else.
I say "till now", cause this is the first time I was asked to reveal
my real identity for being crucial in contributing or to be trusted.

Differently, some years ago Giovanni Scafora asked my name for including
it as a contributor in a [extra] PKGBUILD (cpufrequtils) after sending
him a patch. In that case I took the decision of keeping on my way.

I'll have to think about this since, as you say, probably another
Xyne would be not allowed.
My idea is, trying an application as simply "speps" and on a negative
response taking the big decision. What do you think?

Sorry again for the massive length of this mail, I can't be too
synthetic in such cases :(

Regards and thanks


P.S.: the X-Face is my real eye ;)


- speps -
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