Howdy everybody,
My name is Allen. I'm a new contributor here and still sort of getting my bearings.
I've been working with FOSS in one way or another since the late 1990s or so, initially as a passive consumer of all the things and eventually as an active participant, contributor, and occasional maintainer in various projects and communities. I've been working full-time in the open source realm for the last 10 years or so, primarily doing developer relations work.
My background is kind of split equally between motion picture production, tech leadership, and community organizing, so DevRel and that type of work seems to be a good niche for me in the FOSS world. If any folks are curious, I've got a small portfolio of my work published at https://loranallensmith.me.
As for computing, I have two primary workstations I use daily. My laptop is running Fedora, and I've got an old Macbook that I use mostly for creative work like video/audio production, graphic design, etc. I also have a super old iMac running Linux Mint that I use for ham radio stuff and random background projects like digitizing old home videos and slide film.
When it comes to workflow tools, I use Git for mostly everything and am familiar (but quite rusty) with Subversion and other version control tools. I'm a bit of a polyglot when it comes to programming languages. Most of the development work I've done has historically been in Python and Ruby, but my work in DevRel has helped me gain some basic proficiency in a breadth of languages and frameworks (though not necessarily a deep level of expertise in any one of them). Lately, I find myself working more with Go and have been tinkering around trying to build console-based children's games to learn Rust better.
In terms of communication platforms, I've mostly used Campfire and Slack for real-time chat in my day jobs. My preference tends to be for async collaboration via threaded discussion (e.g. GitHub issues/PRs, forums, etc.) I have some experience with moderation and administering forums, but it's not something I've done for any length of time. My experience participating in mailing lists is minimal, though I subscribe to quite a few to stay up to date on various projects and topics.
I'm still sorting out how much of a commitment I can make toward volunteering. My instinct is saying that a few hours a week might be a good starting point as I listen and learn my way around. I suspect I'd be able to commit to more over time though.
On the personal side of things, I'm a dad. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina in the US. I'm a lifelong musician, writer, and computer nerd. I like to tinker and work with my hands, so I tend to enjoy things like gardening, crocheting, and cooking. As I mentioned above, I'm also a ham (KO4ABW) if you're into that sort of thing too. :-)
Looking forward to learning more about folks and collaborating!
Allen
fedora-join@lists.fedoraproject.org