My first experience with Debian goes back to mid 1999 and was due to an incredible level of coincidence.
At that time, as a member of the Department of Social Welfare Studies at the University of Ghent (Belgium), I was
involved in a collaborative research program in the field of applied social sciences together with the Universities
of Brussels and Louvain. The computer infrastructure at my department was rather outdated, and because the department
faced a temporary but severe lack of financial resources at that time, I was stuck to that old equipment for some more
time, making it hard to exchange documents with my colleagues at the other universities. I had the luck to get
in touch with a working group of students in computer science, named Zeus. This student working group still
exists. They introduced linux to me as a less resources consuming OS, and they informed me on WP8 being released
for free under linux, which could offer me a chance for better interoperability with my colleagues at the other
universities. They lend me installation media for Debian 2.1 and so I decided to give it a try.
Both installing the OS as booting the computer went well and so I was able to continue to collaborate with my colleagues.
Since that time, I switched to Debian, both for personal and professional use cases. By the years I got interested
in learning more on the background of Debian. And so I got convinced of the values of open source software, first of
all from a technical point of view, but not least also for its virtues and potentialities in supporting the
enhancement of social justice and of equal opportunities for people all over the world (remember my social welfare
sciences background). Although in the beginning I did not at all come to Debian for its philosophy, I learned to see
how vital and decisive the Social Contract and the Free Software Guidelines are in giving Debian its unique
identity within the Free Software Community.
Back in 2014 I started to give back to Debian. I became a member of the Debian Dutch Localisation Team
and I am still active in translating po-debconf, po and po4a templates as well as in translating the Debian website.
I am also a member of the Debian Edu team where I am responsible for merging contributions to
the translation of the Debian Edu manuals at Hosted Weblate into the Debian Edu git repo at Salsa.
In the future I intend to continue to contribute to Debian this way. After having contributed to Debian
for ten years as a guest contributor I would like to become a non-uploading Debian Developer.
My first experience with Debian goes back to mid 1999 and was due to an incredible level of coincidence.
At that time, as a … Expand
Frans Spiesschaert