Faces of FreeBSD
Each week we are going to
share a story from someone involved in FreeBSD. This is our Faces of FreeBSD
series. It may be a story from someone who’s received funding from us to work
on development projects, run conferences, travel to conferences, or advocate
for FreeBSD. Or, it may be from someone who contributes financially to the
foundation.
Here’s a chance to get to
know your fellow FreeBSD enthusiast. Sit back and enjoy another 2013 Faces of
FreeBSD story.
Gábor’s Story
My name
is Gábor Páli, I am 31 years old, from Hungary, and I teach (and study)
functional programming at the Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Informatics
(Budapest). I have a master’s degree
(Debrecen, Hungary) and a doctorate (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) in Computer Science.
Before
this I was a game engine programmer at Invictus Games, working on Project
Torque (known as Level-R outside North America), then a research intern at
Chalmers University of Technology (Gothenburg, Sweden), and recently at the
Computer Laboratory (Cambridge, UK), participating in research projects on functional
programming and operating systems, such as Feldspar and Mirage.
When
not working, I am an average geek who enjoys reading books on science,
philosophy, and art, chatting with friends, playing good old computer games,
watching art movies, drawing, listening to underground music, and consuming
excessive amounts of fine Japanese or Chinese teas.
I
discovered FreeBSD in 2000 while
working on my master’s. I met János Háber, who admired the technical merits of FreeBSD and recommended it over the
popular and widespread GNU/Linux distributions. I downloaded FreeBSD 4.3-RELEASE, found it reliable,
consistent, easy to install, update and use. I especially liked the Ports
Collection, as it helped me find further useful and valuable free software.
I’ve
contributed to the FreeBSD Project since
2008: I translated the complete FreeBSD
Handbook and other documentation into Hungarian and took over and revitalized
the FreeBSD stack of the Haskell programming
language, including making FreeBSD Tier-1
for the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and providing ports for hundreds of third party
Haskell libraries.
I
volunteered to take over organization of the EuroBSDcon FreeBSD Developer Summits in 2010 and have organized in Karlsruhe
(Germany), Maarssen (Netherlands), Warsaw (Poland) and most recently in St.
Julian's (Malta). I’ve run a mini
version of EuroBSDcon, called BSD-Day, in Budapest (Hungary), Bratislava (Slovakia),
Vienna (Austria), and Naples (Italy).
I’m secretary
of the FreeBSD Core Team (since
2012), and maintain the agenda, organize meetings, publish internal, external
reports and notices, handle commit bit requests for the source code repository,
collaborate with the FreeBSD Foundation,
and remind the Core Team members about their pending tasks. I also
manage the quarterly status reports.
I like FreeBSD because of the community, and the
ability to find and push my limits. I enjoy contributing to
FreeBSD because it inspires me
and gives me hands-on experience that can’t be bought. I enjoy learning from FreeBSD experts around the globe, and
am impressed with what has been achieved over the years. I recognize the
outstanding stability and reliability of FreeBSD,
the ability to configure systems to maximize efficiency, and FreeBSD’s use as a research platform. I
appreciate how the FreeBSD Project
welcomes and utilizes innovative ideas.
The FreeBSD Foundation gave me a travel grant
for EuroBSDcon 2012. They were a main sponsor of the BSD-Day events, and covered
half the cost of the Developer Summit in Malta. I am very grateful for this support,
as they would not be possible without the generous funds.
The
Developer Summits allow developers the space to personally meet and to discuss
issues they could not over the Internet. It’s important to be able to attach a
face to an Internet personality; sometimes the harshest, stubborn members are
the nicest people in real life.
The
BSD-Day events that I organize allow cities and countries to have their own BSD
conference at a much smaller cost. BSD-Days have less formalities and pressure,
yet they retain most of the traditions and ambience of the large conferences of
EuroBSDcon, on a smaller budget.
Donating
to the FreeBSD Foundation is a great
way to express your appreciation
for the work of the FreeBSD Project. Your donation makes it possible for developers
to dedicate their time to complete long-awaited projects, or brings developers
from overseas to technical conferences such as EuroBSDcon.
This is something that would not happen without your support.
Gábor
Páli
Donate today to help us continue and increase our support of
the FreeBSD Project and community worldwide! Making a donation is quick and
easy. To make a donation go to: http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/
We're lucky to have you
ReplyDeleteJulian