On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 09:13:29PM +0100, Charles Moir wrote:
Well the guys you may come across are Phil and Gerry both been with Xara since well before our Windows exploits back to Acorn RISC days.
Cool, thanks, this gives a lot of insight into who you all are.
I won't introduce all the 'scapers; too many to name and I'm sure I'd miss someone. ;-) Plus I'm sure they'll introduce themselves.
But just to give some general introductions, nearly ever Inkscaper is someone who started as a user of the software. Many also were software developers, or had technical skills/interests, and thus just started hacking on one corner or another and eventually became core developers. I think this has given Inkscape a powerful advantage; the developers have a deep intrinsic understanding of our project's requirements because they are also the customers of these features, and thus can hold themselves (and each other) up to high standards.
We also vary a huge degree in personalities, backgrounds, and so forth. Some people are really into the larger strategic ideas, others are interested in particular features or aspects; some are stubborn perfectionists, others more freely conceptual; some are hard core into the internal technologies, others are still learning programming; some focus on the codebase, others on the project infrastructure, others on translation, others on documentation. The makeup of the project team also is constantly changing, as new users follow the path towards developmanship.
As far as my own background... I tend to be mostly interested in the sociological/organizational aspects of open source projects so while I can code, I mostly enjoy just helping others get involved, and take care of some of the chores (mailing list admin, website updates, etc.) so others can focus on the more important stuff.
Professionally, I was originally hired into OSDL as a web/database developer, but I tired of that after a couple years and moved into the testing department. Today I lead the NFSv4 testing project, and help coordinate efforts from a number of companies; a lot of this involves just helping businesses learn how to interact in positive ways with the open source communities that they need to be part of. Before OSDL I worked in the aerospace industry for about ten years doing a mix of programming, diagramming, and spacecraft propulsion engineering.
Bryce