Today is Day 3 of Fedora Appreciation Week. To help celebrate the Fedora Project, our fifteen-year anniversary, and the community of people that make Fedora what it is, the Community Operations team collected Contributor Stories from the community to feature here every day of Appreciation Week.

Have someone you want to thank? Do you want to share your appreciation with Fedora? See how you can celebrate 15 years of Fedora and participate in Fedora Appreciation Week over on the Fedora Magazine.

Today’s Contributor Stories come from three people: Alberto Rodríguez Sánchez (bt0 / bt0dotninja), Chhavi Shrivastava (chhavi), and Alessio (alciregi).

Better than just (only) answer technical questions

Contributor Story #9 from Alberto Rodríguez Sánchez (bt0 / bt0dotninja)

  • Who is your story about?: Ben Williams (a.k.a. Southern_Gentleman)
  • What is their FAS username?: jbwillia

“Since my first days as a member of my local university, some professors asking for GNU / Linux / Network computer design, Fedora and Ubuntu was our main options.

Fedora has an advantage in cutting-edge technology, Fedora is widespread in the industry and the Fedora documentation is the best but we haved real problem with a very famous proprietary network simulator.

After a few days of searching, encourage me to ask in #fedora over IRC, Ben was the first person in answer me, he has a lot of patience and he know how to guide a person for the correct path. even after i resolve my question (and learn a lot) I saw a while how Ben answered another questions because I’m still feel than a “thanks” is not enough.

He pointed another person to WCIFF, I just followed the link and that is the history of how i did my first step to becoming a Fedora contributor.

Many Thanks Ben.”

P.D: We already have 5 “Fedora powered labs”..

Alberto Rodríguez Sánchez – contributor-stories#9

Becoming part of Fedora family because of her!

Contributor Story #10 from Chhavi Shrivastava (chhavi)

“It is so rare to find someone who not only tells you how to start but also sticks around to ensure you make it. Bee is one such lovely person. Through her commendable mentorship, and friendly nature I found myself part of the Fedora family. She helped me get started with Fedora badges, and then later be a part of Fedora Diversity Team. Her skills of summing up any discussion into action points and encouraging newbies is something I have learned from her. I absolutely love being a part of Fedora and she has a huge part in helping me to get to know this family. Keep on the good work Bee, we love you :)”

Chhavi Shrivastava – contributor-stories#10

A nice community member

Contributor Story #6 from Alessio (alciregi)

“I’m a FLOSS and Linux user for more than 15 years now. I had never been in a community, even if sometimes I marginally contributed to some open source projects, mainly in translation or in bug reporting. There were various reasons: my chronic lack of free time, and the fear to be totally unuseful due to the fact that there is so many skilled people inside these projects.

My first Linux distribution was Red Hat Linux 6, back in 1999. Then Fedora Core, but in the subsequent years I was a so called distro hopper, at least on my laptops. Last year I decided to go back to the origins, and install Fedora again. I was surprised by the clean and ease installation process, compared to the past (and compared to other distros). Looking at the wiki and to other project’s sites, I felt like contributing to the Fedora Project was simple and newcomers were welcome. Then I subscribed to various mailing lists, looking to a place where my little skills could be useful.

The continuation of the story may appear totally unrelated to Fedora. In fact, in the meanwhile, at work I was involved in a project related to a captive portal for a wifi network, and I needed to send some SMS to foreign phone numbers in order to test the registration page. I’m not an international guy, and I have not friends outside my country (in reality yes, a former colleague that lives in Brazil, but it was unavailable at the time). So, in some messages coming from some Fedora mailing list, at the bottom of the emails of a very active contributor I saw a mobile number. I privately contacted him using Hangout, by telling him my needs. He was so kind that I thought that all the people of the Fedora community might be so collaborative and nice. And in fact I’m still impressed by the commitment of a lot of members in avoiding toxic behavior and how important is to maintain an healthy community.”

Alessio – contributor-stories#6