[UbuntuWomen] introduction & mentoring

[Elizabeth Krumbach]

Matt,

First off, thanks for your support.

On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 03:54:15AM -0400, Matt Good wrote:
> Back in college I worked as a teaching assistant and a tutor
> and really enjoyed helping other people with their coding, so if there
> are potential mentees interested in any of the areas I'm experienced in
> I'd be glad to help.  

Excellent!

> Of course I'm still rather young (25), so I'm sure there are those of
> you that I should be learning from, in which case if you're interested
> in any of the projects I work with please let me know, since I'm sure I
> could use your help.

We don't expect mentors to know everything, and the process can go both ways to
some extent. You have experience in some great areas.

> What areas are you able to mentor in?
> ========================================================================
> Python development
>  * Trac (http://trac.edgewall.org) - this is the project I'm most
> actively involved with, so if there are mentees looking for a new
> project I could probably help find some Trac items for them to work on
>  * web frameworks (I have experience with TurboGears, Pylons, and
> Django)
>  * PyGTK (I'm still new to it, but I'm using it for an eMusic.com
> download client: http://germanium.matt-good.net)
> 
> Java/J2EE
> C++ (slightly rusty, but I've used it for a number of years)
> OpenGL (again, slightly rusty, but I'd love to get back into it)

Cool.

Have you done much specifically within Ubuntu? Of course Ubuntu-Women
encourages women getting involved with all areas of F/OSS, but the mentoring
program is currently geared toward Ubuntu Community related tasks (programming
for Ubuntu)

> How long have you been involved with Ubuntu? What are your achievements?
> ========================================================================
> I've been an Ubuntu user since I downloaded a pre-release version of
> Warty about 2 years ago.  I used Debian for a couple years before that
> (and still do on some servers and have a couple Debian VMs for testing
> installations of Trac).  I report bugs in packages when necessary and
> have provided a few patches to fix packaging issues.  I get a pack of
> CDs with each new release and hand out the extras to friends, family,
> and sometimes people I meet while hacking at Starbucks.  I'm also
> planning to get involved with the Ubuntu LoCo group for the Washington
> DC area.

Cool.

> What part of the world are you located in (it may be easier to mentor
> someone in your region due to time zone issues)?
> ========================================================================
> Eastern US (Northern VA, near DC)

Woohoo, a neighbor. I'm hailing from just north of you in Philadelphia.

> What is your preferred form of communication for mentoring
> (IRC/email/forum)?
> ========================================================================
> email or jabber/GoogleTalk: matt at matt-good.net
> IRC: matt_good on Freenode
>
>
> What are your thoughts on the importance and usefulness of the
> Ubuntu-Women Project?
> ========================================================================
> I just read that only 1.5% of the open source community is female, which
> is quite shocking.  I'm sure that this imbalance contributes to
> stereotypes about Linux users, which increases the misconceptions about
> Linux itself.  I think that it's important to the future of Linux and
> open source in general to break the cycle of these stereotypes and I
> think that the Ubuntu community is a great place to start.  We need to
> show that "Linux for human beings" really means everybody, not just one
> tiny subset of the population.

Good answer, I agree.

-- 
Elizabeth A. Krumbach // Lyz at PrincessLeia.com
http://www.princessleia.com