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5 <title>Internship with the FSF tech team
— bandali
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21 <h1>Internship with the FSF tech team
</h1>
22 <p>by
<a href=
"https://bndl.org"><b>bandali
</b></a>
23 on
29 May
2020 <small>(also
24 in
<a href=
"fsf-internship-intro.txt">plain text
</a>)
</small></p>
26 <p class=
"box">Originally published on the Free Software Foundation's
28 <a href=
"https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/introducing-bandali-intern-with-the-fsf-tech-team">Introducing
29 Amin Bandali, intern with the FSF tech team
</a></p>
31 <p>Hi there, I'm Amin Bandali, often just
<code>bandali
</code> on the
32 interwebs. I wear a few different hats around GNU as a maintainer,
33 webmaster, and Savannah hacker, and I'm very excited to be extending
34 that to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as an intern with the FSF
35 tech team for spring
2020.
</p>
37 <p>Growing up around parents with backgrounds in computer engineering
38 and programming, it did not take long for me to find an interest in
39 tinkering and playing with computers as a kid, and I first came into
40 contact with GNU/Linux in my teenage years. My first introduction to
41 the world of free software came a few years later, when a friend
42 kindly pointed out to me that what I had vaguely known and referred to
43 as
"open source" software is more properly referred to as free
44 software, and helped me see
45 <a href=
"https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html">why
46 "open source" misses the point of free software
</a>. After learning
47 about and absorbing the ideas and ideals of free software, I have
48 since become a free software activist. As a computer scientist who
49 enjoys studying and hacking on various programs and sometimes writing
50 my own, I have made a point of releasing all I can under strong
51 copyleft licenses, particularly the
52 <a href=
"https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html">GNU AGPL
</a>
55 <p>My involvement with the
<a href=
"https://www.gnu.org">GNU
56 Project
</a> started in
2016, first as a volunteer webmaster, and later
57 as one of the maintainers of
58 <a href=
"https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/">GNUzilla and
59 IceCat
</a> late last year. Also around the same time, I led a group
60 of volunteers in organizing and holding
61 <a href=
"https://emacsconf.org/2019">EmacsConf
2019</a> as a
62 completely online conference, using only free software tools, much
64 <a href=
"https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Conference/2020">LibrePlanet
65 2020</a>. I love
<a href=
"https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">GNU
66 Emacs
</a>, and use it more than any other program. GNU Emacs helps me
67 do a wide variety of tasks such as programming, reading and composing
68 emails, and chatting via IRC.
</p>
70 <p>More closely related to my internship with the FSF tech team, I
71 have been familiarizing myself with various pieces of the
72 <a href=
"https://savannah.gnu.org">GNU Savannah
</a> infrastructure
73 with help from veteran Savannah hacker Bob Proulx, gradually learning
74 and picking up tasks helping with the administration and maintenance
75 of Savannah. I am also a member of the Systems Committee of my
76 university's computer science club, overseeing and maintaining a large
77 fleet of GNU/Linux servers for our club members.
</p>
79 <p>For my internship with the Free Software Foundation, I will be
80 working with the FSF tech team on a number of tasks, including helping
82 the
<a href=
"https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/coming-soon-a-new-site-for-fully-free-collaboration">free
83 software forge
</a> project, as well as various improvements for
84 gnu.org. I look forward to learning many new things and picking up
85 valuable skills through my internship with the FSF's exceptional tech
86 team, who do
<em>so much
</em> for the GNU project and the wider free
87 software community.
</p>
90 <p id=
"copy">Copyright
© 2020 bandali
</p>
91 <p id=
"license">Copying and distribution of this file, with or without
92 modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the
93 copyright notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered
94 as-is, without any warranty.
</p>
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