The most common reaction I received from friends and family in the United States is surprise and curiosity. Admittedly Tiranë is not a typical place for an American to end up. But I am no stranger to this city. I have a long history in Tiranë. I fell in love with the culture and the people, and made good friends that are still in my life today. Some even helped me relocate. (Thank you!) So while it may be unusual for an American to end up in Albania, it is not unusual for me to end up here.

But how did I make the jump? Or why leave the United States, especially while the world holds its collective breath amid a global pandemic? It was not an easy decision, so it will not have an easy explanation.

A visit to Tiranë in June. 🔗

In June 2021, I visited Tiranë with friends who had never visited Albania before. In the course of that trip, I did not realize I was being pulled back into a culture, city, and country that has stuck with me for many years. But I was.

Fate took my hand, and after a year of cloudy uncertainty, I knew a new part of my destiny. On a fateful flight flying westbound, my heart was resolved to return eastbound. And how hard must I bite my tongue to acknowledge this privilege bestowed unto me by my American passport? To leave the story unfinished was only a matter of resolve, thus I knew I must pursue the next chapter.

Fast forward… and I am here in Tiranë. I made my arrival quietly to give me time to settle. (Literally.) I only had a bed, fridge, microwave, and a sofa. Now it is feeling more like my home. I am eager to make rounds to my favorite places and saying përshëndetje to old friends again soon.

Is the future in Stockholm? 🇸🇪 🔗

Part of my move is also motivated by my work team’s upcoming relocation. My team will relocate to Stockholm, Sweden over the next year. I am not sure where my fate will leave me. I love what I do and I feel privileged to be paid for it. So if I will continue forward on this same path, then I know I will go.

Yet I prefer to know by experience than to guess by speculation. So if I will go with my team, I would like to experience first-hand what would be my new home. Another fact is that plane tickets to Europe are cheaper from Europe. Cheaper than from the United States, even though Tiranë is a “premium” destination by European standards.

Eventually I hope to visit my new office and see it for myself. Again wondering how hard to bite my tongue if I acknowledge the unique privilege I have to casually shift my life in such a seismic way.

Here, for now. 🔗

If you are a friend and happen to be in Tiranë, drop me a note!

I don’t say that casually either. I have involuntarily found Open Source as my calling. Or my people. I contribute to Open Source because I love to collaborate and work together with other people. This challenges me. It humbles me in a way that I know I can always learn something new from someone else. For this, Open Source and Free Software have enriched my life. They have also given me, again involuntarily, an odd but productive way of coping with my own mental health issues, anxiety, and depression.

So how do I make sense of the emotions and feelings I have now? How do I untangle this complicated web of events and reactions by other people? To ignore it doesn’t seem possible. If I remove emotion, I am left with a purely rational motive to involve myself in this contemporary issue. My work, profession, and career goals are directly affected by however this discussion goes. There is no way out for me. It’s my job, so I have to care. But if you add emotions back in, to stand still and remain idle is heartbreaking. To do nothing is to commit to defeat. Resignation. The darkness.

Yet what is there to do? The only thing Stallman ever directly gave to me in life was an email explaining elegantly how there was nothing he could do for the Minecraft GPL community fiasco. At a time when I was so personally lost as I saw a community I love tear itself apart, he stood by idly as the so-called steward of these licenses that I was just too naïve to believe in. That experience to me now is amplified in the light of the much more egregious things he is accused of.

So, the Free Software Foundation welcomes Richard Matthew Stallman back to its board. Wonderful. Congratulations Mr. Stallman. I am going to pause for a moment of sadness and hurt as I contemplate the impact of this moment on our fragile movement, which has much bigger enemies today than it has in its 40 year legacy. But then…

I will move on. Because we have to. The only way is forward.

Two years passed since we last met in Bolzano. I remember you traveled in for a day to join the 2018 Fedora Mindshare FAD. You came many hours from your home to see us, and share your experiences and wisdom from both the global and Italian Fedora Community. And this week, I learned that you, Gabriele “Gabri” Trombini, passed away from a heart attack. To act like the news didn’t affect me denies my humanity. In 2020, a year that feels like it has taken away so much already, we are greeted by another heart-breaking loss.

But to succumb to the despair and sadness of this year would deny the warm, happy memories we shared together. We shared goals of supporting the Fedora Project but also learning from each other.

So, this post is a brief reflection of your life as I knew you. A final celebration of the great memories we shared together, that I only wish I could have shared with you while you were still here.

Ciao! 🔗

We had a unique privilege of meeting first in person before meeting online. At Flock 2015, of course I remember coming to your Fedora-Join session. This was my first introduction to the volunteer-supported mentorship community that exists in Fedora. Even though there was one particularly disruptive audience member, I remember learning from you and noting your long-time experience in the Fedora Community.

After that, we would come to know each other better. As I began a new chapter of my life at my university, we would become frequent collaborators. The Fedora Marketing team was always interesting to me, as part of the group of people who helped our community talk about and share the Fedora Project with others. Underneath your gentle mentorship, I learned the focus areas and history of the Fedora Marketing team.

At some point in 2015 or 2016, you asked me if I would like to chair a Marketing Team meeting. Thus began an early step in my journey from a participant to a facilitator. In a tragically ironic way, it strikes me how I did not see your guidance as mentorship at the time. I always saw our conversations as two friends discussing a shared hobby or interest. Such is the subtle art of teaching and mentorship.

Your many contributions 🔗

You were a cornerstone community member of Fedora for many years. Since our connection was from Fedora, it is worth noting the many contributions you made over the years. Long before Fedora or Linux were anything I knew about.

You and Robert Mayr co-authored a book together about Fedora 9, I think for the Italian Linux community. You were a one-time steward of the Fedora Join and Marketing teams. You were an influential member in shaping what Mindshare is today, from the days of the Fedora Outreach Steering Committee, the Fedora Ambassador Steering Committee before that, and grassroots community organizing in Italy even before that.

Beyond the source 🔗

But perhaps the memories I treasure most are the ones that don’t have much to do with Fedora at all. I remember learning that “in real life” you were a co-owner of a heating and air conditioning business in Italy. For many years, my family ran a heating and air conditioning company of our own. This was an experience I could always understand. I remember the times when you would go offline for some time. Then I would hear from you eventually, and you would tell me how the busy season kept you away from helping out in Fedora. And in a few words in IRC private messages, I simply knew and smiled.

We would meet at Flock events, but I find Flock is usually tough to get 1x1 time with others. I remember the day you came up and joined us in Bolzano for the 2018 Mindshare FAD. On a weekend day in March, you came and sat in a wine cellar converted to a conference room, where we spent the day recounting pain points and how Mindshare would address them.

And then, our small group went out for dinner. The food we ate and words we said are now faded memories, but the experience lives warmly in my heart as I think about what your life meant to me.

I was saddened to find no photographs or pictures of us together. But I went looking for our last conversations and found these final messages on IRC:

**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Sun Dec  4 17:49:56 2016

Dec 04 17:49:56 <jflory7>   That would be fantastic... I'll definitely let you know if I have plans to visit Italy. :)

Dec 05 07:00:32 <mailga>    jflory7 hope it happens. :)

**** ENDING LOGGING AT Wed Dec  7 00:28:51 2016

I never got to take you up on your offer to visit your home and meet your family. But I am happy that I had the opportunity to partially fulfill that old promise of meeting together in Italy.

Why write this? 🔗

I didn’t write this post with an outline, or a template. These words came to me while sitting with my own emotions and feelings. I am writing this because this is an effective coping mechanism for me to process what is lost, but also how to move forward from the loss.

The Fedora Project has given me a lot over the last five years. I have met many wonderful people and contributed to things that matter a great deal to me. But Fedora has also taught me about loss. There are many lessons in life that have nothing to do with work, code, software, or engineering, but have everything to do with how we look at the world.

In the wake of losing you, I think of the kind words and memories we shared that I did not tell you were important to me. I think of how the opportunity is permanently missed for me to share my appreciation of your kindness and friendship. The tragedy of youth is perhaps that I failed to fully appreciate our connection until after you passed.

When writing this, I came to realize something for me. And this will be different for everyone. But I like to think for Gabrielle and me, Fedora was never just about building an operating system. It was about collaborating with other people, human beings, on a digital infrastructure project that mattered, and to share kindness unto others – especially beginners and newcomers.

Rest in peace, amico.

When I was a kid, one of the most important lessons I learned was saying “thank you” when someones does something nice for you. So, a few years ago, I learned about this awesome little website called Happiness Packets. Its purpose is simple but powerful. Happiness Packets are open source thank-you cards you can send over email. You can send Happiness Packets to anyone for anything. Your message can be as short or as long as you like. You can put your name on it or keep it anonymous. The choice is yours. And now, I want to challenge you (yes, you) to the 2020 #HappinessPacketChallenge!

What are Happiness Packets? 🔗

Upstream describes it best. This comes straight from the Happiness Packets website:

People are generally much more loved than they think they are. Especially when things don’t go according to plan, other people almost never think as harshly of you as you might think of yourself. It’s easy for us to complain when bad things happen, and yet we’re often fairly silent when things are good. Open-source communities are no different, especially when our main communication channels are textual and virtual.

The feeling that you made a difference, that your work matters and has value, and that the people you work with are happy to work with you, is an awesome feeling. With Open-Source Happiness Packets, we’re trying to spread that feeling.

How does it work?

Openly expressing appreciation, gratitude, or happiness to other people can be difficult. This is especially true when you don’t know them very well. Many of us come from cultures in which people are not open by default about such feelings, and naturally feel uncomfortable or even creepy to share them.

Open-Source Happiness Packets is a very simple platform to anonymously reach out to the people that you appreciate or to whom you are thankful in your open-source community. Your message can be sent anonymously if you feel uncomfortable to share your name with the recipient. Of course, we encourage you to share your name, but it’s completely optional!

What are Open-Source Happiness Packets?

You can learn more about the Happiness Packets Challenge by browsing through the Twitter hashtag.

Take the challenge! 🔗

So, what is the #HappinessPacketChallenge? I challenge you to do the following: write one Happiness Packet a day, every day, for one week starting Monday, 27 April and ending Sunday, 3 May. At a minimum, this is seven times where you say “thank you” to someone else. Of course, nothing is stopping you from sending more if you want!

Maybe you are overwhelmed by the negativity on social media or the news channel. Especially today, when everyone is talking about one single thing: COVID-19. Whatever the platform is, the negativity can eat at you. For one week, this is your opportunity to choose something different. For all of the good things and people in your life, spend a few minutes of each day this week to make someone’s day. It seems simple—and it is! But the power you have to spread the positivity is a big power. So this is the challenge you have: to commit yourself to spreading your little packet of happiness every day for one week.

“But, I don’t know what to say…” 🔗

Having a hard time coming up with words or not sure who to thank? No worries. Your message can be as short or as long as you like. If you’re not sure who to thank, look at software you are already using. Look for names and emails of maintainers of open source software you enjoy. If you’re already contributing to open source, consider folks in your community! Thank someone who had a hand in helping you get started, or gave you a little bit of encouragement when you needed it most.

Maybe you have other ideas or reasons to thank others. (Heartbleed or Shellshock anyone?) Whatever the reason, don’t make an excuse to not say thanks! The options are limitless. If you have a lot to say, say it! If not, even a simple “thanks for all the work you do!” can go a long way to make someone’s day.

Share your Happiness Packets 🔗

The magical part of Happiness Packets is sharing happy moments with others. If you receive one, don’t be afraid to share it with the world! Tweet at @happinesspacket on Twitter. Use the #HappinessPacketChallenge hashtag. Encourage other people to send their own thanks. If you get one other person to take the challenge, that has an impact on seven more people! Imagine what would happen if all of those seven people decided to take the challenge too.

So, I hope you will join me this year in this fun tradition. Get ready from Monday, 27 April to Sunday, 3 May to send some happiness! And if you’re feeling bold, challenge someone you know directly.

Love Letter by Vectors Market from the Noun Project.

Grief is a strange emotion. One text message read early in the morning can send your day into a long walk down the beach of your own memories. Memories flood back, making us conscious that these lost moments of time were never really lost to us, but locked under deep layers of interlocking memories and contexts that only had to be connected back together, like a broken circuit. Today, my memories and heart are on my former summer camp roommate and friend Hannah/Honor Loeb. (I knew her as Hannah in her life, but at time of death, she identified as Honor, so that is the name I will use for this post.)

When I think of you, Honor, a mixed spectrum of emotions comes over me.

First, I feel selfish for making a post that is probably as much for me as it is for you. A great irony in death are the many interpretations of an explanation it brings. It is impossible to know exactly how the deceased would wish for their death to be remembered, because they are not present. Yet those who were connected to the deceased also experience their own spectrum of emotions. Perhaps it is human for us to make the death of someone else about ourselves, where we become included in the attention that death brings. But perhaps it is also the natural experience of how we process grief and trauma, in that making someone else’s death about us, it affords us the privilege and opportunity to reflect on the meaning of their life, and how we will continue to live our life in light of their absence.

Second, I feel happiness and joy. I remember my first experience living together with you as roommates at the Duke University Talent Identification Program at the University of Georgia. I remember the trips from Georgia to Alabama to visit and stay with your family. I remember the time you showed me Battlestar Galactica for the first time, and staying up with me to watch episode after episode. Even though you had probably seen these episodes countless times before. I remember the warm sunny mornings in Montgomery when we would go out for breakfast and we would talk about life. I remember when at the end of every meal out, I never had a choice of whether I would pay for myself or not.

Third, I feel guilt and shame. I remember being afraid to invite you to my home in Georgia, because my home was not a safe place then. I remember when you drove from Ithaca to visit me in Rochester, and you let me interview you as a member of the trans community for a class assignment. Then, months later, I remember not replying to your texts, missing your calls, and always putting off invitations to meet. I remember seeing our lives slowly drift apart, and how I felt powerless to do anything about it. Even if the powerlessness was imagined. I remember not knowing how to help you with your emotional burdens when I was still figuring out how to carry my own experiences and traumas. I remember the random times in my life where you did come across my mind, unprompted. In those moments, I thought of all I learned from you and how you lived in life. In those moments, I remember hoping you were well, but I also remember my fear and hesitation about reaching out to you after so long. I remember consciously deciding not to try the phone number or the email I had saved for you from 2013. Maybe your contact info changed eventually. But maybe it didn’t. I’ll never know.

Today, I learned that you passed away. You are dead. I will never get to see your smile, I will never get to hear your voice, and I will never get to have a warm hug with you again. These are all hard truths that I must acknowledge. Like I said, grief is a strange emotion. We all handle and process grief in unique, personalized ways that reflect our life experiences. For me, I have to define and understand the losses of this experience in order to practice gratitude and appreciation for the positive moments and experiences we shared.

The end of a life is never black-and-white. As you always exemplified in being a powerful trans voice from the socially-conservative state of Alabama, a binary understanding of complex social issues is rarely sufficient. Experiencing my grief from the end of your life is a wide spectrum of emotions because your life spanned several different emotions. Instead of categorizing my different emotions into their categorical boxes, I am allowing them to all wash over me. The happiness, the joy, the sadness, the anger, the selfishness, the guilt, and the shame. I know I cannot deny any of these emotions because they are all a part of you.

I have to accept these emotions as feedback to what your life means to me in this moment. I appreciate the great ways you expanded my mind and taught me to see the world differently. I lament the ways I let our connection fade and sputter, and that the last significant moment I have to connect with you is in your death. From what you taught me as a teenager, I began to see beyond the binary belief instilled in me from my youth. From what you taught me as a young adult, I know that how we carry our relationships, friendships, and love throughout life is always in some part our own responsibility.

When reading the news of your death, I have to be honest with myself. A part of me was not surprised or entirely shocked by this news. In a world where queer and trans folk are often treated as second-class humans, the pandemic of mental illness and suicide are undeniable in LGBTQ+ communities. I don’t understand how I feel even now to learn that your death was from a “non-COVID infection”. You fell sick. To what degree this infection inflicted pain upon you, I don’t know. All I know is, the path in life I followed brings me to this point where the first thing I hear about you in a number of years is your death.

Part of me knows I cannot assign myself blame for these circumstances. I know I alone cannot wear all blame because we live in an interdependent world, where every effect and outcome is linked by several smaller causes. But if only for myself, I have to acknowledge what my role is in your life and how I will choose to continue my life in the knowledge that yours ended too soon. I acknowledge that I probably played differing roles in your life, sometimes a loving friend, and sometimes an apathetic jerk. But again, life is often not so binary, not in life nor in death. I only hope that if you had the opportunity to read this, you would be able to forgive me for the ways I wronged you in your living life, and for you to know how much I really did love you.

The entry is lifted out of my journal with minimum edits. I thought about fully revising it or updating it before publishing. Many parts I would write in a different way now, but I decided to let it be. It reflects my perspective at that particular moment and time at 19 years old. It is more personal than other posts I’ve published and maybe it’s a little uncomfortable for me to share, but I felt like it was worth doing anyways.

entry002: 2017-02-12 🔗

Picking up the pen to write in this is always difficult because it feels like there’s too much to say. Part of the problem is that I don’t write frequently enough, which I’ll try to improve. Not everything worth saying needs to be publicly lambasted.

I left the apartment for coffee after again reading the story of Seth Vidal, a founding developer of YUM and a one-time Fedora superstar. Seth was killed in a hit-and-run accident while cycling in 2013.

What strikes me so much about Seth isn’t just the work or code he left behind, but his legacy. There is no shortage of blog posts dedicated in his memory, with many written by folks I see regularly in Fedora. He is held in a high respect and regard not only because of his work, but how he worked with people. He was clearly a sincere friend of many in the community and always knew how to use and share his brilliance to bring out the same brilliance of those he worked with. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, but he always did so courteously and in a way where there was a next step or improvement. As one memoir quoted him as saying with a cocked head and a smile, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

It’s odd for me to read about Seth and how connected to him I feel, despite his death occurring well before I was anywhere near where I am now. Maybe it’s because I, like [thousands] of others, use his software. But more likely is because I see the type of impact and legacy is something I wish to share. Not having so many people write memoirs of my passing, but more about how many lives, communities, and people he touched. I see a man you could approach with anything, whether he knew you or not, and he would give you his honest opinion to help drive or motivate you to success. It may not be what you want to hear, but it will be what you need to hear. Again, delivery of that message is critical, and Seth seemed to be pretty good at it.

I may not know Seth, nor will I ever, but his legacy gives me a strong reminder about what I hold important and how I want to carry out my presence in the projects I’m involved with. If more people want more Seth Vidal’s in the world, then we need to [understand] his values, compare them to our own, and build those values into our own being. This is part of the idea of actively shaping and adapting our values, and never settling with the way we are because we think we know these things. If the mind is open and willing, we are always learning, and thus, always changing.

In summary? Seth’s light fades out and burns into embers, but it never dies. His legacy will always be there, for friends to remember and strangers to learn from. Amidst all of this panicked writing I have to do after DevConf and FOSDEM, Seth’s legacy levels me and reminds me of what’s important. Sometimes what’s really important is logging off and going for a bike ride, or a coffee with notebook and pen, or sharing precious time with loved ones. Seth, you may be gone and have no memory of me, but I have your memory, and I hope you are with me too.

Justin Wheeler

What exactly are Happiness Packets? 🔗

Fortunately, I don’t have to do a lot of work to explain this, because it’s all on the front page of the Happiness Packets website. Repeated below for your convenience:

People are generally much more loved than they think they are. Especially when things don’t go according to plan, other people almost never think as harshly of you as you might think of yourself. It’s easy for us to complain when bad things happen, and yet we’re often fairly silent when things are good. Open-source communities are no different, especially when our main communication channels are textual and virtual.

The feeling that you made a difference, that your work matters and has value, and that the people you work with are happy to work with you, is an awesome feeling. With Open-Source Happiness Packets, we’re trying to spread that feeling.

How does it work? 🔗

Openly expressing appreciation, gratitude, or happiness to other people can be difficult. This is especially true when you don’t know them very well. Many of us come from cultures in which people are not open by default about such feelings, and naturally feel uncomfortable or even creepy to share them.

Open-Source Happiness Packets is a very simple platform to anonymously reach out to the people that you appreciate or to whom you are thankful in your open-source community. Your message can be sent anonymously if you feel uncomfortable to share your name with the recipient. Of course, we encourage you to share your name, but it’s completely optional!

Take the challenge 🔗

So, what is the #HappinessPacketChallenge? I challenge you to do the following: write at least one Happiness Packet (or more!) every day for one week. At a minimum, this is only seven times where you say “thank you” to someone else in open source. Of course, you can send more if you want to.

If you open your social media feed or turn on the news channel, you probably see a lot of negativity. Whether it’s world events, politics, or other sad news, the negativity gets at you. For one week, this is your opportunity to have the opposite effect. For all of the good things and people you see, you can spend a few minutes of each day this week to make someone’s day. It seems simple—and it is! But the power you have to spread the positivity is a big power. So this is the challenge you have: to commit yourself to spreading that message every day for one week.

“I don’t know what to say.” 🔗

Having a hard time coming up with words or not sure who to thank? No problem. Your message can be as short or as long as you like. If you’re not sure who to thank, look at some of the software you’re using now. If you’re using a Linux distribution, start there! Look for the names and emails of maintainers of software you enjoy using. If you’re already contributing to open source, consider some of the people in your community! You can thank someone who had a special role in helping you get started or impacted why you decided to work on a project.

Maybe you have other ideas or reasons to thank others. Whatever the reason is, don’t make an excuse to say thanks! The options are limitless. If you have a lot to say, say it! If not, even a simple “thanks for all the work you do!” can go a long way to make someone’s day.

Share your happiness 🔗

The magical part of Happiness Packets is sharing happy moments with others. If you receive one, don’t be afraid to tell the world! You can tweet at @happinesspacket on Twitter. Use the #HappinessPacketChallenge hashtag. Encourage other people to send their own thanks. If you can get one other person to take the challenge, then you’re already making the days of seven more people! Imagine what would happen if all of those seven people decided to take the challenge too.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started! Go send a Happiness Packet now! And if you’re feeling bold, try challenging someone directly.

Love Letter by Vectors Market from the Noun Project

BrickHack 2016 and Fedora 🔗

This year, I attended with the Fedora Project team, which included people like Remy DeCausemaker, Mike DePaulo, Charles Profitt, Ralph Bean, and Ryan Scott Brown. In addition to the Fedora crew, many of my friends and fellow students were there, like Mike Nolan and Brendan Whitfield. There were countless others that made the weekend awesome and incredible.

For pictures and more details, read my full report on the Fedora Community Blog.

https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/brickhack-2016-event-report/

My Year in Review 🔗

With an hour left until the New Year, there never seemed a better time to begin writing my Year in Review article. While it is a stereotypical kind of thing to do, I also think it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the gifts, changes, and special occasions that this past year has presented to me. 2015 is special to me in many ways because it marks a significant milestone in my life of moving away from home and beginning my journey into full adulthood.

There are many important and special people in my life that have made this year incredible, and I want to reflect and make note of this.

</high school> <college> 🔗

This past May, I graduated from high school. Looking back, it’s interesting to see how much has changed in my personal life and even in my own interests. Some friends have come and gone, but there are an important core of people who have always been present in my life, and I am privileged to have been one to know them deeply over the past four years.

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until my junior year when I realized that I wanted to spend my life working in computer science. I remember when I walked into the classroom of my AP Computer Science teacher asking how I could get going with only one year left. Now, here I am immersing myself in digital technology in countless different ways. I feel like I am where I am meant to be.

These four years haven’t been easy either. I worked hard to get to the place I wanted to go. Despite quite a few personal challenges, I was fortunate enough to afford an education here at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Just in the semester and a half that I have been enrolled here, I’ve met countless people who have affected my life and helped shape the direction of where I’m going in the world. Special shout-out to the FOSSbox and RITlug, and everyone involved with both.

Coffee and Doughnuts 🔗

For most of 2015, I worked a not-so-typical job at Dutch Monkey Doughnuts in my hometown. Dutch Monkey is an important part of my town and they have helped create a name for people visiting the region. They’re well-known for their homemade doughnuts and Counter Culture Coffee, both of which are legendary within their own right.

During my time at Dutch Monkey, I was able to attend workshops and classes at the Counter Culture Coffee Training Center in Atlanta. Throughout the eight or nine classes I took, I was able to further my understanding and appreciation for an extremely complex and fascinating beverage. My appreciation and love for coffee has become a part of my being. The coffee industry is a wild and exciting place, and it is very much an ethical hotbed of all kinds of issues. I joke to myself that if sysadmin doesn’t work out, the coffee industry could always make a good fallback…

I was also fortunate to have some awesome co-workers who helped make the 4am shifts a little more enjoyable. Special shout-out to Jordan Hughes for the long talks about music, the music industry, and so many other things. I learned a lot from you and you’ve had a big impact on my own music tastes.

MINECON and SpigotMC 🔗

This was single-handedly one of the most profound events of the year for me. If you weren’t aware, I am a community moderator for the SpigotMC project. I have been a moderator since April 2014. Spigot is my true first open-source project, even though I wasn’t a contributor of code, but a community builder (or so I like to think).

MINECON announced 🔗

In February of 2015, Mojang announced that MINECON 2015 would be happening in London, England. Instantly, I thought there would be no way I would ever be able to afford a trip overseas for a two-day convention. However, I found the application for a MINECON Agent, which is the small group of “interns” that volunteer to help set up and prepare MINECON for over 10,000 people with the Mojang team. The only benefit to being an Agent was a waived ticket cost (around $120 last year). I applied for the program, unsure of what would come of it, doubtful I would be able to go even if I were accepted.

April rolls around, and I finally hear back from Mojang! “Congratulations, you are now a MINECON Agent!” It was difficult to believe at first, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to go regardless.

Getting in gear for MINECON 🔗

I began talking with the rest of the team at SpigotMC. We were also getting in gear for MINECON 2015 and were planning to attend as an organization with our own booth. We had arranged to have a booth and most of the team knew who was going to be there. Michael, our project lead, would be in attendance, along with Matthew, the other lead developer; Jordan, another community moderator like myself; Cindy, our local wiki staff, IRC staff, and contributing developer, or also the official “Spigot Mom”; and Miguel, our witty Spigot volunteer who has an ambiguous position with Spigot. Cindy’s son Alex was also going to be in attendance.

I didn’t think I would be able to attend. However, a very unique set of events happened one after another, and suddenly, the possibility of me attending MINECON this year began to materialize. Thanks to awesome people behind Spigot, I was fortunate enough to make it out to this year’s convention. When I figured out that I would be going to London, I was beyond stoked.

Going to London and MINECON 🔗

I would be there from Saturday, July 4 to Wednesday, July 8, 2016. Saturday and Sunday were the days of MINECON. Together with the team, we helped represent the SpigotMC project among thousands of convention-goers. We had brochures, bracelets, and a video running in the booth for visitors to take and see. I met some incredible people from our community, and I am privileged and honored to have met some incredible people there.

Thanks to Michael being the incredible individual he is, we went to a few dinners and meet-ups with others in the Minecraft community. I met two of the major Minecraft developers, Nathan (Dinnerbone) and Erik (Grum) and countless others in the YouTube and development community. It was almost unbelievable. The entire time I was in London, the experience felt surreal. Six months before this, I would never have believed any of this would ever have happened.

The Monday and Tuesday we were there, Cindy, Jordan, Alex, and I went around London doing our proper duty as tourists. We went to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, rode a double-decker bus, went to the Queen’s castle, and indulged in what Jordan called a “proper British meal”. On Monday night, Jordan treated me to a short trip around London hopping between bars (although everything closed so early)! We ended up crashing in some late-night diner, had a meal, and headed back for the next round of sightseeing on Tuesday.

Thanks to the team 🔗

This was truly a life-changing experience that was bestowed upon me. I was honored and privileged to have met the other members of the Spigot team that I’ve been working with for the past two years. I wouldn’t trade my time in London for anything else, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to help host the crew this upcoming MINECON if it ends up in the northeast US.

Open Source and Fedora 🔗

I have used the Fedora operating system on my laptop since December 2013. I began using it on my desktop I built in November 2014. I have used this operating system for almost two years and I never had thought too much about the community behind the Fedora Project. I knew that it was a large and complex community, but I was never sure where to take the first step. I had always wanted to be an Ambassador, but questioned my usefulness or whether I was a right fit for the program.

Flock to Fedora! 🔗

I learned that Flock, Fedora’s annual contributor’s conference, was to be hosted in Rochester, NY in 2015 from August 5th to the 9th. I would be moving right next door to Flock just a week after the conference! After contacting a pair of people who seemed knowledgeable about the details back in February 2015, little did I know I was setting in motion an entirely new track of events in my life. The two gents I emailed, Remy DeCausemaker and Prof. Stephen Jacobs (SJ), helped give me advice on travel details and how I would get myself into Rochester in time for Flock.

Come August, I am back from MINECON, packing my bags for Rochester, and ending my last few days at Dutch Monkey. When I arrived in Rochester with my mother, it was an exciting and new experience, something I had looked forward to for a long time. Once Flock rolled around, I was almost instantaneously immersed in the Fedora community, and over the course of the week, I would begin to feel a part of a Project that I had questioned how to enter for almost a year.

The talks were fantastic, the speakers were passionate, and the community was welcoming. I was jump started into Fedora at Flock 2015, despite walking in a stranger. At first, I questioned whether coming was such a grand idea. It was obvious everyone knew someone already and I was only an excited Fedora user and fan. These were the people who did all the heavy-lifting to make this operating system and its community run. What was I doing here?

I distinctly remember Pete Travis (randomuser in IRC) coming up to me, introducing himself and asking me a few questions. In retrospect, I probably looked like I was feeling a bit out-of-place. He and I began talking a bit about his role in Fedora and some of my little experience in open source. After he spoke to me, I began to feel a little more attached to the conference. After a while, I began speaking up at some of the talks I attended, or trying to share some of my perspective or thoughts as an outsider. These were the stepping-stones that got me involved with the project.

One thing about all else stands out to me about the conference. I remember Remy saying to me towards the end (with minor paraphrasing), “You should check out this Community Operations thing that’s coming up soon. It’s going to be awesome.”

Fedora Magazine 🔗

Over the course of the next few months at RIT, I started working with Paul Frields, Ryan Lerch, and a few others on the Fedora Magazine. I began contributing as a writer, with my first article about using Spigot on Fedora. As time went on, I began helping as an editor, revising and reviewing other people’s articles to help get them published for the Magazine. By the end of 2015, I believe I would come to establish myself as a permanent member of the editorial team behind the Magazine.

CommOps 🔗

Additionally, during the months after Flock, I would follow up on what Remy told me, and I checked out this whole Community Operations (shortened to CommOps) thing. It was in the early formation stages, but the core idea behind CommOps was that they were the supporting team to offer support to all the other sub-projects in Fedora. Or in my eyes, a team focused on building and supporting the community with resources and assistance. This was something I thought I could contribute to. My programming skills were not at a level where I’d feel comfortable hacking on to Fedora either on the Infrastructure or as a Packager. But CommOps was that kind of thing that hooked me from the start. I wanted to help build Fedora up, and I could see what exactly CommOps was trying to target and how it was wanting to fix the long-term issues.

Now, months later, my involvement with CommOps has resulted with many tickets filed and many tickets closed. It has been a productive time while I have been with CommOps, and I never feel like there is too little to do. Our horizon is vast and there is much work to be done… 2016 offers great promise to the success of our sub-project, which in turn offers great promise to the Fedora Project. I am looking forward to seeing where this year takes us. I am also happy to work with such an awesome and dedicated group of people as those behind the CommOps team. There are too many to name, but I’m thankful for the leadership of Remy to keep us all together, focused, and driven.

2016 🔗

2016 will have a lot of ground to cover over 2015, but there is a large potential for this to be done. My own personal story with open source continues to grow, and I am beyond excited for what the future may bring. I am exposed to a unique group of people and minds here at RIT, and I am actively pursuing the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) minor.

This self-reflection has turned into a much longer post than I anticipated, but I think this reflection is necessary and useful for my own purposes. Taking a moment to reflect on the events of the past year helps remind me what it’s all about and why I’m doing what I’m doing, especially at the times where everything seems confusing and I begin to question what I’m doing. But the path is illuminated and I am driven to succeed. There are a lot of things at stake for me and my family, and I hope to be able to meet many personal goals and better support the people closest to me in my life.

I would also like to give a special thanks to all the people who have made this year so incredible for me, and for those who have ridden the ride with me. There are so many names to list, and it’s hard to come up with this list in the dark hours of the morning when I know I should be sleeping. But to all of those who play a special and important role in my life, I want you all to know that none of what has happened to me would be possible without your support. Your continued guidance, counsel, and companionship teaches me much and inspires me greatly. My only wish is that I will someday be able to repay all the good deeds that others have bestowed upon me. If not to the original giver, I hope to someday inspire others and help others in the same way you all have shown and taught me. Maybe this is less of a 2016 thing and more of a “crystal ball into the future” moment… but I think it’s worth mentioning regardless.

Thanks for a fantastic 2015. I’m looking forward to seeing where 2016 takes us next.