Helping with the Commit Digest

By now I have been writing for the KDE Commit Digest since the end of last year. The KDE Commit Digest is a weekly publication which reports on all the commits (changes to software code) made to the KDE software made in the last seven days. News of new Commit Digests is also posted to the KDE.news website, which is read quite often by those interested in the KDE community and software. In October 2010 the KDE Commit Digest was revived by Danny Allen after a period of dormancy. Previously he worked on the Digest all alone, and understandably it was too much work for one person. He worked on a platform called Enzyme to make producing the Digests easier and sent out a call for help to volunteers who could help him with the job. Even though the KDE Commit Digest is a very popular publication, Danny reported that he didn’t have enough volunteers yet. I really wanted the relaunch of the Digest to succeed so I decided to apply myself. So far I had always been testing free software and reported bugs, I made a failed (incomplete) attempt to rewrite the old documentation for Abiword and I translated the biblatex LaTeX package to Dutch. I felt I should contribute more to return the favour to the great KDE community which produces the software I use so often.

Over the course of the last few months I have collaborated with the other volunteers helping Danny over the mailing list for the Digest. I’m quite satisfied with how the collaboration is going even if not everyone, including me, has enough time to contribute an equal amount of work every week. Even if we can manage the workload right now, I think a few more volunteers who could help out would be very welcome. Even though I have been collaborating with these people for months it’s a pity I barely know them, but that might change when some of us could possibly meet at this years Desktop Summit in Berlin. Working on the Commit-Digest itself isn’t a very satisfying experience because it’s not work I enjoy, my motivation is rooted more in a sense of duty than enjoyment. It’s primarily the idea that I can return the favour and contribute back to a great organisation producing free software, aid in it’s promotion and the fact that the Digest is read by many people with much interest that is rewarding.