Dear Front Desk, The CEO of ThinkPenguin sent in an email endorsing my character as it pertains to my Debian work, and he sent it to archive-1...@nm.debian.org but it didn't make it to this list, so I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss it. The application as a whole is ready for Front Desk review at your leisure.
Thanks, John
--- Begin Message ---To whom it concerns,I'd like to just say thanks to John Scott for important work he's done pertaining improving support for free software wireless hardware in Debian and recommend those responsible take a serious look at and consider his application for a Debian Maintainer position. While I can't say I know John terribly well I can say I have had communications with him on a number of occasions over the years pertaining to his contributions in fixing what were long-standing issues in Debian for properly supporting free software USB wireless adapters.My company has focused on selling free software friendly hardware to enable and ensure better support for at least some set of hardware in GNU/Linux. Years ago we worked with Adrian Chadd and Luis R. Rodriguez to get a complete set of source code released for the ath9k-htc firmware that support numerous USB wifi adapters including our own product line-up. Early on we reached out to downstream distributions of Debian such as Trisquel and ended up getting solid support there. In time the adapters became the best supported USB wifi adapters for GNU/Linux and worked just about everywhere. There was however one exception. Debian! We talked to different Debian developers over the years, but no progress was ever made on getting the best supported adapters supported properly on Debian. Don't get me wrong- the adapters would work if you jumped through some hoops, but not properly, not out of the box. John came along quite a few years later and we got to talking about this problem of how Debian didn't support some of the best supported wifi adapters on the market (to clarify in the main repository) as all firmware at the time was in the non-free repository. This was despite that we had gotten a complete set of code released and they were literally the only adapters that could be supported under the Debian guidelines at the time (aka again in the main repo). There were however rule-related problems in what I believe pertained to packages in the main repo having to build and utilize certain toolchains making it a bit more difficult. No other firmware was free, so the problem was a little unclear on how to resolve it too. So there were issues pertaining to the build system supporting it, even though the firmware was under acceptable licenses, and getting the Debian build system to automatically build the firmware such that it could be included. Well, john took the initiative to actually try and fix this very important issue and was successful at. John did what no one else, not even more experienced Debian developers seemed to be able or at least willing to do.John didn't stop with just getting ath9k-htc firmware into the main repository either. He worked to get the ath9k-htc firmware included on the installation media. There were no wireless adapters supported at this time, particularly adapters readily available on the market without the ath9k-firmware and it was the only firmware that could be included in Debian based on Debian's policies at the time. This may seem unimportant, but for someone who needs to install Debian on a desktop system (or any system without a physical ethernet connection available) and needs a temporary internet wifi connection such as someone living in an apartment, dorm, retirement home, or similar having wireless internet access during the install process and potentially after is pretty critical.Today thanks to John Scott every major and likely minor desktop/server oriented distribution supports our USB wifi adapter(s) and that of many other vendors using the same set of chipsets. John took up the initiative and fixed a critical issue in Debian that no one else stepped up to resolve. For that I think he deserves a lot of credit.Please consider his application for becoming a Debian Maintainer. Christopher Waid ThinkPenguin, Inc-CEO -- Christopher Waid Key ID = 0xDC53C17DAFBE6895 Key Fingerprint = 8CB3 4159 C742 ADE6 AD38 9B4E DC53 C17D AFBE 6895
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