Guus der Kinderen Application 2021

This is the 2021 Q2 re-application for XSF membership of Guus der Kinderen, a software engineer from Rosmalen, the Netherlands.

My previous applications can be found here, here, here, here and here. You'll find that this application builds on the previous ones.

Personalia & Contact Details

• Name: Guus der Kinderen
• Jabber IDs: guus.der.kinderen@igniterealtime.org, guusdk@jabber.org
• E-mail address: guus.der.kinderen@gmail.com
• Company name: GoodBytes
• Github: guusdk
• Twitter: @guusdk
• LinkedIn: guusderkinderen

Affiliations

• Owner of Goodbytes, that primarily takes on Openfire-related development and consultancy work
• Member of the Board of Directors of the XMPP Standards Foundation (2019/2020 & 2018/2019 & 2017/2018)
• Team lead of the Summits, Conferences & Meetups Work Team
• Board member of the Ignite Realtime Foundation
• Developer of the Openfire server, Spark client,

Motivation

Over the years, I've been working on XMPP-related implementations on and of, both voluntary as well as in a professional capacity. My primary reason for applying for XSF membership is to contribute back to the community that has provided me with a lot of opportunities over these years.

Background & Contributions to the XMPP community

I got introduced to XMPP in the early 2000s, when I was working on my thesis. That thesis later evolved into Nimbuzz, where I was employed for a number of years.

We based Nimbuzz on Openfire, a project that I continued to support in my spare time after I left the company. After Jive Software slowly but surely pulled out, I became the de facto project lead for Openfire. Although somewhat hard to combine with my daytime jobs at the time (didn't have a remote connection to XMPP), I helped keep the project and the broader Ignite Realtime community afloat until dwd stepped up.

Around 2015, I leaped and/or plunged, quitting my job and starting a business of my own: Goodbytes (dot nl). Now that I'm self-employed, I find myself more and more involved in projects that relate to XMPP (Yey). As a result, the amount of time that I spend on XMPP-related activities has increased a lot. Being more active as ever, and having to owe part of my paycheck to XMPP, I thought it to be good and contribute back to the community, starting by signing up as an XSF member (okay, I started by fixing a link on the xmpp.org website, but this is the next best thing, right?)

In my first year of XSF membership, I've tried to contribute to the XSF by maintaining the xmpp.org website, by producing bug fixes and chasing down issues on the issue list. I started participating and later organizing the annual XMPP Summits, and man the XSF booth at FOSDEM, which I enjoy a lot (apart from that one year where I basically spent all weekend sick in the hotel room).

I've been helping out preparing for the the XSF participation in Google's Summer of Code 2017, and serve as a mentor of one of that year's students. Finally, I've been active as a member of the scam and iteam work groups, as well as on the board of directors of the XSF.

Outside of the XSF, I've been contributing to XMPP as a member of the Ignite Realtime community. For Ignite, apart for my continued work on Openfire and other project, I was involved in revitalizing ^[1][2] the Spark client project and creating a legal entity for that community^[3], serving as the Chair of the board for the Ignite Realtime Foundation. Other than that, I continue to be a regular contributor to various XMPP-related software projects, most of which are available via my Github profile.

References

1. ↑ wroot, "Spark 2.8.0 Released", Ignite Realtime Blog, Aug 25, 2016
2. ↑ Guus der Kinderen, "Request for Comments: Mavenizing Spark", Ignite Realtime Blog, Feb 20, 2017
3. ↑ Guus der Kinderen, "Starting the Ignite Realtime Foundation", Ignite Realtime Blog, Oct 21, 2016