Free Software Sunday

I’ve been in Taiwan for about four weeks now. Most of the time I was working remotely (more remotely than usual), but for the last few days I’ve been on a real vacation in Taipei. I’ve had time to kill while my wife talks to her relatives (my Mandarin is not good enough for extended conversations) so I’ve been trying to work through my all too large rt.cpan and GH PR backlogs.

The past year or two I haven’t had as much time or energy for my free software projects as in the past. Part of this is that my current job at MaxMind is generally engaging and interesting. I actually get to work on some neat projects there, including the recently released Stepford. Between work, family health issues, and the time I spend planning events like Twin Cities Veg Fest, I haven’t had much time for FS/OSS work.

But I realized that if I could just allocate a few hours per month I could probably get a lot done, at least in terms of addressing small bugs and patches for my CPAN modules. To that end, I’ve added a new recurring 3 hour block to my calendar every other Sunday labelled “Free Software Sunday”. I’ve given myself permission to ignore that event when it pops up, but it will still be a good reminder.

My apologies to all of you who’ve submitted bug reports and patches in the past and haven’t received a response. If there’s something in particular you want me to look at, please comment on the rt.cpan ticket or GH PR again to remind me.