Issue23 / Ubuntu Women

Myriam Schweingruber: Hi, welcome to the "Women behind Ubuntu" interview, Lydia! Please introduce yourself?

Lydia Pintscher: Sure. I am Lydia, from Germany, Free Software enthusiast, cat herder, social media Ninja, and some more. I am mainly doing community management for KDE, and specifically Amarok. I am also known as Nightrose on IRC.

MS: Oh, that sounds impressive. So you are from the Kubuntu faction, right?

LP: Exactly, I am one of the Kubuntu Council people.

MS: Oh, nice to hear that, and congratulations! Since when are you involved in Kubuntu?

LP: Since shortly after I started using Linux I think. That was around Breezy.

MS: Well, that was quite some time ago. Do you remember why you chose Kubuntu over other distributions?

LP: Back then, I wanted to try Linux, and wasn't sure which distribution to choose. As everyone was talking about Ubuntu and how cool it was at that time, I gave it a try.

But I also heard people talk about Kubuntu. So, after 2 hours of playing with Ubuntu, I installed Kubuntu, fell in love, and am using it ever since. I love how applications are integrated, and of course it is blue! I love blue!

MS: Great! You are also involved with the Ubuntu Women project, right?

LP: I am, right. Mainly, I hang around in the channel to help newbies and people who had a bad day and need to vent. Having a place to do that is really helpful.

MS: Indeed. So the channel is used to calm down, and "tank" some energy before going back to the usual world?

LP: Right, and of course to encourage women to go out there and make Ubuntu rock by coding, bug triaging, promotion, and so on - there is something to do for everyone. It just sometimes takes a little time to find that task.

MS: Do you also code?

LP: I am a student of computer science, but, honestly, there are a lot of people out there who write better code than I do. And projects like KDE and Kubuntu are much better served by me doing community work and promotion than coding. ;-) It is a skill set many projects need.

MS: I agree, some projects do neglect this side of the work. Could you give some tips to women who want to get involved in (K)Ubuntu?

LP: Think about what you like to do. You don't have to be an expert at it. We all started small and had to learn. Once you know what you like, go to the responsible team, and ask how you can help.

Most of them will be glad to help you get started. If you don't know what you like, or are afraid to go around the community on your own, come to our IRC channel or mailing-list.

We'll try to help. And as I said before: there is something for everyone; don't be afraid to ask.

MS: Great! So if one doesn't have the courage to go to a particular project, they can expect a helping hand in the UW channel. From your experience, is there a similar project in KDE?

LP: Yes we have KDE-Women, but it basically has been dead for quite a long time, which is a good thing.

MS: Why is that?

LP: It shows that women in KDE feel comfortable enough in the whole KDE community, and are well integrated. I hope we will reach the same with Ubuntu Women soon. One step to that goal would be to get more women involved in all parts of Ubuntu.

MS: Are there, in your opinion, any particular areas of Ubuntu where more women should be involved?

LP: I think packaging is something only few women do, and it would be nice to change that.

MS: But isn't packaging difficult? Those are *.deb packages after all, and they don't have the reputation to be easy to make.

LP: It is a challenge. But really, there's lots of people around to help you get started, and it is an incredibly rewarding feeling to have your first package in the Ubuntu archive, installable by thousands of people.

MS: I can easily imagine that! Thank you for the interview and your precious time!

For more about our interview series, check out our website: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Interviews