People of Utopian #2 - Nepeta

Meet @nepeta: She’s a technology lover, digital content hoarder, experienced FOSS developer, and she describes herself as “just a regular girl from Poland”.

Who are you, Nepeta?

On Github: https://github.com/Ominousness

Professionally, I'm a web developer, but I'm not afraid to dabble in lower-level matters like kernel development or cryptography. I love electronic music and I'm an amateur EDM producer myself. My favorite producer is Porter Robinson, AND I admire him not only for his looks (although he's hot) but for his musical experiments.

Something that may not be a popular opinion over here, but I love Apple. Their attention to detail is astonishing and they are not afraid to protect users' privacy.

How long have you been involved in Open Source projects? Do you own / manage one or more of your own?

I've been involved in FOSS for almost a decade now. It all began with my switch to the GNU/Linux operating system.

Currently, I manage a few projects that are recognized in their respective niche communities (mostly /r/jailbreak). One of them is a music visualizer tweak for the jailbroken iOS 11 (https://github.com/Ominousness/MitsuhaXI). It started out as a fork of an older project.

What does your professional skill-set offer the Open Source community and what type of contributions do you normally make?

I try to focus on making projects useful for me and I'm happy when they are of use to other people. So I am mainly focused on creating new projects designed for myself and hoping that the code will help other, less experienced programmers. I will include requested features as long as it doesn't break the core features of that project. I also take time to submit fixes to other projects to improve them (although usually for my personal purposes).

Which programming languages / platforms do you feel most at home with?

The majority of my personal projects are developed in Ruby. My (closed source) Discord bot runs on Ruby and discord.rb. My (also closed source) file hosting software works on Ruby, Roda and Sequel. I plan to open source these projects soon. I also have some love towards the new Ruby-inspired languages like Elixir and Crystal. My Elixir projects are available on my GitHub profile (linked above).

Java has been useful to me with some more advanced projects thanks to its extensive community support, and JavaScript with smaller ones. Currently, I am working on an experimental Bitcoin Cash-influenced (memo.cash service but integrated as a feature) cryptocurrency in Java.

How did you discover Utopian? What made you want to take part?

I discovered Utopian quite recently when I was looking for a way to sign up for Steem. Utopian's signup module was running on testnet, but I was lucky to be offered an account by the CEO (@elear) on Discord.

I love explaining the logic behind my projects and sometimes the explanations will help other programmers (like StackOverflow and random programming blogs helped me), so Utopian.io was a good fit.

My first contribution was a post about figuring a way of getting a dump of iOS audio buffer and granting access from sandboxed app to that dump. I hope the explanation is detailed enough to let other people make use of it.

https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@nepeta/developing-ios-tweaks-a-case-study-of-fetching-system-s-audio-buffer-from-sandboxed-processes

How do you think Utopian affects your relationships with the Open Source community and ecosystem?

I have yet to contribute enough to Utopian to claim it had any impact on my relationship with the community, but it definitely made contributing more enjoyable for me. It feels really motivating to see my contributions to unknown niche projects being rewarded. The Utopian community inspired me to start planning a tutorial series to be published soon to Utopian.io.

Are there any particular projects on Utopian you’re a fan of?

SteemPay is interesting. I love how SteemPay achieves what other cryptocurrencies have been striving for. Dead simple payments with no fees thanks to the power of the Steem blockchain.

I believe that Steem and SteemPay will become the uncontested leaders in cryptocurrency microtransactions. Simpler and cheaper than PayPal. Can't wait for the widespread adoption.

What is your favorite thing about Utopian?

My favorite thing is people finally being rewarded for their FOSS contributions. This is been an issue for the longest time, with only the biggest contributions rewarded through bounties.

How do you see the future of Utopian? What would you want it to be, and where would you like to see yourself in it?

I'd love to just stay a contributor. Believe I'm not fit for a community management position.

I hope to see Utopian become a big foundation akin to the Linux Foundation. Utopian getting some influence on FOSS projects would be a nice addition to the ecosystem. I don't claim that the FOSS world should be more diverse, but shaking the current order is something I'm looking forward to.

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