Running for the openSUSE Board

Hi! I‘m Sarah Julia Kriesch, 29 years old, educated as a Computer Science Expert for System Integration, and currently studying Computer Science at the TH Nürnberg.

 

• Email: sarah.kriesch@opensuse.org
• Blog: https://sarah-julia-kriesch.eu (my blog)
• facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahjulia.kriesch
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-julia-kriesch-16874b82
• Connect: https://connect.opensuse.org//pg/profile/AdaLovelace

Introduction and Biography

I am a Student at the TH Nürnberg, Student Officer for Computer Science (Fachschaft Informatik) and a Working Student (Admin/ DevOps) at ownCloud. I changed from working life to student life this year. I have received the scholarship „Aufstiegsstipendium“ (translated „upgrading scholarship“) for students with work experience by the BMBF.

I have got 4 years of work experience as a Linux System Administrator in the Core System Administration (Monitoring) at 1&1 Internet AG/ United Internet and as a (Managing) Linux Systems Engineer for MRM Systems (SaaS) at BrandMaker. MRM Systems are systems for project management in marketing (Marketing Ressource Management Systems).

I used SLES/ openSUSE during my German education of information technology for the first time in 2009. In the company I learned installations with YaST. I wanted to know more, which was the reason for going to conferences and expos. I tried to educate myself (with community support and vocational school) until the end of my 2nd year. oSC11 was the time stamp for meeting the openSUSE Community.  Marco Michna wanted to become my Mentor in System Administration and gave me private lessons until his death. I got a scholarship for further education (a free Linux training) by Heinlein. Both were a good base for starting in the job after the vocational training act.

I wasn‘t allowed to contribute to openSUSE during my last year of education, because my education company didn‘t want to see that. They filtered Google after all contributions in forums and communities. That‘s the reason why I am using the anonymous nick name „AdaLovelace“ at openSUSE. I had to wait for joining openSUSE again until my first job where I worked together with Contributors/ Members of Debian, FreeBSD and Fedora.

I started with German translations at openSUSE with half a year of work experience. Most of you know me from oSCs (since 2011). I was Member of the Video Team, the Registration Desk and contributed as a Speaker. Since 2013 I am wiki maintainer in the German wiki and admin there. Since 2014 I am an active Advocate in Germany. I give yearly presentations, organize booths and take part in different Open Source Events. As a GUUG Member (German Unix User Group) I asked for a sponsorship for oSC16. I hold my first (English) presentation about performance monitoring there then.

This year I have joined the Heroes Team and the Release Management Team. I founded the Heroes Team with my friends during the oSC16 because of the spam in the wiki. I became the Coordinator for this project. I am Translation Coordinator now, too. I was responsible for the documentation of openSUSE Leap 42.2. So I wrote a lot in the English wiki this year. I was interviewed (as an Advocate) by the Hacker Public Radio at the FOSDEM 2016.

Some of you know me from different mailing lists. That‘s the best way to reach me.

I love openSUSE and pick up tasks, if I see something to do where I can help with my Sysadmin/ Coordination/ Documentation/ BPM skills. Free periods ( Monday & Tuesday) are reserved for openSUSE Contributions. If somebody asks me for technical help (unimportant whether programming, infrastructure or communication), I‘ll try to find a solution.  I learned to work agile (Scrumban in System Administration) which I want to transfer to my teams in open source projects.

Issues I can see

I want to improve the cooperation between openSUSE and universities/ TH Nürnberg as the founder of the Open Source AG there.

openSUSE should be one of the main distributions on AWS (main AMI).

The openSUSE Infrastructure should be easier to achieve for openSUSE admins, so that we can react on escalations very fast.

Role of the Board

My goal is to have happy customers and developers. That‘s what I want to achieve as an Advocate and (perhaps) as a Board Member in the future.

We should live freedom in the community. Everybody should do what he likes. I don‘t like bossing. But I want to help in leadership with coordination and solutions where needed.

Why you should vote me

•  I am a geek(o).
•  I like new technologies and learning.
•  I know most important people in the community.
•  I learned coordination in my first job, which I can use as a Board Member, too.
•  I am educated by communities.
•  I have got an education in information technology.
•  I contribute to different parts of the project (technical and non-technical).
•  I have got a big open source network (openSUSE, ownCloud, GUUG, …).
•  I have got international work experience.
•  I love openSUSE.

 

Aims/ Goals

We should improve openSUSE and hold the position of being one of the best Linux distributions.

I want to be open for cooperation with other Linux/ open source projects.