Every blog has a first post. This is mine.
I've been doing open source work quietly for a while now — maintaining FreeBSD ports, sending patches upstream, writing documentation that mostly lives in bug trackers and mailing list threads. None of it is particularly visible, and that's mostly fine. But I've been finding that I want somewhere to write down the longer thoughts. The ones that don't fit in a commit message or a Bugzilla comment.
So here we are.
What this is
This is a personal blog. Not a technical publication, not a tutorial site. I'll write about what I'm working on, what's frustrating me, what I figured out, and occasionally about things that have nothing to do with computers at all.
The reporting side of things — monthly FreeBSD HPC status reports — lives at reports.kavocado.net. That's more structured. This is the scratchpad.
What I'm working on right now
Currently deep in FreeBSD ports work:
- UCX — upstream portability PR open, working through review with the maintainer. FreeBSD, musl, Clang compatibility.
- py-pelican — adopted this port, bumped to 4.12.0, working through review feedback from vvd@.
- net-snmp — patch audit against upstream, preparing a couple of upstream PRs for bugs I found in the install machinery.
Also building this whole site network, which is taking longer than expected but is genuinely fun.
Why bother
Honestly? Writing helps me think. And I've read enough other people's blogs about their open source work to know that the messy middle — the part where you don't know what you're doing yet — is often the most useful thing to document.
So I'm going to try to write that part down, while I'm still in it.
Let's see how it goes.
