Community Member Monday: Adam Seskunas
Tell us a bit about yourself!
My name is Adam Seskunas and I currently live in San Diego, California. In my free time I enjoy outdoor activities, hiking, backpacking in the Sierra, rock climbing and surfing with my daughter Sofia. I have a degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland Global Campus, and I’m an open source software enthusiast.
What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?
Currently I’m working on my first “Difficulty Interesting” Easy Hack, a nice description of which can be found on this page.
The Easy Hack involves the ASCII filter for LibreOffice Writer and the way it handles the output of tables. True to its name, the Easy Hack has been interesting! It’s been challenging and rewarding at the same time. I’d like to thank Hossein Nourikhah for providing the code pointers and background information, and Michael Weghorn for help in code review.
Why did you choose to join the project, and how was the experience?
I’ve been using LibreOffice ever since I became interested in using Linux, when I was studying for my Computer Science degree, but I never had considered contributing. It’s such a large project, and I had no experience with C++. I just happened to see an advert on VolunteerMatch for bug testing, and answering the ad got me in contact with Ilmari Lauhakangas.
Ilmari would meet with me bi-weekly and he taught me how to verify bugs in Bugzilla and eventually got me into developing. Overall, joining the project been a fantastic experience, from Ilmari’s mentorship to all the people involved – everyone’s been great. I’d highly recommend it to anyone.
Anything else you plan to do in the future?
My plan is to apply and hopefully get accepted to do Google Summer of Code for LibreOffice. I’ve been talking to Hossein about ideas and I’m excited to get my application written and submitted.
What does LibreOffice really need now?
I’d say more contributors. There’s a robust community of contributors, but any project could use more. It’s a great way to meet people and gain some experience. I’d encourage anyone reading this and thinking about contributing to check out the wiki. There’s great information there and you can help in many different ways, not just development.
Many thanks to Adam for all his contributions! Every LibreOffice user is welcome to get involved and find out what they can do in our community 👍