Telsa Gwynne (6 Dec 1969–3 Nov 2015) was a Welsh writer and open source/free culture contributor. She was an active participant an teacher in LinuxChix, an open source software contributor from the late 1990s until 2005, and from 2005–2007 she was an active Wikipedia editor. After leaving online tech volunteering she wrote fanfiction and studied the Welsh language.
Telsa died in 2015 after living with cancer for several years. She is remembered for kindness, warmth, and sense of humor.
Contents
Open source contributions
Telsa was a bug reporter, bug triager and Welsh translator for the GNOME project until about 2005. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the GNOME Foundation from 2001-2002. She wrote technical documentation, such as "explaining the intricacies of configurations files and how to keep Gnome systems both up to date and secure".
She participated in LinuxChix as a mentor and advisor.
Interviews about her work on GNOME and LinuxChix: April 2001, March 2002.
Telsa decided to stop being active in the GNOME project and open source. She wrote:
- "... I found keeping up with endless blogs and RSS feeds and project Wiki pages and IRC channels and mailing lists and announcements and Myspace and Facebook and planets and the rest impossible, and just fell out of contact with a lot of it. The instant resulting peace and rise in my spirits just reinforced how fractious and rude a lot of free software development is. I see no need for me to take that any more. Life is much better without it. I now wonder why I put up with it for so long." Occasionally Asked Questions
Online diary and writing
Telsa wrote a popular online diary (it began before the term "blogging" was popularised) from 1998 until 2006, recounting both her own life and work on Open Source and her alternative take on her husband Alan Cox. In her closing entry in 2006 she recounted unpleasant experiences with online harassment among other reasons for ending it. See Harassment of Telsa Gwynne.
She wrote other articles as well, such as "A Partner's Survival Guide" for Linux Journal in 1998 ("A view of life with a hacker brought to us by a mischievous spouse who should know").
Conference presentations
While active in Open Source, Telsa gave several conference presentations, usually about bug work.
- linux.conf.au 2003: "Making the right sort of difference: bugs and what to do with them"
Memorials
In Memory of Telsa Gwynne by Jonas Öberg
Remembering Telsa Gwynne by Mary Gardiner
In Memory of Telsa Gwynne, GNOME Foundation
Telsa Gwynne (1969 – 2015) by Gurfal (Welsh, with translation to English in comments
