"It breaks four of the five apps I maintain. I'll add links."
~ Robert Riches on one of Vincent Povirk's patches
Vincent Povirk
Email: <madewokherd AT SPAMFREE gmail DOT com>
IRC Nick: madewokherd
Areas of Wine I'm familiar with:
GdiPlus (gdiplus.dll)
WindowsCodecs (windowscodecs.dll)
- structured storage (oleaut32.dll)
- appbar support (shell32.dll, explorer.exe)
- windowing/virtual desktops (winex11.drv)
I became involved in Wine around 2005, when I had recently started using Linux and was trying (with some measure of success, in fact) to make Worms: Armageddon run. Over the years, I've had a lot of fun tracking down various issues that affect programs running in Wine. I tend to work off and on in my free time on downloadable (usually free) Windows games. Sending in patches to fix bugs tends to be what I think of as "real work", so I usually stop at posting an explanation of the problem (and often a work-around) in an appropriate place.
In the Summer of 2008, I graduated from university and sent (on the off chance I could somehow be useful) an application to CodeWeavers. To my surprise, they wanted me to move to Minnesota (I am originally from Pittsburgh, PA) for three months so they could find out whether I am useful, and at the end of the three months they hired me permanently. Working forces me to follow issues longer than I normally would (and usually see them resolved), which makes me feel much more useful than I probably would otherwise.