Honoring a Fedora legend: Mel Chua
For many years, Dr. Mel Chua is quite literally one of the faces of “Friends” in the Fedora Project. In the Fedora Project documentation, on the page that describes the entire Fedora Project, there is a photo under the Friends Foundation section. These four faces are the literal stock photo of what we mean when we talk about the Friends Foundation in Fedora.
For a while, I thought it was time to update the photo to something more recent. But the photo was always a really good picture of a Fedora moment. And why fix what is not broken? But today, this photo brings us a beautiful memory of an early “community biologist” of the Fedora Project, Dr. Mel Chua, who traveled through Wiki pages, spanned out over the IRC channels, triaged legions of Trac git repositories, and so much more.
In May, Mel entered hospice care about a long battle with cancer. There is a crowdfunding campaign for her medical expenses as well as the back-story to her situation. The news is difficult to process. Mel has always been a Fedoran. The Four Foundations feels fitting for someone who has advocated for open and accessible work, blazed a path forward early in Fedora and open source history, and most importantly, leaves behind a legacy of compassion, kindness, and inclusion with the things she touched.