Re: GSoC Student Introduction

On 5/14/25 12:09, Kayla P wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> 
> My name is Kayla (Kat) Powell. I am one of the GSoC Students selected 
> for this summer and wanted to introduce myself and my project.
> 
> 
> I am going into my senior year at San Francisco State University 
> studying computer science (big surprise!). Some of my hobbies include 
> drawing, music, and video games. But, in particular, I have a passion 
> for operating systems that started back in my freshman year when I 
> ditched Windows for a weekend-long Gentoo Linux install---an experience 
> that sparked my interest in system internals and OS hacking. Since then, 
> I’ve developed a true appreciation for not only the simplicity and 
> engineering of UNIXsystems, but also its collaborative nature that 
> offers a rich fountain of growth and knowledge, uniting people from all 
> walks of life.
> 
> 
> This interest led me to FreeBSD. It is at the heart of BSD UNIXand has a 
> great permissive license. Its many use cases with an approachable 
> contributor base has intertwined it into my life in many ways, such as 
> my NAS, website backend, and learning source. If you were at the recent 
> FreeBSD summit in November, you probably saw my boyfriend and me sitting 
> in the back absorbing all the amazing information. Now, in this 
> whirlwind of events, I have been gratefully accepted as a GSoC Student 
> under imp@, where I’ve taken several of his “crazy” ideas and tied them 
> into one project: ACPI Initialization in Loader with Lua Bindings.
> 
> 
> Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is Intel’s power 
> management specification. It revolutionized power management by bringing 
> it into the operating system, rather than the BIOS. As it stands right 
> now, it is in the FreeBSD kernel, which is great, and most of it can 
> stay there. But, we specifically need to bring ACPI’s initialization 
> routines into the loader, so we can (1) relieve the bootloader of having 
> to guess ACPI information and (2) integrate it into the Lua interpreter. 
> The outcome of this project will be the enumeration of the ACPI 
> namespace into Lua bindings so we can ultimately script ACPI. The goal 
> is to not only address the former inefficiencies, but to provide easier 
> power management to all FreeBSD users, whether it be for embedded 
> systems, servers, or desktop users.
> 
> 
> I am really excited to contribute to this project with imp@. I have high 
> respect for him (and for the FreeBSD space in general), and I am 
> extremely grateful to be here. If anyone has any knowledge/input on my 
> project space, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to 
> meeting everyone!
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> Kat Powell
> Linkedin <https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpowkitty> | Github <https:// 
> www.github.com/kpowkitty>

Welcome to the club Kat!  Your project sounds like a great improvement!

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