Matthias Kirschner’s Web log • I love the work of the ArchWiki maintainers

For this year’s “I love Free Software Day” I
would like to thank the maintainers of Free Software documentation, and
here especially the maintainers of the
ArchWiki. Maintainers in general, and
maintainers of documentation most of the time get way too little
recognition for their contributions to software freedom.

Myself, Arch Project Leader Levente, ArchWiki maintainer Ferdinand
(Alad), and FSFE’s vice president Heiki at FOSDEM 2026 after I handed
them over some hacker chocolate.

The ArchWiki is a resource, I myself and many people around me regularly
consult – no matter if it is actually about Arch or another Free Software
distribution. There are countless times, when I read articles there to
get a better understanding of the tools I daily use, like e-mail
programs, editors, or all kinds of window managers I used over time. It
helped me to discover some handy features or configuration tips that
were difficult for me to find in the documentation of the software
itself.

Whenever I run into issues setting up a GNU/Linux distribution for
myself or family and friends, the ArchWiki had my back!

Whenever I want to better understand a software, the ArchWiki is most
often the first page I end up consulting.

You are one of the pearls of the internet! Or in Edward Snowden’s
words:

“Is it just me, or have search results become absolute garbage for
basically every site? It’s nearly impossible to discover useful
information these days (outside the ArchWiki). ”
https://x.com/Snowden/status/1460666075033575425

Thank you, to all the ArchWiki contributors for gathering all the
knowledge to help others in society to better understand technology and for
the ArchWiki maintainers to ensure the long term availability and
reliability of this crucial resource.

If you also appreciated the work of the ArchWiki maintainers for our
society, tell them as well, and I encourage you to make a donation to
Arch.

PS: Thanks also to Morton for connecting me with Ferdinand and Levente
at FOSDEM.