Hi,

I am a disabled* programmer. Popular Github projects with which I have been involved include:

• IndexedDBShim (allowing use of the standard, browser client-side database API in Node.js or older WebSQL-supporting browsers)
• eslint-plugin-jsdoc (for checking the structure of a project's JavaScript code comments)
• I have also done some work at maintaining and modernizing svgedit, a browser-based graphics editor.
• I am presently working on a robust update to node-login to provide a generic solution websites can adapt and apply for adding login/registration (and hopefully privilege management) to their sites.

My open source goals:

1. Build up the open source tools I require for a commercial project to better support my family. Due to intermittent brain fog following chemo and radiation, exhaustion from chronic fatigue, and limited capacity for emotional processing experienced as a result of my disability, despite the greatest of effort, I am simply no longer capable of undertaking stressful work with deadlines to provide regular financial income for the benefit of my family beyond what I have already been able to contribute.

However, rather than chasing a few odd, low-paid jobs that might also afford me a lax schedule, I have been working, as I have energy, on an as-yet-unreleased commercial project that I hope may provide a sustainable, long-term solution for my family's financial well-being (and which I feel would be a very useful product for individuals, businesses, and organizations). By working on some of this commercial project's dependencies as permissive open source, I expect my commercial project will also benefit from the input, insights, and contributions of others, while hopefully providing useful tools in the process.

2. As a goal in and of itself, I like to build up open source projects which provide more power to both technical and non-technical users, and also to enable greater independence for them, avoiding such users being unnecessarily tied to centralized solutions (or to ineffectively decentralized ones). I try not to confine myself to my own projects, but seek to find and encourage existing projects where possible. Very often, I find the problems facing the developer community are not a lack of existing projects, but a lack of documentation or even just a few important finishing touches on them or API flourishes, or the need for a light bridge between two existing projects. Or it may be a case where inertia can be overcome with the publishing of a fork of a defunct project so that new contributions can be integrated and moved forward. I find it a desirable goal to see what needs to be done rather than think about what I want to do or trying to promote myself or my projects.

Your acts of sponsorship, as I see it, even a small-scale sponsorship, can similarly meet some great needs we have even if the contribution is comparatively small.

My strengths are, I believe, along the lines of attention to detail, trying to be accommodating to different projects' needs, leveraging existing conventions while not taking any status quo as forever set it stone, and hopefully never being contented with low standards. This can come with the cost that more well thought out, labor-intensive, or necessarily collaborative solutions may take a longer time.

Your support can really help me focus on this (as I am already inclined to do)!

I make no promises for support, as my energies are limited. However:

1. The independence I seek is one toward considering and implementing the best solutions of maximum benefit for the world as I see it, and

2. All things being equal, it is natural that if I would especially wish to specially assist those who have assisted me, as my circumstances permit!

* I had been previously recognized as disabled by my government due to severe fatigue brought on by cancer and treatment therefor. While my cancer was indeed successfully treated, the underlying (and tragically under-funded and very poorly named) "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" which preceded my cancer was not cured. While I could no longer continue in my profession as a trained teacher, I retrained myself in programming, an old interest of mine, and was able to return to work for a time and no longer require disability. However, after a few years of programming and project management, the demands of work took a further toll on my health, I could not continue, and I was quite disappointingly, not able to get government disability again--despite my doctors recognizing my need.