I decided after reading this Arch Linux thread to adopt a package or two from the AUR. I decided to do this because I wanted so badly to be able to give back to the Linux community. What better way to do this than to maintain packages?

After perusing the AUR for a little bit, I noticed that gtim and config (which is a python module required by gtim) were orphaned. This was great news for me. Two packages that I use/need in my work environment just sitting out in the open, begging to be maintained. I quickly snatched these up. Right away I remembered that the config PKGBUILD was a bit unfinished. After upgrading the version to the latest and adding the arch= flag, I re-uploaded the .tar.gz file. Bam. The package was automatically upgraded.

gtim didn't need anything done to it, really. I just selected that I'd like to maintain the file. I'll be ready if a new version ever comes around. Edit: Correction. There were a few things that needed to be corrected in the PKGBUILD. Thanks to pkgman, this took less than one minute.

I thought, "Wow... that was a bit... easy." I was really hoping for more of a challenge. What better way to test my skills than to submit my OWN PKGBUILD not already existing in AUR? I noticed that gbatt, a nice python tool for checking battery status was not yet submitted. I personally didn't use the program before, but now I will. This nifty little guy is perfect for my Openbox tray on my laptop. After a bit of reading up and learning, I was ready to submit my PKGBUILD. Stythys in the #archlinux IRC channel pointed me to pkgman and suggested its use for automation of the creation and submission of AUR packages. Thanks again, Stythys.

You can check out packages maintained by Factory (me) here. Feel free to yell at/degrade me for sloppy PKGBUILD techniques. I'm still new and love to learn about this stuff.