Chamindra de Silva — Personal Site

A steampunk/sci-fi themed Jekyll site for Chamindra de Silva: Innovation Director, open source pioneer, FINOS AI Governance Framework Maintainer, FINOS InnerSource SIG Lead, HFOSS concept founder, and Oxford engineer.

Live at: chamindra.github.io

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Quick Start

./launch.sh

The script checks for all dependencies (Homebrew, Ruby, Bundler, gems), installs anything missing, then starts the local server with live-reload at http://localhost:4000.

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Project Structure

chamindra-site/
├── launch.sh              ← Start here — installs deps & runs the server
├── Gemfile                ← Jekyll 4.4 + plugins (see Ruby compatibility note)
├── _config.yml            ← Site metadata, author info, plugins
│
├── index.html             ← Blog feed (transmissions) — lists all posts
├── about.md               ← Full biography page
├── publications.md        ← Academic & press publications
│
├── _posts/                ← All blog posts (Markdown)
│   ├── 2026-06-22-*.md   ← AI / InnerSource posts
│   ├── 2026-06-01-finos-ai-governance-framework-maintainer.md
│   ├── 2026-05-12-aigf-use-case-taxonomy-sr11-7.md
│   ├── 2026-04-08-aigf-mcp-server-custom-governance.md
│   └── ...
│
├── _layouts/
│   ├── default.html       ← Site chrome: header, nav, sidebar, footer
│   ├── post.html          ← Single post layout
│   └── page.html          ← Static page layout (about, publications)
│
├── _data/
│   └── sidebar.yml        ← Expertise, current roles, award products, publications, labels
│
└── assets/
    └── css/style.css      ← All styling — steampunk sci-fi theme

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Key Files — Where to Find Things

What	Where
Site title, URL, author email/social links	_config.yml
Header badges & role tagline	_layouts/default.html lines 32–39
Sidebar sections (expertise, current roles, etc.)	_data/sidebar.yml
Bio quote in header	_layouts/default.html line 21
All CSS / theme colours	assets/css/style.css
About / biography page	about.md
Blog posts	_posts/
Publications page	publications.md

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Writing a New Post

Create a file in _posts/ named YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md with this front matter:

---
layout: post
title: "Your Post Title"
date: 2026-06-22 00:00:00 +0000
categories: [ai]           # ai | innersource | open-source | hfoss | sustainability | general
excerpt: "One or two sentences shown on the feed page."
linkedin_url: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/chamindra   # optional
external_url: https://github.com/...                  # optional
external_label: github                                # optional (replaces 'article')
---

Post body in Markdown here.

Available categories (control badge colour on the feed):

• ai — blue
• innersource — purple
• open-source — teal
• hfoss — orange
• sustainability — green
• general — grey

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Manual Install (if not using launch.sh)

Prerequisites

• macOS with Homebrew
• Ruby 3.1+ — install via Homebrew: brew install ruby
• Bundler — gem install bundler

Steps

# 1. Add Homebrew Ruby to your PATH (add this to ~/.zshrc for persistence)
export PATH="$(brew --prefix ruby)/bin:$PATH"

# 2. Install gems
cd chamindra-site
bundle install

# 3. Serve locally
bundle exec jekyll serve --port 4000 --livereload

Open http://localhost:4000 in your browser.

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Ruby Compatibility Note

This site requires Ruby ≥ 3.1 and uses Jekyll 4.4 (not the github-pages gem, which bundles Jekyll 3.9). Jekyll 3.9 pins Liquid 4.0.3 which calls String#tainted? — a method removed in Ruby 3.2. The Gemfile explicitly pins liquid 4.0.4 which resolves this for local development.

Deploying to GitHub Pages: Use a GitHub Actions workflow with actions/jekyll-build-pages or the standard github-pages Actions approach — this runs Jekyll server-side and is not affected by the local Ruby version.

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Theme

Dark steampunk / sci-fi aesthetic — inspired by Blade Runner, Neuromancer, 2001, and classical Oxford. Amber (#EF9F27) and teal (#5DCAA5) on near-black. Monospace (Courier) for labels and navigation; Georgia serif for titles and body.

Colour variables and all sizing live in assets/css/style.css — the :root block at the top.

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Content Areas

Topic	Posts
AI Governance	FINOS AIGF Maintainer role, use-case taxonomy (SR 11-7), AIGF MCP server
InnerSource	FINOS InnerSource SIG Lead, Citi DevOps InnerSource patterns
Open Source AI	Foundation models, OSI licensing, open weights
HFOSS	Sahana DMS, humanitarian open source, Sri Lanka tsunami response
Sustainability	ESG alignment, SDGs, Eco-Friendly Web Alliance
General	Oxford, Magdalen Means Business exhibit