Tag: Interviews

Every edition of GUADEC is organized by passionate contributors who work hard to welcome the GNOME community to their home town or country. They are part of what we call the Local Organizing Team, and they make sure GUADEC has a place and the structure needed to happen.

This year’s GUADEC is being organized by a team led by Alexandre Franke, who lives in Strasbourg. Alexandre is a GNOME Foundation member since 2010, and also a very active member of the GNOME community in France. He’s currently the coordinator of our French Translations Team, and the treasurer of the GNOME-FR group.

Alexandre has been leading the organization since 2012, when the bid for Strasbourg was accepted by the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors. With GUADEC starting tomorrow, we took the chance to talk to him about the experience of organizing the conference in his hometown:

Why makes Strasbourg a great place for GUADEC?

Strasbourg is very active in the Free Software world, but GNOME is not very well represented here. By making the GNOME community come to Strasbourg, we have the opportunity to reach out to the local community and raise awareness of the project.

I also hope the institutional role of the city will inspire our attendees. With the European Court of Human Rights just around the corner, we’re dealing with Freedom on a different level than just software.

What is the the most exciting part of organizing GUADEC?

I was born and raised in Strasbourg and have been living in the area for 30 years. I’m a bit biased, but I think Strasbourg is the most beautiful city in the world. I’m really excited to have the GNOME community in my hometown, and to have these wonderful people discover it.

What is the most challenging part of organizing GUADEC?

We had a bad surprise five weeks before the event, when we learned we couldn’t have the venue we planned to have since 2012. It was a crisis that led to many sleepless nights, and a huge relief when Epitech told me they’d be happy to provide the venue for the event.

What is your favorite place in Strasbourg? Which places should we check out?

There are several museums in Strasbourg, all worth visiting. My favorite one is the Museum of Modern Art. I like to go there and sit for a while in front of the 54m² painting by Gustave Doré, “Le Christ quittant le prétoire“. Once I’m done visiting, I usually go to the café on the roof, where I can enjoy the most beautiful view of Strasbourg. And while you’re there, you can go for a walk in la Petite France!

You can also add those to your checklist:

• Place de la République, in the Neustadt, built by the German Empire
• The zoo at the Parc de l’Orangerie is the best spot to see the storks.
• And, of course, the Cathedral.

Thanks for the tips, Alexandre! And, most of all, thanks so much for having the GNOME community in Strasbourg!

GUADEC 2014 is almost upon us, and we are talking to the three keynote speakers who are lined up for this year’s conference. Nathan Wills – LWN editor, typeface designer and author – is one of these keynote speakers. His talk, titled Should We Teach The Robot To Kill, addresses issues relating to Free Software and the automative industry. We caught up with him to find out a bit more about this fascinating subject, as well as his views on Free Software conferences.

The automotive industry has been a latecomer to open source software. Why do you think that is?

I guess I think there are two reasons. The first is that automotive is highly, tightly “vertical” — carmakers have long-standing relationships with their manufacturers, suppliers, and vendors that involve multi-year contracts, and each car model takes years to go from design to implementation. I mean, it’s the prototypical assembly-line industry, after all. Thus, it takes quite some time to orchestrate a major change.

The other reason, though, it that it has only been recently that consumer electronics has become an important factor for carmakers. Now that smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous, not just accessories for people with disposable income, customers are asking for different things in their cars than they used to. A few years ago, your biggest concerns were DVD players in the rear seats, CDs in the front, and maybe some kind of remote-unlock/service-you-can-call. Now people want installable apps and they expect a full-blown 3G Internet connection; that means a very different software stack is expected than there used to be.

What is the most exciting improvement the automotive industry could bring to everyday life, in your opinion?

Okay; so this may sound nebulous, but I think one of the best things the automotive software market could do is demonstrate to people that software is just another component in all of the machines & things that we already use everyday. Because people have a different relationship to their cars than they do to, say, their phones and their netbooks. We change our own oil, we replace parts that wear out; we keep our cars for decades at a time and we learn every little thing about how they work (admittedly, it’s not always by choice…).

So automotive software will have to encompass part of that experience already. And, since so much of that software will be based on Linux and FOSS, I hope it will expose lots of new people to programming — as something that they can do if they decide they want to.

You attended the coolest worldwide conferences about open source. Which one has been the most exciting? (GUADEC apart, of course!)

Yikes…. It’s so hard to choose, because they’re all so different. I really love the “community” conferences like Texas Linux Fest, SCALE, and Ohio Linux Fest, because the attendees are so fired up. But I also really love developer conferences, because you get to see the connections being made and major things happening that just don’t occur in mailing-list discussions. On that side of things I would put conferences like GUADEC and the GStreamer Conference. But then I also have to single out Libre Graphics Meeting, which is a favorite of mine because it’s right in between: developers and users meeting with each other.

What do you expect from this GUADEC?

Mayhem of the highest order. But mixed in with talks showcasing interesting new work that I might unintentionally miss if I was just reading release announcements, a glimpse of where GNOME and GTK+ applications will be six months or a year from now, and, naturally, a lot of people enjoying geeking out (so to speak) about making and using software. Also hopefully some font talk….

What can we expect from your keynote at GUADEC?

Well, I hope people will come away with a clearer picture of where things stand today in the automotive Linux software realm — especially what the various projects’ goals are and what parts of the overall picture those goals cover. Then I also hope I can get people interested in participating in automotive software space, starting with where they can get involved today as a user and as a contributor.

And, finally, my ultimate goal would be to persuade some people that the free-software community can — and should — take up the challenge and view the car as a first-rate environment where free software belongs. Because there will naturally be lots of little gaps where the different corporate projects don’t quite have every angle covered. But we don’t have to wait for other giant companies to come along and finish the job. We can get involved now, and if we do, then the next generation of automotive software will be stronger for it, both in terms of features and in terms of free-software ideals.

Thanks Nathan! We can’t wait to hear your keynote.

GUADEC couldn’t happen without the help of volunteers. These are attendees that dedicate part of their conference experience to help the organizing team. They are there to make sure things run smoothly, and are always available to help.

Shivani Poddar was a volunteer during last year’s GUADEC in Brno, her first GUADEC both as an attendee and a volunteer. The experience was so remarkable Shivani is now back to volunteering. She’s coordinating the volunteer activities for this year’s GUADEC — and she guarantees it’s not too late to sign up to help!

We chatted with Shivani about volunteering at GUADEC, and how you can also help:

What can volunteers help with during GUADEC?

Volunteers can help with a number of different things. They can assist at the information desk, where they answer questions about the conference events, and help with registration and swag handling. They can also become a Session Chair, which means moderating the talks, making sure they start and end on time, and that attendees can ask questions. Another way volunteers can help is by, literally, running around and helping as needed — we call these the “runners”.

All of this happens during the conference, but there’s a lot to be done before it as well. Volunteers are welcome to help us with the pre-conference setup, which includes putting things in place, folding badges, and solving last-minute troubles.

You were a volunteer during last year’s GUADEC. How was the experience?

I personally loved the experience. Firstly, as interns [Shivani was a Google Summer of Code intern last summer], we don’t have to worry a lot about organizational tasks. So volunteering was a great way to contribute my bit to the conference. I not only learned about how things work (including running, being Session Chair, etc) but also got to meet a lot of new people because of it. I saw the effort people put in, and felt like contributing a lot more in the following year (read this year!).

How can attendees volunteer? Can anyone help?

Yes! And thanks to all volunteers, it means a lot!

If you want to help, all you need to do is the follow these steps:

• Add yourself to the Volunteers list, and read about the different volunteer roles carefully.
• Add yourself to the timetable. Make sure to only sign up for slot you will be available to cover.
• Make sure you are subscribed to guadec-list — all important announcements are communicated there.
• Make sure to attend the volunteer meetings.

If you want to volunteer (or are already one) and have any queries, ping me at #guadec on IRC. I will be happy to help you.

Thanks for the interview and for coordinating the volunteer work at GUADEC, Shivani!

Cathy Malmrose discovered Free Software in 2007, when her son showed her Ubuntu. She realized that she could build computers optimized for GNU/Linux, and now runs ZaReason, a company which sells computers preloaded with Linux. Now ZaReason has opened its first shop in Berkley, CA and is poised to launch ZaTab, a Linux tablet.

We are lucky to have Cathy speaking at this year’s GUADEC conference, and she recently took the time to speak to us about ZaReason and the upcoming conference.

Zareason states that it aims to showcase GNU/Linux as the superior operating system. What are your thoughts about the ethics of free operating systems and providing hardware that just works out of the box for customers?

I am not an idealist. Free and open just makes sense. In so many aspects of life, lockdown only leads to longterm misery.

Take the food industry for example. If we allowed the manufacturers to do their work behind closed doors, can you imagine the types of things they would put in our food to save money? Even with the food industry being open, there are still problems. Think pink sludge (scraps of meat treated with ammonia) or grocery store items with a list of ingredients that read like a chemical biology textbook. At least with legally mandated openness they have to tell us what they put in the food so we can make an informed choice.

Some people compare the electronics industry to other sectors (such as the auto industry) and advocate for closed source using safety and security as their main reasoning. While I can see their point, I believe that proprietary development is short-sighted. My personal experience has been that the decision to make code proprietary always comes from a money-first position. Bad decisions are made when money rules over the long-term well-being of the code base.

I believe that free and open is the easiest and most effective way to keep our hardware working properly (and keep it honestly secure). Long-term.

What can we expect from your keynote at GUADEC?

I have given it a lot of though re: “What could we talk about that would result in further growth and acceptance of GNOME as world-class, something that could benefit people in general?” I will give OEM-level insight + some non-developer user-level insight of future GNOME users. Half will be practical, next-step information and half will be long-term view. Hopefully it will get developers and GNOME Foundation team members thinking about (and answering) questions for the community and the public at large.

Also, I like to do a Trivia test at the end of each talk I give. I usually ask questions about women in early computing. It helps people be more aware of women’s contributions in the early years, something many people wouldn’t even listen to otherwise. I will be giving away a few Tux keyboards (as many as will fit in my luggage, probably just two). I have done the Trivia thing at a dozen other talks, both big and small and it is always fun. It’s corny but I love it.

What do you expect from GUADEC?

I expect to meet lots of great people. I want to hear insights and opinions from the GNOME community.

We at GNOME are committed to making Free Software world as inclusive as possible to women. Have you encountered challenges as a successful women in Free Software?

To be honest, I don’t give it much thought. I have been lucky to work with men who are respectful and generous. Of course people I meet often assume I don’t know much, but that usually helps me learn more in the end.

My view on encouraging more women to enter the tech sector is simply to encourage “a programmer’s way of thinking.” In much of what I read for my daughter, girls are often encouraged to: 1. ask a friend for help (rather than solve it herself), 2. complain, or 3. give up.We need to teach our girls and women to switch their thought processes to: 1. hammer the problem yourself until you understand it, 2. don’t complain, just make your best guess, and 3. be so persistent that you wouldn’t even consider giving up as an option. It doesn’t have to be their main way of approaching the world, but a person has to be capable of it. Until a person, female or male, can think like a coder, there’s not much use in encouraging them to enter the tech sector.

As a product reseller, what would you like to see from GNOME?

First, I cringe at the thought of being a “product reseller” for many, many reasons. I hope you don’t mind if I reframe the question?

What do you think we all could do to better position GNOME and other Free Software as something desirable, high-end? Essentially still the same question but without the reseller concept. Quick rant on reseller concept: a reseller simply repackages something for the public. We do so much more than just pre-load a distro!! When people say that’s all we do, it dismisses all our hard work in other areas and wow, that doesn’t feel good. Since the goal is to motivate each other to do good things, I like to stay away from that concept as much as possible and just focus on building cool stuff. Thanks.

The free and open community has had many turning points but the current one, secure boot, hits “below the belt” at the OEM level. I believe GNOME is the best positioned out of anyone in the F/LOSS community. There is so much potential and strength in what the GNOME Foundation + developers have built.

I can easily picture a future where the GNOME distro ships on many different types of devices, laptops, tablets, desktops, servers, the works. Full distro, full package, nothing to hinder use by the other 99% of society. My ideal end goal would be to hear someone say, “Yeah, I use GNOME,” with a level of pride, admiration, and adoration-for-quality that a Mac fanboy would use (if Mac fanboys were cool).

What are you looking forward to most about GUADEC?

Not sure. Everything?

Find out more about Cathy and ZaReason at  zareason.com and come to GUADEC to meet her in person!