Speaker Features 2011
Who are the people behind the talks at LinuxTag 2011? That's what the "Speaker Features" tell, which we introduced 2011 for the first time. They're providing a mini interview and a little data sheet. Of course, we cannot feature all 200 speakers - hence we picked a sample. This sample ist more or less randomly: We just cared for presenting both company and free projects, both well known and rather unfamiliar open source projects. Spotlight on - enjoy, and see you May 2012 in Berlin!
30.05.2011 Featured: Vincent Untz, GNOME/Novell
We thought he doesn't want to participate in the Speaker Fetaures - but due to an email delivery error his answer reached us just this late, after LinuxTag! Quel malheur... Frenchman Vincent Untz joined the GNOME project in 2002 and startet working on the Linux distribution openSUSE at Novell in 2008. The 30-years-old engineer says his job is crazy, but he loves it all the more, and his perfect day features awakening on a snowy winterday.
12.05.2011 Featured: Gonéri Le Bouder, FusionInventory.org
Gonéri Le Bouder is both an employed software developer and a Debian developer. Debian is sometimes referred to as the best example for those projects, which get mad at the idea of commercial interests. Gonéri from Paris gives some hints for a definition for this conflict: For example, volunteers like new features, whereas companies prefer long term support.
11.05.2011 Featured: Walid Nouh, FusionInventory.org
Walid Nouh from Brussels says, he discovered a brandnew world with open source software. The IT consultant and developer worked the last five years exclusively on free software. He realizes that customers frequently ask about it: They don't know, but they want to try. Since 20 years now, he is also a strong believer in roller skates, so-called quadskates - still promoting them to the disadvantage of inline skates.
08.05.2011 Featured: Rico Barth, c.a.p.e. IT GmbH
Rico Barth is probably able to spell the expanded meaning of the acronym OTRS ("Open Ticket Request System") backwards and forwards: The mathematician worked as system integrator for several years and made IT infrastructure and service management in 2006 with the founding of cape IT GmbH his very own business. His day starts at 5 a.m., he loves boogie woogie and he collects hats.
07.05.2011 Featured: Dominik Oepen, OpenPACE
Berlin based Dominik Oepen graduated with his Diploma thesis about "Authenticatin in the mobile web - usability of eID based authentication on NFC cellphones". He researched how the new German ID cards interact with mobile phones. The PhD student is one of two founders of the OpenPACE project, that builds upon OpenSSL and implements the PACE protocol (Password Authenticated Connection Establishment). It serves as a building block for additional projects.
15.12.2010 Featured: Frank Morgner, OpenPACE
Frank Morgner is a student and research assistant of computer science at Humboldt University in Berlin. He and one other person founded the project OpenPACE, which is an openSSL based library for the protocol "Password Authenticated connection Establishment" (PACE). He launched the project coming from researches about the new german Identity Card (german "neuer Personalausweis", nPA) available since November 2011. The technique of this identity card, so Frank says, affects every german citizen...
05.05.2011 Featured: Nicholas Marriott, tmux
Nicholas Marriott from Northern Ireland wrote the terminal multiplexer "tmux", because - so he said in an interview in 2009 [1] - he found the already existing terminal multiplexer "screen" too unpractical to extend. For his own tool he wanted to keep the codebase readable and extendable. This lesson he had learned was veryfied by another lesson, which his own project taught him: People use tools in surprisingly different ways.
28.04.2011 Featured: Stefano Zacchiroli, Debian
Stefano Zacchiroli became project lead of the Linux distribution Debian in 2010 and was re-elected 2011. As "DPL" (Debian Project Lead) is Stefano, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, the official interface between Debian people and the outside world.
26.04.2011 Featured: Wolfram Sang, Linux-Kernel
Wolfram Sang from Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, is kernel developer, so he moves around at the very inside of the Linux operating system. Since embedded Linux is in heavy business use in the industrial sector, it happens that Wolfram "saves the world" for a customer before lunchtime. Nevertheless he deeply values the participation of private kernel users in kernel development.
22.04.2011 Featured: Robin Seggelmann, OpenSSL
Robin Seggelmann from Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, is a researcher for the transport protocols of the internet. Occasionally his work find its way into standards of the Internet Engineering Taskorce (IETF): In a manner of speaking he helps writing the technical "laws" of the internet. The computer scientist travels encrypted through the net. He knows, how easily he can be watched.
22.04.2011 Featured: Milian Wolff, KDE
Milian Wolff from Berlin works on the editor Kate and the development environment KDevelop within the KDE project. The student of physics gets annoyed by people, who pick only half the truth and present it as fact.