Justin Wheeler, Author at Fedora Community Blog

Author: Justin Wheeler (page 2 of 10)

An illustration depicts a large laptop in the foreground displaying a digital ballot box labeled "VOTE ONLINE" as a ballot is cast. In the background, four smaller laptops show various landscape and nature photographs.

F43 FESCo Elections: Interview with Dave Cantrell (dcantrell)

This is a part of the Fedora Linux 43 FESCo Elections Interviews series. Voting is open to all Fedora contributors. The voting period starts today, Wednesday 17th December and closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on Wednesday, 7th January 2026.

Interview with Dave Cantrell

FAS ID: dcantrell
Matrix Rooms: Looking right now it appears Fedora Council, FRCL, Introductions, Announcements, Fedora Meeting, and Fedora Meeting 1. I tend to go to rooms that people ask me to join. I also use it a lot for DMs and people find me that way. For me primarily I rely on Matrix for our online meetings and DMs with people. Email continues to be the most reliable way to reach me and have a conversation.

F43 FESCo Elections: Interview with Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek (zbyszek)

December 17, 2025 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

Interview with Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek

FAS ID: zbyszek
Matrix Rooms: #devel:fedoraproject.org, #reproducible-builds:fedora.im, #jenkins-coreos:fedoraproject.org, #coreos:fedoraproject.org, #quality:fedoraproject.org

Important Update: Fedora Linux 43 Election Schedule Extended

December 5, 2025 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

TL;DNR: The Fedora Linux 43 Election schedule has been extended. Voting will now take place from 15 December 2025 through 7 January 2026.

Due to unforeseen delays in the interview coordination process, we are adjusting the election timeline. To ensure all candidates have ample opportunity to present their platforms and the community has sufficient time to vote, the election period will now extend through the year-end holidays.

Please mark your calendars with the following new critical dates:

📅 New Election Schedule

Interview Submission Deadline (Extended): Now through Friday, 12 December 2025 at 23:59 UTC (Candidates: Please ensure your responses are submitted by this time.)
Voting Setup & Interview Publishing: Monday, 15 December 2025 (Voter guides and interviews will be published to the community on this date.)
Voting Period Opens: Monday, 15 December 2025
Voting Period Closes: Wednesday, 7 January 2026 at 23:59 UTC

F43 election nominations now open

November 12, 2025 / Justin Wheeler / 3 Comments

Today, the Fedora Project begins the nomination period during which we accept nominations to the “steering bodies” of the following teams:

Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) (5 seats)

This period is open until Wednesday, 2025-11-26 at 23:59:59 UTC.

A banner image with a black background, dotted with various stars, much like a galaxy system. Four rockets with colors of the Fedora Four Foundations leave a colored trail behind them that overlaps, as the rockets propel toward the right-side of the image in lockstep. White text is overlaid on the image, reading "The Fedora Project community." This image is often used with Fedora elections.

Image by Ryan Lerch. CC BY-SA 4.0

Honoring a Fedora legend: Mel Chua

July 15, 2024 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

Content Warning: Cancer, hospice care, death.

August 1st 2024 edit: On Tuesday, July 30th, Mel Chua passed away in the company of close family and friends. We are heartbroken by this news. You can find more information on their CaringBridge page or LWN coverage by Joe Brockmeier. Mel, we miss you. <3

The Fedora Council recently received the news that Mel Chua, a Fedora contributor in the early and formative days of the Project, was placed in hospice care after a long battle against cancer. On behalf of the Fedora community, we extend our condolences and love for Mel and their loved ones. In May, we asked the community to share stories and memories of Mel at the F40 Release Party opening remarks. To honor their memory for the next generation of Fedora contributors, we compiled the stories and a reflection on Mel’s impact on Fedora, its trajectory as a Free Software community, and most importantly, their impact on the people of our community.

A photograph of the Rochester, New York city skyline is shown, with a large brick bridge connecting over a river. In the skyline, the Hyatt Regency Rochester is visible. The image is overlaid with Flock 2024, Rochester, New York. A caption appears on the image in large capital letters reading, "CFP extended! April 29th."

Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Modified by Justin W. Flory. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Flock 2024 CFP extended to April 29th

April 22, 2024 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

The Flock to Fedora 2024 call for proposals (CFP) is now extended to Monday, April 29th 2024 at 11:59 PM US Eastern. Now is the last chance to get your great idea or topic into the Flock 2024 CFP before it closes. This will be the only extension and the new deadline is final.

See the previous announcement for more details about the Flock 2024 CFP. You can also submit directly at cfp.fedoraproject.org. For general questions about Flock and the CFP, join the Fedora Chat room on Matrix, #flock:fedoraproject.org.

Photo by Georg Eiermann. Modified by Justin W. Flory. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fedora DEI Team 2023 Q4: Appreciation Week and new members

April 11, 2024 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

The Fedora Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Team rounded out 2023 with a focus on celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Fedora Project and officially welcoming new team members. This post is a brief recap of the fourth quarter of 2023 (October to December) for the DEI Team. The end of the year is typically a slower time in Fedora due to holidays, but we had some major highlights in 2023 Q4 anyways:

Shifted our sprint planning from a monthly cadence to a quarterly cadence.
Revived Fedora Appreciation Week after five years, to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
Welcomed two new team members, Robert Wright and Emma Kidney.
Fedora Pride was established, and represented at some of our virtual events.

This post summarizes these highlights and also paints a picture of what we were looking forward to in 2024 Q1. Read on to get the full scoop!

Fedora Project and Outreachy internship program for underrepresented groups in open source

Outreachy logo by Outreachy. Image created by Justin W. Flory. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Welcome Outreachy 2024 applicants!

March 5, 2024 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

On March 4th, 2024, the application phase kicked off for the Outreachy 2024 internship program. Fedora is proud to continue our participation in Outreachy again this year. We are offering three internships that will run from May to August 2024. This blog post is an orientation for both community members and new applicants to the Fedora community to understand Outreachy, what projects we are running this year, and some best practices for working with the Fedora community.

Read on for more details!

Justin W. Flory. CC BY-SA 4.0

CFP now open for the Distributions dev room at FOSDEM 2024!

November 28, 2023 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

Co-authored by benny Vasquez and Justin W. Flory.

In just over two months, the Fedora Project returns to FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium from 3-4 February 2024 again with a stand, a bunch of friends, and our usual role as organizers of the (Linux) Distributions Developer Room (dev room).

CFP is open until 5 December 2023!

The Distributions dev room opened its CFP a couple of weeks ago. We have seen great ideas come in! If you would like to join us, submit your talk for inclusion no later than December 5th. If you’re looking for ideas, we’ve got a list of potential topics on our official CFP announcement, and you can always look at previous years for more ideas.

Important dates for FOSDEM 2024

CFP closes: Tuesday, 5 December 2023
Deadline for accepted speakers to confirm: Tuesday, 12 December 2023
Final schedule announcement: Friday, 15 December 2023

A banner image. The background is different shades of blue; a bubble is visible with a rainbow mirage to it. The banner image has title text reading, "Fedora Linux 39 Release Party!" The logos for the 20th Anniversary and Fedora Appreciation Week are visible below the title text.

Emma Kidney, CC BY-SA 4.0

Happening now: Fedora Linux 39 Release Party & 20th Anniversary Celebration

November 10, 2023 / Justin Wheeler / Comments Off

Join the Fedora community today, 10 November and tomorrow, 11 November, for the Fedora Linux 39 Release Party & 20th Anniversary celebration. As we ring out the recent release from this past Tuesday, we continue the tradition of gathering the community for two days of sessions and social activities. Join us for the event on the RingCentral Hopin platform. Registration is required, but free.

==> Register here <==

We have an exciting line-up of content to share with you. The full schedule is also available on the Fedora Wiki. We hope you can tune in and catch it live. If not, the sessions will be recorded and shared on the Fedora Project YouTube at a later date.

You can also earn a limited-edition variant of our usual release party Fedora Badges series, created by Chris Idoko and Marie Nordin: