This is a part of the Fedora Linux 44 Council Elections Interviews series. Voting is open to all Fedora contributors. The voting period starts Monday, June 1st and closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on Friday, June 12th 2026.

Interview with Vít Smolík (smoliicek)

  • FAS ID: smoliicek
  • Matrix Rooms: admin:fedoraproject.org, noc:fedoraproject.org, join:fedoraproject.org, data:fedoraproject.org, commops:fedoraproject.org, docs:fedoraproject.org, fedora:fedoraproject.org

Questions

What kind of experience do you have which might be relevant to the role? E.g Governance, leadership, etc.

To strengthen my governance knowledge, I recently completed two courses on governance fundamentals. (Governance Training, and Tools for Project Planning)

I am also familiar with meeting procedures, including how meetings are structured, planned, run and how decisions are recorded. I participate in regular productive meetings with Fedora Infrastructure.

I’ve always been an active person, through cycling and competitive dancing, and even as a student, I’m always thinking about how I can make things better for others. Thus, my current governance experience comes from outside of the open-source world, however, it translates well to the Fedora Project.

I’m an elected member of my school’s board and a member of the school’s parliament. I’m familiar with what it means to represent a diverse community, balance viewpoints, and make consensus-driven decisions. In this role, I dealt with issues such as financial disbursement and conflicting student choice.

As an independent contributor, my focus is entirely on serving our community and listening to the communities voice. While I respect the fantastic work of those who came before me, I will bring independent perspective to the Council, guided by my ethical commitment to fully open-source software.

To me, software freedom is a digital right.


What do you see as potential opportunities and risks for the Fedora Project?

When looking at the landscape now, the single biggest risk facing Fedora right now is the rush to implement AI everywhere. This threatens not only a drop in quality of our codebases but also creates massive legal grey areas. The community is rightfully pushing back against this. Fedora must refuse to let this hype dictate our governance.

The opportunity for Fedora is to set the global standard for what a measured, ethical, and secure approach to AI tooling looks like. Instead of rushing to adopt external, proprietary black boxes, Fedora should take its time to define how open-source principles apply, prioritizing local execution, strict licensing compliance, and open-weight models. Fedora can champion true open-source principles in a changing landscape, proving that innovation does not require the sacrifice of security or ethics.

Our priority must always be human craftsmanship and infrastructure integrity; any tool we introduce must serve our contributors, not replace them.

What brought you to the Fedora Project?

My first introduction to Fedora happened on July 20, 2025, when I sent an introduction to the infrastructure mailing list. On May 21, 2026, I was sponsored to my first sysadmin group. That is what Fedora has done for me and what I can do for Fedora.

Before joining the project, I was a sysadmin working completely alone. Fedora gave me the space to learn how to function in a bigger team, how to navigate complex infrastructure, and how to collaborate effectively.

My trajectory shows I’m capable of learning, adapting, and integrating into complex systems at an exceptional pace. I’ve gone from a newcomer to an active contributor, not only in the infrastructure team but also in Fedora Data Working Group, where I’m helping Hatlas come to life, and in the Join team, where I help new contributors find their footing.

Fedora has helped me scale up my skills rapidly, and I am running for council to ensure Fedora remains just as dynamic, rock-solid, and welcoming for everybody else.