This is a part of the FESCo Elections Interviews series. Voting is open to all Fedora contributors. The voting period starts on Tuesday, July 19 and closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on Monday, July 25th. Please read the responses from candidates and make your choices carefully. Feel free to ask questions to the candidates here (preferred) or elsewhere!

Interview with Josh Boyer (jwb)

• Fedora Account: jwboyer
• IRC: jwb (usually in #fedora-kernel, #fedora-council)
• Fedora User Wiki Page

What is your background in engineering?

I’ve been a software engineer for 14 years, primarily focused on low-level software.  I’ve worked on firmware, kernels for custom embedded platforms, and toolchain components, all Linux based.  Most recently, I’ve been on the Fedora kernel team for the past 5 years.  I’ve also served on FESCo for many years, the Fedora Board, and I am currently the Engineering Representative on the Fedora Council.

Describe some of the important technical issues you foresee affecting the Fedora community. What insight do you bring to these issues?

Today’s software world is increasingly focusing on  containers, microservices, and software to manage it all.  Those problems are diligently being worked on outside of the distribution itself, but they also create issues for any distribution wishing to be part of those technologies.  Fedora needs to focus on making it is easy for developers to use our platform for development and deployment, and ensuring that our platform is secure and easily updatable.  Those issues aren’t isolated to cloud computing alone either.

There are a number of projects being worked on in Fedora that should help in these areas.  Things like the new Layered Image build service, other infrastructure changes, and the OpenSCAP project will help with the creation and auditing of new image types.  Projects like Flatpak and its integration into Software will help developers of desktop applications.  The on-going work on Atomic and Atomic Workstation will also help with these issues.  Making updates a well tested set of content instead of piecemeal package updates should help with stability and deployment.  Watching and being involved in some of these projects has helped me see areas where they can all be used together to work towards a more stable and secure Fedora.

What are three personal qualities that you feel would benefit FESCo if you are elected?

• Stamina: I’ve been part of FESCo and Fedora for a very long time at this point.  I still find it very rewarding even though it can be challenging at times.
• Passion: Fedora has been my only operating system since it was created.  I have enjoyed every release and wish to see it continue to evolve and flourish.
• Level-headed: I try to maintain an even demeanor even during heated discussions.  While nobody is perfect in this, I believe focusing on issues in a calm and thoughtful manner makes far more progress than hyperbole or hard-line stances.

Why do you want to be a member of FESCo?

I’ve enjoyed being a FESCo member for all of the terms I’ve served.  It’s allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the technology that our distribution is built from.  FESCo also provides the opportunity to interact with a much wider variety of people than I might normally have.  On the whole, I feel more connected to the project and it has been a very rewarding experience.

Currently, how do you contribute to Fedora? How does that contribution benefit the community?

In addition to the things I’ve mentioned above, I also maintain a handful of other packages and participate in a number of projects. I help organize Flock, particularly focusing on the schedule. I also interact with a number of other Red Hat engineers internally to make sure Fedora gets the attention it needs.