As you probably know, there is annual convention called Flock. This year’s is happening in Cape Cod, Hyannis, MA and will begin the morning of Tuesday, August 29. Sessions will continue each day until midday on Friday, September 1.

I have asked all of the session leaders from Flock some questions.
And now you are about to read one of the responses.

How do we restore Fedora to factory settings? by Stephen Gallagher

What is the goal of your session at Flock?

The goal of this session is to discuss some of the less-obvious needs for packaging system services and applications for Fedora in such a way as to make it possible to generate a “gold master” image for containers and virtualization.

What does it affect in the project?

This talk will affect mainly packagers, giving them some guidelines and advice on how to package their software so that it’s compatible with datacenter management needs.

What does your talk focus on?

I’ll cover some more technical aspects of packaging in order to make maintenance easier for those same administrators.

Without giving too much away, what can attendees expect to learn or do in your session?

I hope people will leave with an understanding of why they would want to make sure their packages are “resettable” and have some new tools for how to go about it.

Who should attend?

I think this really will be most interesting to those packagers that are developing software “applications” (in particular, system services).

What do you do in Fedora/how long have you been involved in the project?

I’ve been “involved” with Fedora by way of being a user of Red Hat Linux since around the turn of the millennium. I joined the Fedora Project in a more direct development capacity in 2008 when I joined Red Hat and became part of the original team developing the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD).

These days I wear a few more hats, acting as the chairperson for the Fedora Server SIG, serving on the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee and acting as a developer within Red Hat on the concept of the “OS Platform” within the larger Modularity Initiative.

What attracts you to this type of work or part of the project?

A steady paycheck!

In all seriousness, my career has pretty much always been focused on the data center and I’ve got a strong desire to see it made easier and more efficient to work with. Both of these sessions serve different needs in that space.