There are few Open Source projects today with as much rich history, releases, and lived experience as the Linux kernel and the various Linux distributions that provide a user-ready operating system. Linux is the rock-solid foundation underlying most of the world’s Internet infrastructure online today. But what is the lifecycle of these complex operating system distributions and how does someone participate as an Open Source contributor? This interactive workshop will get attendees to explore the dynamics of open source Linux communities, what software engineering and packaging look like in the RHEL, Fedora, and CentOS distributions, and create a self-guided map for attendees to land a contribution in an open source ecosystem with over 30 years of history.
About the presenter: Justin W. Flory is employed full-time by Red Hat as the Fedora Community Architect since October 2022. At Red Hat, Justin leads initiatives that grow the Fedora user and developer communities and also help make Red Hat and Fedora interactions more transparent and open. Before Red Hat, Justin also participated in the
Fedora Project community as a volunteer contributor beginning in late 2015. In Fedora, he volunteered as the team leader of the
Community Operations team for four years and was a founding member of the
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Team. From June 2020 to September 2022, Justin supported the
UNICEF Office of Innovation as the first Open Source Technical Advisor where he led a 12-month Open Source mentorship program for twenty-three start-up companies from nineteen countries and five continents.
