Fedora Contributor Recognition 2026 | Fedora Podcast 056

Have you ever wondered what it actually takes to leave a lasting mark on the Fedora project? Every year, the Fedora Contributor Recognition Program shines a light on the people doing exactly that. Welcome to the Fedora podcast, and today we're going to be talking about uh the 2026 Fedora contributor recognition winners. [music] >> [music] >> Hey there and welcome to the Fedora podcast. I'm your host Eric the IT guy Hendricks and this is episode 56 of the Fedora podcast. I'm really excited because uh over the last few years Fedora has introduced a contributor recognition program. This is a chance for the Fedora project to kind of give a hat tip to those that uh pun intended uh to those that are actively contributing, those that are working on the Fedora project day in and day out, whether or not uh they're a part of uh working on Fedora as a day job. Uh but the idea is uh to recognize people that uh are part of the the project who work hard and don't necessarily get a lot of recognition. We work in open source. we work uh a lot of the work that we do is free. Um so the recognition program was instituted uh to kind of uh kind of just give some recognition where recognition is due. You don't have to be a developer in order to win. Uh from what I understand nominations open up in April, they close in late May. And uh the winners are announced at the Flock to Fedora event. So, uh, just a few weeks ago, Flock was was live and in person, and the, uh, the winners were, uh, uh, the winners were announced, and I've got two of them with me today, uh, to talk about, uh, what they do with the Fedora project, what it was like to win. Um, they can talk about all the cash and prizes. Oh, wait, no, no cash and prizes. Oh, sorry, no cash and prizes. But, uh, the these two gentlemen do a tremendous amount for the Fedora project, and I'm really excited to have them on the show. So, with me first uh I'll introduce uh Justin Forbes. Justin, welcome to the Fedora podcast. >> Oh, thanks for having me. >> Yeah, I'm glad uh I'm glad we could set this time aside and uh in the green room uh before the recording, we we'd already established that you're coming back on the show again uh to talk about the Fedora kernel. So, congratulations. You've already volunteered for a second one. [laughter] >> So, I always ask >> There you go. So, I ask I always open with the same questions. Who are you? What do you do? What do you do for Fedora? And what do you do for fun? >> Ah, I'm Justin Forbes, a Fedora kernel maintainer for very, very long time now. I think since 2012. Uh, before that, I did Fedora virtualization. Before all of that, I ported Fedora to X8664 for Fedora 1. [snorts] So, I've been involved uh with Fedora pretty much from the beginning. uh took a little break in the middle to do a different job. But um so that's what what I do for Fedora is uh all the colonel maintenance and then uh occasionally chip in other places where I can be of assistance. Um I'm part of the security SIG. We're talking now about perhaps trying to get representation on on DRO list there. Red Hat has reputation, but that doesn't always work out uh with the volume of CVS and things we have now as far as getting Fedora maintained and and those bits. So, we have to to try to get our own representation, but that also comes with we have to have processes because uh Fedora is completely open, right? Uh I did a build last night that I I couldn't put the patch. I've seen the patch, but I couldn't put the patch in the, you know, in the kernel and do a build until it was public because >> uh everything, you know, our infrastructure is designed around that. And I think that's a wonderful thing. I don't want to change that, but we do have to have some processes there uh to to make that so that we're not breaking embargos or doing things like that. >> So, uh for not Fedora, um I now live on a ranch in Colorado. We've got horses and and those things. Uh obviously music stuff. Uh I do a lot of music stuff. Still skateboard and snowboard and ride motorcycles. [laughter] >> Oh gosh. Love it. A little bit of everything. >> Little bit. >> Oh, awesome. Glad to have you on the show today. And uh my my second guest is uh Anker. Welcome to the Fedora podcast, my friend. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Yeah, it's great to have you here. And uh I'll I'll start you off nice and easy. Uh I I'll give you the same questions I gave Justin, so you kind of got a leg up. You you got to hear his answers and and plot your own. But uh >> tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, what you do for Fedora, and something you do for fun. >> Um right. Um I'm Anorha. Um >> I'm not I've never actually worked in a job that's paid me to work on Fedora. Um I'm an academic by training. I work at University College of London. Um so I'm it's more to do with the brain and neuroscience and building models. So I do write a lot of software but all of it is in the scientific domain. Um for Fedora at the moment I am a package maintainer and I do I try to help with onboarding with the Fedora joint SIG which I think we'll speak a little bit about later. Um I'm also on the code of conduct enforcement committee. Um which is not the best job to do but is a necessary job that we have to do. Um but I mean I haven't been around as long as Justin. I wasn't around for one but I've been around I think [laughter] according to my fast profile this is my 18th year. Um and I've sort of dived into everything. I've done a bit of design. I've done marketing. I was an ambassador back in the day. Um, I've dabbled with infrastructure. So, yeah, I've sort of been everywhere, which is why I I know so many people all over Fedora and I try to act like a hub where I can connect people >> and so on. So, that's kind of my role in the community. You stick around long enough, you know enough people, and then you can kind of link people together and get them to do things. >> Um, yeah. Um, for fun, well, I I'm not an adrenaline junkie, so I don't skateboard and I don't used [laughter] to ride a bike when I was a student. But but that's dropped off now. Um I I do a lot of reading. Um I'm in London, so lots of shows, lots of gigs. Um lots of food. I'm a massive foodie. Um which gets hard as you get older because it's it's hard to keep your health in shape. >> Um [snorts] yeah. Uh play lots of DND, goss, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of things. Yeah. >> Well, awesome. I'm glad to have both of you on the show. We we did have uh bit of a scheduling mixup. Uh so Fabio Valentini was supposed to join us as well. Uh hope hope uh hope Fabio's doing okay. U and uh Fabio, if you're if you're listening to this, uh feel free to reach out and we'll we'll get you on the show at some point. But uh in the in the meantime, um we kind of talked about what the program is. Uh, and I' I'd kind of like to hear from both of you. How how was that process? Did did uh were were you notified that you were nominated? Uh, how did you find out that you won? Uh, Aner, just kind of why why don't you start us off and why don't you tell us a little bit about what that process looked like? >> Um, no. Um, I don't know about you, Justin, but I had no idea that that we were um that we were in the running or that we had been selected. um we were in the crowd at Flock and they said, "Oh, we're going to do the recognition program next." And our names came up and that's that's all we knew about this. So, it was it was a very very uh pleasant surprise. But yeah, um no uh no prior notice. Um and um I've only managed to attend flock last year and this year because for work commitments and things I haven't managed to attend in previous years. So I don't know how the organizing committee ensures that people who are selected do turn up and flock and things of that sort. So so there's clearly some some stuff in the background that that we're not privy to. >> So I want to call out the irony here that for an open source project that is as transparent as Fedora project for this entire process to go through and for neither of you to have any idea this was going on. [laughter] >> Dustin, how about you? Did did you have any idea this was happening? >> No, I had no idea. I had no idea it was nominated. Uh, in fact, I was standing outside and I was talking to Adam. I was standing outside the room before and I like Adam's on the committee. Uh, but I, you know, and I was telling him I wasn't sure that I was going to go in because I had some colonel stuff that needed to be dealt with. And so he didn't say, "Yeah, you should probably go in," or anything else. uh which he didn't know who won either. Uh you know, he just isn't on the voting committee. But yeah, so I had no idea I was even nominated and uh was quite surprised. I I have this I have this uh philosophy that nobody should know who I am. And the reason that is is because nobody cares about the colonel. The colonel is not something you interact with individually. Uh and so nobody should be looking for me unless something's broken. which means the fewer people who know who I am, the better I'm doing my job. And so [laughter] anyway, I guess that that changed all of that, huh? >> Yeah, you're you're no longer in the background. And I I I started out trying to say, well, no, no, no, people should know who you are and like trying to reaffirm your your belief, but at the same time, it's like a former systems administrator. If no one was talking to me, it means that everything was running fine. And I was like, oh, but I I interact with the colonel. No, I couldn't even tell you what my Fedora server home lab systems are running right now if I'm being completely honest. So, I I tried to debate you on on whether or not people should know who you are, but it it Sorry. [laughter] No, they like I said, they really shouldn't. Uh, and that's been my philosophy the whole time. As long as the better job I'm doing, the fewer people know who I am. So, >> so let let's let's talk a little bit. Um actually quick question uh were you just given a recognition or was there recognition and kind of some justification of of um you know obviously Justin Fedora kernel maintenance big deal. Did they say that there was something specific or was it cumulative um or just like here's here's our group of winners? >> There was a small little blurb um but you know it was kind of a summary. I think the people who nominated could say why they were nominating and then they they kind of put a little uh very short summary there. >> Yeah. Um I I I think the idea is because Fedora is so large and so varied um we we it lots of people work in very specific roles. Um so I think the idea is just oh if if people have made whatever contribution and people on the panel think that these contributions are important uh then that's sort of it there no metrics behind any of this as far as I know we don't we don't really have any metrics in Fedora right people are working on it but but there are no metrics you're a contributor you're a contributor there no metrics to say how much you do what you do um yeah so so I think the idea is just yeah um if people have seen continue around and they think what you do is important then you somebody nominates you and then um the panel goes through the list and selects three people um I will point out that um there's one rule which is when you do receive recognition you don't you can't be nominated for the next year I think this is something this set at flock because the idea is to spread um the appreciation around and and not have the same three people get it repeatedly sort of >> so Justin's plans to start campaigning now for next year just not going to work. [snorts] >> I'm I'm not much of a campaigner. [laughter] >> I I think if that were the case, Kevin would just get it every year, >> right? He got it last year and he would just get it every year because without Kevin, we we don't function. So [laughter] >> there there are several people like that. >> Yeah, >> there's Yeah. [snorts] So, Aner, tell me uh what what was the little blurb that was uh read off when when you uh when you were recognized? >> Um I don't I don't really think I remember is probably more to do with the joint thing because that is more the public facing bit that I do. Uh because package maintenance, as Justin said, if you're doing your packages right, you're not getting pull requests and bugs, you're doing a good job. Um I think it's a joint slig where I may interact more with people and newcomers and our creature candidates and stuff like that. And so so that's kind of the human facing side of things. So I would think that is probably more that's is probably better known as my contribution than the 400 packages that I now maintain somehow. >> Gosh. >> Yeah. So so I think I think it must have been something related to on boarding and helping out newcomers and a bit of mentoring and that sort of thing. >> How about you Justin? Do you do you recall? >> Uh there was mention of the security updates was part of it. Um, I don't really I was so shocked um when I got it. Honestly, it was kind of a blur. >> Yeah. >> Um, it was, like I said, I totally didn't expect it at all. Uh, I was nominated or anything else. So, >> no. And and and we had to go up on stage and and they gave us a few things and yeah, it all went by very quickly because Yeah, it was just Yeah. unexpected. Unexpected. >> Your words are really cool though. Uh, was it the mine? And I was pointing at it before if you can see it in the background. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. For for our audio listeners there, uh uh there there's the fedora uh bird on a little plaque. Um he's got a name. I forget I forget what the bird's name is. I should probably know that. It's part of the marketing and podcast 6. But uh >> I mean what what I know is that these came all the way from Kenya. So they came from they were sent by the Nairobi Linux users group >> and I think they are hand cut into metal. >> Um so so um Benenit if I'm pronouncing that correctly he sent these over and he said we would like to sponsor recognition program. So these all the way from Kenya. Yeah. Which is really really cool. >> Yeah. It's it's it's beautiful. It's it's uh bright shiny metal with uh some kind of engraving on there. Yeah, I mean these these are beautiful. So if you're listening to the audio podcast as as most of our listeners do, jump onto the YouTube video and and scroll about, you know, 20 minutes in or so, uh about 15 minutes in and take a look because it's absolutely beautiful work. And if it's if it's really handcarved, that's handcarved, hand welded, whatever. Um handmade. There we go. Um but it it really is beautiful. That's that's awesome to see. Um, [laughter] uh, so I I want to kind of dive into both of y'all's stories. Um, Ancher, you're you're top of the list, so uh I think I did these in alphabetical order, so uh so no one gets any uh any extra recognition, but uh so you you've mentioned your work with the join. Uh and so for those that have found the podcast but haven't really found the community, what does the join sig actually do? Um it's it's kind of I mean the label gives it away. The idea is um Fedora is really large and lots of teams have various onboarding um hopefully lots of teams have onboarding systems um but every team has their own system and um for newcomers that are not used to going into an environment where they don't know people and trying to sort of for the lack of a better term infiltrate a community. Um it's quite daunting, right? Um especially youngsters who are not used to going out and speaking to people. They are um they have imposter syndrome and they are worried about asking silly questions and so on and so forth. So they don't they don't necessarily have the life experience or the confidence to go and just speak to somebody and say, "Hey, I would like to get started." Um, so the point behind the joint sig was to have almost a protected space where anybody that wants to learn about Fedora and get started could turn up and we welcome them. We now have a process where we can open a welcome to Fedora ticket for them which gives them some highle information about the philosophy behind Fedora and how it's organized. Um and then they can just use the ticket to ask questions and um tell us what they're interested in and then we sort of act as leers and we'll point them to different parts of Fedora that they may be interested in um and then they go on and hopefully we speak to people in these various teams. Um and as they get more and more comfortable then they can start contributing and hopefully become long-term contributors. So the idea really is to have a safe space for newcomers um and they can hang around there as long as they need. There's no time limit. We're not rushing them, but it's it's just to make joining a new community without prior experience a little bit easier for people. Uh that that's basically it. And then the various processes which evolve depending on feedback that we get and requirements and you know postcoid so everything is online pre-COVID we try to do more things in person and so on and so forth. But the systems are really just a way of trying to achieve this protected space for people. Um yeah that's really it. And and so we keep trying to get more and more um seasoned contributors to just hang out in the channels because somebody might turn up and say, "Oh, I'm interested in this." Um and if there's a community member that is already participating there, then they can help guide them and tell them where to go and what to look at and how to get started and so on and so forth. So it's it's it's sort of a many to many mentoring program if you will where people come in and just speak to the whole community and the whole community tries to help them in there and they're starting their journey pretty much. Yeah, >> that's amazing. And as as someone who's been around open source since as as a contributor as a community member since about 2015 obviously been involved with Linux long before then but you know 2015 is kind of the semiarbitary point where I just kind of said okay this is when I started contributing. Um I I've been around projects where you just walk into the the room and it's it's like the it's like the movie trope where you walk into the room and everything goes silent and everyone stares at you awkwardly. And you you can even feel that even if it's like a matrix room or or matter server or something you join it's just like okay um now what >> having a join sig having a group of people that are explicitly there people that like like you said you you know who people are you know you know the structure you know who to introduce people to. Um, it's it's a lot of fun for for new people to come in and just go, "Hey, hi. I'm I'm Eric and I'm interested in XYZ." And having someone like you step right up virtually or physically and say, "Oh, you're interested in that. Well, you need to go talk to Joe or you know need to go talk to Barbara or whatever and just just make those make those people connections." It it is so important not only for the individual contributors, but for the project itself. I think that's one of the reasons why Fedora has such a strong open source community, why there's so much social engagement around Fedora is because everything starts with that foundation. Everything starts with that joint sig and builds from there. Being able to get new people engaged, which takes load off of the more senior people so everyone can kind of spread the work around. And it's not just about work, it's about the community as well. I and I adore Linux. I mean, I've built my career off of it. It's one of my hobbies as well. I I love the kind of kinds of stuff that I do, but I don't stick around just because uh just because I like the technology. Um I could go full boore into into marketing and not deal with the technology as much anymore, but I stick around because I love the people. I have friends that date back 10 years. I have friends that literally have changed the course of my career and the course of my life. And being able to continue to be a part of a community like that is just so empowering. So kudos to uh to you Anker and to the uh to the joint sick. I I love what you all are doing and uh I think we're planning later on this year on on having an episode specifically about the joint sick. So might uh I might uh I might shanghai you into that as well. >> No, that's great. Um yeah. Um so to to add to what you said about the people um traditionally the way Federa worked for onboarding was we used to have something called easy fix and the point of easy fix was that everybody marks easy tasks and issues and this static website got populated every day and when somebody came in and said hey I'm new how do I get started u the response was oh go have a look at easy fix and pick up an easy ticket um And that works for people who are maybe more technical and are happy just to dive into code or issues and so on and so forth. Um but I think well my again we have no data on this because we haven't really been gathering a lot of data and it's hard to gather data on human activity of this sort. Um but my personal feeling was that lots of people um they would address an issue and because they never really felt part of the community they would then leave and go elsewhere. Um so a few years ago we we decided we wouldn't point people to tasks at all. We would point them to people and hope that they become friends with lots of people. And if they become friends with people, as you said, they will hang around because even if they aren't necessarily working on tasks, it's just part of the day to log onto the chat and have a good, you know, chinwag with people and somebody else comes in, just by listening and talking to people, you you still pick up so much information that you can then pass it forward to the next round of newcomers. You don't really have to do anything technical, right? I mean a lot of fedora community is not about doing technical work. It's about helping people find what they need to uh to do to do any any task whether it's design or whether it's package maintenance. So so now we don't people come and ask us what's a task I can start with and we say no no no we don't want you to dive into tech. I want you to hang out for a bit, get to know people, um, and hopefully then you stay long enough to find something that you're already interested in, um, and that you would do without being resentful, uh, which is quite important in a volunteer community, right? >> Mhm. >> Justin, have you uh, have you worked with the uh, the join sig at all? >> I have not. Um, I I really just don't have the time. Um so I try to we people who are looking to do kernel work tend to come into the fedora kernel channel directly. Uh and that's great. So I I do kind of take time to work with them and I like to talk to anybody who wants to you know talk to me at conferences things like that. Uh certainly want to be welcoming but I just haven't had a lot of spare time to dedicate to uh other things at this point. So, uh, but I think it's a great program. Uh, you know, it really is because you do get people, uh, and it's it's always been the case from the beginning of Fedora. You have people come in and and what do I do? How can I, you know, get started there? And it's daunting for [snorts] anybody. So, having a group that that kind of guides you where you want to go. Um, and then you also have so many people who don't understand that, you know, well, they love Fedora and they want to, you know, be a part of it, but they're not technical. So, uh, how can you contribute? I would say probably >> more than half of the contributions to Fedora are non-technical contributions because, you know, there's a lot to keep this community running to keep, you know, >> and being able to point to somebody and say, well, here, go over here and check this out. I think that's a a great thing. [snorts] >> So you you you're you're less on the front lines, but more that second tier. You're you're one of the mentor types that that Anker would say, "Oh, Fedora, a colonel development." I I know just the guy. Go talk to go talk to Justin. >> Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure we have passed people on to the colonel mailing list where they they've probably spoken to Justin. [laughter] >> We've definitely gotten uh several new people coming in and interested in helping out. I'm always happy to see it. >> So, I had a very brief but very direct uh experience with the uh with the join sig. Um it was probably it was spring of 2021, maybe late or maybe very beginning of the year. So, I guess that'd be winter of of 2021. Uh I I volunteered. I jumped into the join sig and was like, "Hey, I I noticed that the uh Fedora podcast hasn't really had a lot of uh a lot of new episodes. Uh I' I'd be more than happy to be a stand-in host or a co-host or something." And within about a month, uh the the entire program was was uh I don't want to say mine, but fell under my my purview there. [laughter] You're just going to lend a hand and all of a sudden they're like, "Here, what can you do with this? >> You need YouTube access. Here you go. What what do you need? I >> I think we're getting much better at volunteering people to do things, which is an important skill in the community. [laughter] >> It really is. It's It's one I've had to master for sure. Uh not just in the Fedora podcast, but as as a product marketer as well. It's like, "Hey, you're an engineer. How do you feel about talking in front of people? >> You're you're okay with it? Okay, cool. You're you're coming on the show. Congratulations." [laughter] >> Definitely. Yeah. But uh it I mean like I said mine was a little unusual because I knew exactly what I wanted to be a part of. I knew I wasn't a developer. I knew I couldn't go and and make changes to a kernel but I can talk. Um I I like to talk maybe too much but uh uh so it was it was really it was it was really nice because I I just jumped in the joint sig said hey here I am this here's some of my work. Is is there some way I can contribute? Now, never in my wildest dreams did I expect that all these years later that I' I'd be one of the uh one one of the hosts that kind of rotates in. But uh uh but I mean that was that was part of the joint sick. someone in the joint sick knew um you know knew Matthew Miller who was the Fedora project lead at the time and and uh and you know just kind of uh put me in touch with Justin Wheeler who's been an amazing uh an amazing uh contact to help keep the podcast going u and it's it's so the join sig is really really effective in what it does so once once again congratulations Anker and uh and to the entire join sig Um, so I know that you've got uh Neuro Fedora as well, but I want to jump over to Justin for a minute. Um, you know, we he said he only got about three hours of sleep, so I I want to make sure we keep him awake and engaged. Um [laughter] uh so Justin, we we talked a little bit about the Fedora kernel, uh but I I think our audience might be a little curious about what day-to-day kernel maintenance looks like, especially as something uh as critical as being the upstream to enterprise Linux. I mean, you've got CentOS, you've got re, you've got some of the downstream clones. Um so Fedora really leads the charge. So what's the uh what's the day-to-day look like? Well, that that's one of the things I really love about the Fedora kernel is the day-to-day is different every day. Um, I am reactive to what upstream is doing. I'm reactive to what our users are are seeing, what they're filing. Uh, it kind of ends up I I couldn't tell you what I'll be doing later today, much less what I'll be doing tomorrow morning. Uh, and that's yeah, like I said, that's that's a part that's interesting to me. So we do we follow Linux tree and merge everything is now maintained in source git. We actually don't even do discit. I mean we we have to do discit but we automatically overwrite it every day. So I do have to check and make sure nobody's made any changes that you know proven packager or something like that. But uh we build from Linus tree every day. Uh which is good. We get users out there testing that. Um we also makes it a little bit easier to find out when a bug came in, right? Uh if you go back and and here's every day is builds. Um so doing that and then Fedor ELN is also part of that and that's the part that actually does uh it's the same disc getit but it's uh it's basically the real kernel config uh built against you know modern fedora eln [snorts] and so I know I'm doing that every morning >> [laughter] >> um and then outside of that like I said it depends on uh if if upstream is doing stable RC's then I'm, you know, building and testing those. Um, I'm, you know, looking at bugs. Uh, every, every Fedora kernel bug comes to me. So, uh, looking at those, looking at updates to those bugs, try and see, uh, if there's something corresponding upstream that that might explain those bugs. uh it's and then you know I the nice thing is because we don't have you know paying customers that are you know well this is a huge customer so even though this this bug seems less important they've got a whole lot of machines you I can actually look at things and say well I I think that this bug is important it's affecting a large number of users uh or you know this this bug maybe not affecting so many users But it's a file system bug where someone can lose data that those things and I get to look at them and say, "Well, this is what I need to focus on right now. This is what's important right now." Um, and I feel bad because I wish I could, you know, fix them all, but I can't. And as soon as I do, more are introduced. So, you know, [laughter] that's why see, sorry. >> No, you're fine. Uh, that that brings up an interesting question, though. Have you seen an uptick in the number of bugs in CVE since uh everyone's favorite topic AI is becoming more and more prevalent? So [gasps] CVEes are an interesting topic because Linux Foundation became the CNA for kernel uh was it two years ago something like that and at that point um CVS got assigned to a lot of things because uh but but yes there's CVE but there's levels of CVES right >> so you know we were going through hundreds of CVEEs and that the nice thing about it though, is they don't actually assign a CVE typically until a fix is in a stable kernel, which usually means by the time a CVE has been assigned, Fedora users already have that kernel if they're updating regularly. Um, that's great. That's fantastic. U you know that yes, there's a lot of CVS. It's a problem for rail because they have to backport things, but you know, for Fedora, usually we're taken care of, so it's not a problem. What we have seen with AI is people developing and publishing exploits for these CVEEs uh which on the one hand I think is is highly irresponsible uh you know especially when you see them at the bottom of it advertising their security company or something like that and it's why you publishing an exploit here. Um but the other the flip side of that reality is if you don't publish an exploit um well someone else is going to come back and do it probably anyway. Like we had during the dirty frag stuff, there was a a code path that Red Hat found and you know had an exploit for and [snorts] we published the update without the exploit and I believe I'm pretty sure it was probably developed by AI internally but anyway uh that the exploit was but within an hour and a half or something some other group had seen our patch and developed a a exploit and published So, it's happening quickly. Uh, that changes everything because when you have CVEes but no published exploits, uh, there are certainly a problem. You want to get them fixed fairly quickly, but users are less at risk. And now that people are publishing these things with exploits, uh, oftentimes, you know, a patch is sent to the list and it's, you know, Linus hadn't even taken it yet and there's published exploits for it. Mhm. >> That's become a huge problem. Uh so that's that's why I've spent long nights a few times in the past couple months. Really seems since about May, beginning of May that all this really started. [snorts] >> So >> yeah, and then that seems to be when we started to see a lot of these more high severity uh CVES get published, the ones that get goofy names and web pages and that kind of thing. Uh seemed like middle of May we had like three back to back toback that were all kind of a branch of the same the same general exploit. >> Yes. So the way that that um the way that it works is usually I won't push I will not mark a kernel as a security update for a regular update because every kernel update is going to have CVS but the CVS haven't been assigned yet. We don't know what they are specifically. So I I can't rate it. I can't do anything else. Just assume every kernel update is a security update. >> But with the ones with published exploits, if there is a published exploit out there and it's something, you know, if it's a system crash, maybe not so much. But if it's anything that gives you local root or, you know, privilege access, those types of things are, you know, they have to be fixed immediately. They can't wait. So, we fix them. We push them. Uh, if and they're marked as a security update. So if you're seeing something marked as a security update that I've pushed out for a kernel update, it means there's an exploit out there. >> Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Bug fixes and security fixes in just about every every update, but if it's marked security, then you know it's it's a big deal, >> right? And that doesn't mean >> there have been colonels that we've pushed out that uh you know the security the the CBES weren't published until two or three weeks later and some of them have been very very critical. Uh in fact the the first what copy fail when it came out we had already pushed that kernel two weeks prior. So we had a fix two weeks prior but you know the the exploit hadn't been published yet >> and so nobody knew there was that big of a deal. [snorts] That's so uh you you mentioned Lennus a couple of times. Have you uh have you met uh Mr. Torvaults? >> I've met him. Yeah. I mean we uh he's and he's actually sent us when when we have when something comes in upstream that he knows might impact us. Uh he's sent he sent me email saying, "Hey, is this are you aware of this? Do you have any input on this?" So, uh, he's very good in that regard, but he's a busy man. So, >> right. So, what's, uh, what what does Fedora's relationship look like with the upstream? >> Uh, not as great as I would like. And, and when I say that, uh, we have a very good relationship with with most of upstream. Um, Greg said, let us as things um, we've got a lot of Red's got a lot of the upstream maintainers. Uh but unfortunately we don't get to push as many fixes upstream as I would like to be able to. Um so that's what I mean by not as well as I would like. We we uh try to to stay as close to upstream as possible. And so we try to help out upstream in any way we can there, >> but uh for quite a while now it's been pretty much just me. Um, so I've, you know, not had time to to do as many push as many fixes upstream as I would like or or things like that. >> So if you're if you're in the join sig and uh keep keep an eye out for kernel maintainers. Sounds like Justin needs some help. >> Uh, we I'm getting some help. That's actually wonderful that this is a fairly newer thing. So Austo has been doing some builds but has not been doing as much with the community and bugs. uh but now he's going to be doing a little bit more of that and we have uh someone new Charles who's actually been in Red Hat support kernel support for a long time and now he's coming over uh as a kernel maintainer about 50/50 between re and Fedora so >> Oh cool >> that's great because it's somebody who's you know who's got debugging experience in those things so we're getting help but [snorts] yeah it's been several years since I've had the time to to really you know be able to debug in push patches upstream. >> I was I was going to ask what how do you manage to go and leave if you are the single point of maintenance for the colonel? How does that work? Because >> um I always have a laptop with me. So [laughter] >> that's not going Yeah, that's not going on leave though. If you have to take work with you, >> right? >> It's you know it's uh I I care about the community so it's just kind of been it's been that way for a while. Um, Austo did step in. So, I I was actually out for a couple of months, two years ago, because I had open heart surgery >> and, uh, Austo stepped up there a decent amount. And then we had a couple of other people who were helping out with Rawhide, but >> uh, general general day-to-day, if I go on vacation or those things right now, I'm kind of taking a laptop with me. Uh, which is why I'm glad to have some people coming in to help now. So, Yeah, great questioner. Um, and so that that kind of brings up the the flip side of of my previous question of what what's what's your relationship with downstream look like? >> Uh, so I am on the rail maintainer team now, but I sit in meetings with them. Um, you know, I I certainly will give input on stable rail things as they are, but really we're once it branches to CentOS stream, um, it's kind of no longer my my day-to-day responsibility. So, unless someone asks, uh, but everything happening in Rawhidede, uh, ELN colonel arc, that is that is RE 11. So, we are preparing for the downstream. We're always thinking about, you know, how is this going to impact the rail downstream? Uh on on the other side of that though, uh I've I've always said that that kind of my job is to be the Yeah. the one who looks out for Fedora. So because we're a shared thing, there there are, you know, sometimes things that that would benefit Rail that colonel maintainers want to want to bring in that don't benefit Fedora. are actively not good for Fedora. So, uh, a lot of extra patching, things like that, uh, that we just don't want to carry. So, that that's kind of been my, you know, yes, I want to I want to shepherd for as well as I can as far as for real 11, but if it comes between the two, you know, my job is to be the advocate for Fedora. [snorts] >> Oh, that's awesome. That's a great way to look at it, too. and being able to have that separation of responsibilities sounds really effective. Um, you know, conflict of interest is too too strong of a of a term, but you know, Fedora's goals and RE's goals are ultimately different. U, so it's great that you've got that visibility, that pipeline of conversation to the downstream, uh, specifically RE, but uh, but it's also nice that, you know, you're you're very Fedora focused, Fedora first in a lot of, uh, in a lot of ways. Oh, absolutely. And and like I said, there's there's always a way we can kind of work around some things. Uh one of the one of the neat things I have, so RE's got a process where, you know, every every patch has to be acted by uh other developers and those things. Make sure you get patch review and all those. And that can take time. Um, for Rawhide though, we're building every day and so we don't necessarily have time to wait for all those things when I've got a build fix or security fix or something like that that needs to go in immediately. So I have a short circuit which is great. I can I can actually tag merge request in a certain way and we don't actually build out of the main OS build tree. We build out of this tree called arc latest which is rebased every day. and it is the OS build tree plus any merge requests that have my special tag on them. And so that way those things end up in discit and they're available to Fedora even though they haven't been reviewed and merged yet. So I don't have to wait around for process there. So there's there's always ways that we can accommodate both. It's just sometimes we might have to have a little bit of a compromise. [snorts] >> Yes, sir. That's awesome. And I I don't know about uh about Anker, but there's no doubt in my mind why uh you've gotten the uh why you've gotten this recognition this year. That's a ton of work and that's really amazing uh just how much time and and energy you've invested in Fedora. That's that's really awesome. >> It's it's critical work, right? For sure. It is absolutely critical to >> to everybody. Yeah. >> Well, the Fedora community has been great. I said it's been great from the beginning. So, it's I I feel a responsibility to the community and and I I enjoy doing that, you know what I mean? Uh it it doesn't feel too much like work because I'm doing it for the Fedora community. >> Totally. Yeah. Totally. >> That's awesome. So, uh, I want to jump back to you, Ancher, because you you mentioned Neuropodora, and admittedly, that's only something I'm very tangentially aware of, but I would love for you to tell our audience a little bit about what Neuro Fedora is and how it connects the broader Fedora mission. >> Well, um, it's it's just a bunch of people that a bunch of package maintainers that try and focus on software for neuroscience and making sure it works on Fedora. Um because when it comes to open source, a lot of us are aware of how basically global infrastructure depends on open source software, right? There's a very famous XKCD post about all of the software and a tiny little thing called curl that's holding global software stacks together. Um but but I don't what's I don't think the community realizes that it's not just the software stack the scientific stack that's used around the world is heavily depend on open source software because you do have proprietary tools let's say something like matlab um but most academics rely heavily on open source software not just for uh the experiments the analysis u the data archival and sharing u but for collaboration etc etc Right. Um because with science a lot of the software is prototypes because it's at the edge of knowledge. Um and these prototypes need to be put out in the community as open resources so that other academics and researchers can use them and improve them. So um so there's a massive open science movement. They don't because it came about after the open source movement. It's not called the free and open science movement. It's just called the open science movement. Um but it's becoming more and more prevalent um because science like all software should be free you know I mean when somebody talks to me my my response is well my grandmother should be able to read the scientific result she doesn't have to be an academic she should be able to run my code she should be able to validate um and it's it's really important because if if somebody can't validate a scientific result we don't necessarily know that it holds um and all of that requires so in scientific terms It's called fair, findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. That's the scientific kind of side of open science. But all of that is goes very well in hand with open source software, right? Um so the point of neuropedura is um because I work in neuroscience, I'm aware of all of the software. Um can we package up stuff that requires compiling and complex build systems so that users don't have to do it? Um and with Python we try and run a test suite to make sure that stuff um just works on Fedora out of the box. Um and then the idea is a little bit to try and leverage the Fedora community to because the Fedora community is very very good at talking about the philosophy of of open source software and so I'm hoping I can piggy back on that and increase awareness about open science >> you know building on open source software. So that's where Neuroff comes from. But at the technical level, it's it's a bunch of package maintainers that focus on neuroscience software. It's like the Python ST, but instead of Python, it's neuroscience. That that's basically what it is. >> That's really cool. So is is Fedora being used in universities or research? >> It's being used more and more. Yeah, it is being used more and more. Um um so not not like other areas u leader um years ago because Linux for humans and all the rest um but as Fedora has improved and we focus more on making ourselves um cutting edge rather than bleeding edge and we've changed our update policies to make sure that our release versions are stable. You know the workstation working group has worked a lot to make sure that it's usable on a daily basis for developers. Um, and so that translates to being usable on a daily basis for researchers. Uh, because researchers, like a lot of developers, don't have the time to debug and fix their systems, right? They're overworked and underpaid already. They don't have three hours to debug an issue and figure out what the hell's going on, right? They need something >> job is is physics or meteorology or something, not not kernel debugging. >> Exactly. So, so as as we focus on making Fedromo usable that just that percolates into the whole ecosystem anyway. Um, and of course it helps that a lot of um supercomputing infrastructure works on either real or some gradient of real right so um there used to be scientific Linux and so on and so forth um and it's all come together. So mo most research infrastructure is part of the Fedora ecosystem whether people realize it or not. Um and so it's useful for people to use Fedora as a workstations because it's very close to the supercomputing infrastructure that they didn't have to move to because it's all DNF based and RPN based and so on. >> So it's it's really huge in science. Yeah. >> So Justin looks like you're about to say something as well. >> Yeah. So our our current FPL uh Jeff he he was one of the very early adopters of my trying to port Fedoral 1 D8664 >> and at that time he was doing research physics and that's you know what it was being used for uh I thought it was incredible uh but yeah so it it's interesting Fedora's been involved in or the scientific community has been involved in Fedora from the And now it's a FPL. So >> yeah. Yeah. And it's it's it's attractive because people that understand the philosophy behind open science find Federal really attractive because being open is front and center for us, right? Lots of L institutions do it, but we have a well recognized reputation and trademark for being open first, >> right? And so that links in very strongly to people that believe in the philosophy of open science because it's the same thing. It's a software we're talking about scientific artifacts. Um so we try and piggyback on that and we're trying to work on it and we're trying to talk to more people. Um and and open science is luckily becoming the default. So I expect more and more scientists and academics to uh jump onto Fedora as it becomes more and more usable. Um uh from from anecdotal evidence it's either Linux or Mac. Um and now with the Windows subsystem for Linux, people are using Windows too. But most of these tool require the command line. Uh which is why Linux seems to be seems to be the choice. >> That's awesome. That's a that's an interesting uh corner of the community that I'm admittedly not very familiar with. Uh I've I've worked for companies that have an interest in in uh in scientific computing, but uh not really encountered it firsthand myself. So that that may be a topic to dive uh more deeply into on a on a future episode. >> Definitely. Um I do believe there is um a high performance computing SIG that's very active now. >> Mh. >> Um because with AI you do need to extract all the compute you can from your piece of hardware rights are very very uh computing intensive. So so people have come together to make sure machine learning models and LMS work better on Feros. players and HPC SIG. Um, so it' be really cool to speak to them and the AI and ML SIG because they all kind of linked in this requirement to to extract every bit of juice you can from your Federal Workstation. >> For sure. So, uh, last question for you both. If you came across someone who is considering giving their first Fedora contribution, what advice would you give them? Justin, we we'll start with you. Um, it's really find something that interests you. Uh, and then, you know, when when you've got something that you care about, you're passionate about, whether it's packaging something new, whether it's it's uh getting the word out to people about Fedora and and doing that or helping people on uh discourse or mailing list or uh it's just you've got to find something that that that speaks to you. And once you find that, uh, I would probably recommend going through the joint sick because [laughter] they can point you in the right direction to to do what you need to do there. But, uh, yeah, that's there's some so many aspects to Fedora that, uh, you know, if you want to contribute, there's probably going to be something that you like, you're passionate about, that you can do that can benefit Fedora. >> Aner, same question. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, I agree with everything that Justin said. Um, I think my um I think over the years my advice, my first piece of advice is don't there's no need to rush into it. Um, a lot of people come in and there's an expectation that in the first week they have to have made a contribution. Um, I I said no, there's no need for that. Hang out, figure out what's going on. As Justin said, talk to different teams. just hang out in the channel, look at the mailing list, see what's going on, and that's when you really figure out what you're interested in and what will make you happy. Um, and the fun thing is when you hang out for a while and you actually speak to the people, you realize that there's so many other people that probably want to do what you want to do, too. But because you're volunteers, we prioritize >> and we can't, right? So, a lot of people are very happy to say to you, that's so awesome. We would really want to do that. we don't have the time. If you would like to, we are here to support you. Right? And so even without realizing it, you already have a team of people that are working on this thing that you want to work on, right? And then you have your tribe and you have your group and and then it just becomes a thing you just do every day. So >> I I always like I said, I I don't want people rushing into work and tickets and bugs and no just go speak to people, find your people, and they exist, right? I mean, we know as Justin said, Fedora is diverse. Um, you will definitely find somebody who shares the same interest as you, >> right? I mean, I can say that. Yeah, I can say that with a guarantee. >> Go talk to people, hang out for a bit, get to get to see how much fun things are, >> and then once you realize how fun things are, it's it's no longer a task you have to do. It's something you really enjoy. Um, and you realize you don't have to do it every day. You don't have to it's it's not meant to be a daily chore, right? You can do 15 minutes a day. You can do 15 minutes a week. You can just hang out in the channel and reply when you can. Uh the whole point is to give what you can when you can as long as you enjoy it, right? So speak to the people is what I always say. Just become part of the family and then you're fine. Then you're already a contributor. Even if you just speak to somebody, you are part of the group. Right? It's not about actually having a commit somewhere. That's not that's not what federal contribution really is about. >> I would also say perfection is the enemy of good there. And for sure >> for for people coming in who are afraid to try to make their first contribution because they're afraid it's not going to be perfect. It doesn't have to be perfect. Open source has always been this way. >> Yeah. You know, if you look at colonel mailing list, which I spend a lot of time on, you know, the number of times that that people iterate a patch because it's all about you you you send something, you get feedback from the community and then you you might you might have to change your approach a little bit, but that feedback is is, you know, how you learn. So, it doesn't have to be perfect. [snorts] >> For sure. And and the the the thing I would add to that as well is um the these guys and so many others uh across all of Fedora do such a fantastic job that the the [clears throat] common fallacy that I see is well look how well Fedora is running. They don't need my help. That is not true at all. Um [laughter] every team inside Fedora could use additional help. We could always use more ambassadors. We could always use more people in the joint sick. could always use more kernel maintainers. Technology is becoming more and more a part of our daily uh of our daily existence. U and with that the velocity is increasing, the amount of security threats are increasing. Uh the need for good documentation. Um and and one of you I think it might have been Justin mentioned that over 50% of commits uh to the Fedora project have nothing to do with code. Um, so if you're u heck the the Fedora podcast team could use some help. Um, every team within the community could use some extra help. So don't don't talk yourself out of doing something conceive conceivably dangerous or risky and and getting involved because there there is a place for you in inside of Fedora. There there always will be. Um, people need vacations. I would love to send Justin off on a trip at some point uh where he didn't feel like he needed to get his laptop out of his suitcase. So there there's always a need. So don't uh don't talk yourself out of doing something for Fedora just because you think that your your skill set isn't needed. In fact, that's one of the beautiful things that makes Fedora as amazing as it is is the sheer volume of people spread across the globe from different backgrounds, different upbringings, different skill sets, different experiences. That's what makes Fedora, not not the kernel. Sorry, Justin. Not not scientific workloads that are being run on top of it. U but it's it's the people. I mean, that's it's the people that have gotten me to stick around over the last few years. U it's it's why Justin's been around for what 18 years? Or no, Anker, you said 18 years. Justin uh Justin's work on Fedora kind of predates Fedora itself in some ways. So just uh just jump into the join SIG, find a place to to plug in and and become a part of the community whether it's 15 minutes a week, 15 minutes a day um or maybe uh maybe a few hours every other weekend. I mean more or less that's that's kind of my contributions is uh I I spend a couple of hours a week uh on the Fedora podcast whether it's planning episodes or like today we're recording and publishing episodes. Um I I I in I inject the time when I can. Um, and you know, personal admittance here. Um, the last couple of months have been kind of rough. I, uh, I had a short-term contract that ended up going for a little over five months, and when that contract ended, uh, I unfortunately didn't have anything lined up. So, I'm kind of in the job hunting, uh, mode right now. And guess what? Um, we're we're a few weeks overdue for an episode, and I apologize for that. But, no one's fired me because it's it's all volunteer. We all work on Fedora when we can. uh th those of us that are are are strictly volunteers. Um if it's in your job title, like Justin, it's a little bit different, but uh you know, like an you said, you're you're an educator. Um so I I imagine finals week, you may not do as much on Fedora work as as you do other times of the year. So u you know, it's it's one of those deals where it's volunteer what you can when you can and and it always turns out really really well. So, uh, with that said, uh, Justin Anker, I'm really, really glad that the the both of you, uh, could join me for this. Uh, it was really enlightening to see, uh, kind of spotlights shown on a few different areas of Fedora, but also get to celebrate your all's achievements as well. And, and congratulations to Fabio as well. Uh, again, hope you're hope you're doing well. We missed you on the recording today, but uh, yeah, Anker, Justin, and Fabio were our contributor winners for 2026. uh make sure that uh I mean we've we've got in 10 months or so, but start thinking about who who do you know in the Fedora community and uh we'll we'll do uh we'll do nominations again in April of 2027. That'll be here before we know it. Uh but u it's a really great program. So it was great to get to highlight uh the program and and its winners. U join us again hope I think in two weeks. I've got three or four different uh interview requests out that I'm working. Um, so we'll we'll be talking about some of the infrastructure back end about Fedora. Maybe uh maybe Justin knows a couple of people on the colonel maintenance team that might want to join him for for a conversation about Fedora. You know, it seems like every episode we think of three new topics. So if you're if you do work in Fedora and you have something interesting to talk about, just reach out to me on Matrix. There's the Fedora podcast uh Matrix Room. Um or you can reach out to me direct. I'm IT guy Eric everywhere. Um always looking for new content. It's it's always a struggle to get the the topic, the person, and the time all lined up to get the starters to align. We just for this episode, we ended up just kind of having to pick a date a few weeks out and say, "Okay, this is the date. This is the time. If you can be there, great. If not, sorry." But, um, and considering that we've got about a six, six, and a seven hour time difference between the three of us. So, um, it was uh it was fun to try and schedule this. So if you are interested, please join the Fedora podcast matrix channel, present a topic or or volunteer your friend to uh to come and talk about a topic. Uh I I always love when someone volunteers a friend of theirs. U anyway, this has been episode number 56 of the Fedora podcast. I'm really excited to to continue to do this. This is uh this is my little corner of Fedora and I love uh I love that I get to do this. I I get to meet amazing people like Justin and like Aner. So thank you all for tuning in. Make sure to hit that like button and uh subscribe if you haven't to the Fedora YouTube channel. Uh also, if you're listening to the audio version, please go find the Fedora podcast on your favorite podcast player. Take a couple of minutes and just hit that fivestar rating. Uh it's dumb. Uh it's painful, I know, but it really really helps us grow the show and grow our audience and find more amazing guests to come on and present even more amazing conversations. So with that said, I've been your host Eric the Icy Guy Hendricks on behalf of my guests Justin and Ancher today talking about the Fedora contributor recognition program. We uh really glad that you joined us and we will see you again real soon. Thank you so much.