SeaGL speaker Q&A: Gareth Greenaway

Gareth gives his talk titled, “Leaving an Open Source Project” on Saturday afternoon.

Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

A: My name is Gareth Greenaway, I’m currently the lead DevOps Engineer at a company called Croscon Engineer. We’re a New York based software engineering company. I’m also an occasional co-host of the podcast FLOSS Weekly, co-founder & former leader of the Southern California Linux Expo and an active contributor to the SaltStack project. I’ve been an avid user of free & open source software and active in the FOSS community for over 20 years.

Q: Without tipping your hand on the actual talk, can you give us an idea of what we might expect?

A: My talk is about Leaving An Open Source project. Earlier this year I decided to end a 14 year run of being one of the organizers for the Southern California Linux Expo, also known as SCALE. I had been involved in organizing the event longer than my last 4 jobs combined and it definitely was a big part of my life. After I decided to leave, there was a lot of confusion particularly for what it means for the event itself. I had always thought of the act & process of running SCALE as very similar to how most FOSS projects are run. My departure got me thinking about what it meant to leave a FOSS project, how it was similar to but completely different than leaving a job. My talk is based on my experiences and those of others that I talked to. It includes a few lessons learned as well as a few ideas on how the process can be improved & why it should be improved.

Q: Is this your first visit to SeaGL? If so, what are your expectations? If not, can you give us your impressions of the event?

A: This will be my third time attending SeaGL and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a great community event and I always enjoy attending. When you attend an event that is run completely on a volunteer basis it definitely has a different feel to it. The people organizing it are doing it because it’s their passion and that definitely shines through each year at SeaGl. Plus Seattle is a great location, coming from Southern California it’s always a novelty for me to go somewhere that has a high chance of rain! :)

Q: Is it true that your hair has it’s own twitter account and it has more followers than you?

A: Unfortunately yes. A lesson learned, one should never joke about one’s hair having it’s own persona. The Internet will take something like that and run with it, doing crazy things, like creating a twitter account.

(Author’s note: We couldn’t find the hair account mentioned in this interview.)