Gentoo Creator Daniel Robbins: Making Linux Free and Flexible

jeremy · 06-12-2013, 11:33 AM

Quote:

"For me it was a means of exploring and learning about Linux and open source technology. I used a few other Linux distros prior to working on Gentoo: I used an early version of Debian; I did a little bit of development on a distro that has now disappeared called Stampede Linux. I got to the point where I wanted to do some things in Linux that I really didn't see in other Linux distributions."

Open source software is a passion for some and a business for others. Daniel Robbins became "Tuxified" early in his computing education and was driven by a need to make Linux better than he found it.

Robbins created two Linux distributions: Gentoo and Funtoo. He created Gentoo Linux during his time as a systems administrator at the University of New Mexico. He released his new distro in 2002 and found it created enormous interest almost immediately. It remains one of the most high-profile, source-based Linux distributions around, even becoming the basis for Google's high-end Chrome OS.

Funtoo, meanwhile, is a project that Robbins created to extend the technologies for Gentoo.

Bringing both of his creations with him, Robbins now serves as the community manager at Zenoss, an open source monitoring and systems management firm. He heads an extremely large community base of systems administrators.

In this interview, Daniel Robbins tells LinuxInsider what made him an open source aficionado and a Linux innovator. He talks about what made his first open source project so successful and his perspectives on maintaining a larger open source community.

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--jeremy

JWJones · 06-13-2013, 12:22 PM

Good article, thanks.