Jaka "lynx" Kranjc Interview

Hello Jaka, thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Mage Power. Would you tell us about yourself and how you became interested in Linux?
I'm a student at the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana, Slovenija. The course is dubbed "Forestry with renewable forest resources", which includes a wide variety of topics. A few of them are also IT related (think GIS). Being a geek helps me a lot during my studies, but the connection works the other way too. For example, learning how to differentiate all these critters amongst themselves improved my attention to detail.

Switching to gnu/linux was a natural thing to do. There is an exotic and free OS out there! I just needed to try it and after the second run-in, I was hooked. Part of the reason for that is the fact it exposes all sorts of details of it's and the computer's inner workings. Which was just perfect for satisfying my growing curiosity.

You stated after the second run-in you were hooked. Can you elaborate on that? What distribution were you using at that time?
My first run-in was with Slackware. It came with a bunch of translated howtos from tldp.org, but that was it, as I had no net connection at that time. I don't remember if I just couldn't get the mouse to work or if I couldn't even start X, but after a while I got tired of hacking at it.
Later, the second try was with Mandrake 9.1, which worked just fine and provided a stable platform for me to work and play from. But as I gained experience, I realised that source distributions are the way to go, so I started adventuring on the Gentoo plane. There are plenty of spells to choose from there, but their use is needlessly stressing on the wielder. That provoked my journey to the little known Source Mage plane, where I wander still.

What was it about Source Mage that made you decide to stick with it?
The package manager is featureful, fast and mostly written in bash! As most distributions, contains all the packages I need and I don't like gui configuration tools too much (hard to get right), I judge them by their package managers. That's the real added value for me.
I was already an avid scripter, so Source Mage presented a good opportunity to do something more widely useful. Due to all the clever code involved, Sorcery is also a good learning ground.

Besides all the fascination for the nomenclature, the code and the unpatchedness™, the distribution just turned out to be useable. The warm atmosphere of #sourcemage helped too.

I notice when new users show interest in Source Mage, one of their first questions is, "How does Source Mage compare to Gentoo?". How do you think Source Mage compares to Gentoo?
When I was still a pretty fresh user, I wrote this doc on the topic:
http://wiki.sourcemage.org/SourcemageGentooDiffUserPerspective

The points in it are still mostly true, but many are missing. A more proper response was later written by Jeremy Blosser:
http://wiki.sourcemage.org/FAQ/Gentoo/Philosophical

How long have you been with Source Mage now?
I've been using Source Mage for a bit over two years now, with the current installation dating back to the Sunday of September the 25th, 16:13:17 CEST 2005 (fetched from /etc/sourcemage-release). My first graspable contribution was a small patch for gaze (bug #10140) later that year.

What is your current role in the Source Mage GNU/Linux project?
I'm the new Sorcery Lead, but I'll also continue with my previous activities - grimoire QA, quill development and the occasional version bump.

What are you currently working on?
Currently I'm busy with w€rk, but right after that, I have these things in queue:

Sorcery:
1. verify #13735, integrate a few fixes and release a new stable Sorcery
2. integrate most of the recent fixes from devel to test, perhaps also runtime/suggested dependency support and release a new test Sorcery
3. fix the blockers for 1.14.0 and release it into test; release a new stable from the old test
4. wreak havoc in the new devel and fix the remaining 1.14 bugs

Grimoire:
I have accumulated a few half-complete commit stashes, including:
* a fix for qt4 not remembering query options (always uses the defaults, deceptively marked as saved)
* which enables adding a subdependency for soprano on qt4 with tools
* a second failed attempt at updating gcl, no version builds for me now
* an update of maxima, which I can't do much about due to a gcl subdependency issue, which requires me to rebuild it ...
* an update of qtiplot, more qmake fun

What motivates you to keep working on Source Mage?
I like to tinker and there are plenty of things to do in different areas, so it rarely gets repetitive or boring. When it does, I just tackle something else.

What do you think needs to be completed in Source Mage to release a 1.0 version?
Heh, the 1.0 thing. If you ask me, Source Mage has been 1.0 material a long time ago, we just don't care about such numbers so much. There is an old 1.0
roadmap hidden somewhere on the site and last I checked it was largely completed.

It also appears that the iso releases dictated the Source Mage "version". And since Cauldron (iso generation) has been the most starved out part of the project, few new isos came out and that resulted in few "version" bumps.

What is a Source Mage version anyway? With new iso releases, there is no need for a reinstall or a risky upgrade like with some major distributions. One just updates sorcery and the spells with the usual tools et voilà, you're as current as a user can be. Some people even have *updated* installs from Sorcerer, the Source Mage parent!

I'd definitely like to see volunteers join the cauldron team and help Karsten and David get the processes running again. New isos create a lot of new buzz, which is critical for increasing and maintaining a steady flow of new people to our community. A bigger community then means a bigger contributor pool, which could mean more isos ...

So if we wanted to do a symbolic 1.0 release, we're all already ready! I think it would be good to make a fresh iso first though, as that would mean a more recent kernel with even more hardware support.

What advice do you have for other developers who want to start contributing to Source Mage?
Reporting bugs is one of the easiest way to contribute, sadly often dismissed as minor. But let's talk of the hacker type, who will also (try to) fix bugs.

The only thing required from a classical contributor is curiousity plus willingness to learn, some zen of coding or preferably all of that. The bar is low, obligations few (and far between if you will) and we are a friendly bunch. Everybody makes mistakes and yelling can't change that. I'm pleasantly surprised how mature everyone is, although some may find the lack of flamewars boring. ;)
What I wanted to say was that we have civil peer review and that nobody will be looked down upon if she asks for help. If she still feels competently deficient, we have a voluntary apprentice-mentorship programme, where everything he or she wants to publish goes through the mentor first, so it is less likely to contain errors when published publicly.

So the best way to start hacking is to fix a bug or three, bump a spell or add a small missing feature (technically all of these are bugs; report them if they don't exist yet). There are even some 60 bugs labeled as quickfix. This means that they're pretty trivial to fix and that the bug comments usually explain exactly what needs to be done. A perfect starting point.

BUT those are only the classical requirements - like with any other project, we also need all sorts of other talents. Graphics artists (logos, backgrounds, banners, t-shirts motives, ...), writers (news, articles, docs, poems, incantations :], translations, ...), demag^WPR people, website people, admins ... Even some (nerdcore) music wouldn't hurt. :D

Another simple way to contribute is to be an active part of the community - talk on IRC/IM, write mails, blogs ... Communication (feedback, support) is an important part of the development process.

In your opinion, is there anything that could greatly improve Source Mage at this point?
Hmm, that's a tough one to answer properly. Source Mage already has all the features one would reasonably expect and there are no outrageous bugs, so there is hardly a single action that could "greatly improve" it (short of sudden paid labour). Not that there aren't any big projects to undertake, but I doubt any will have a titanic impact. At this point we're just maintaining and increasing the added value.

One of the coolest project proposals I've heard so far was David Kowis' prototype of an Adventure-like installer. Imagine all the gamers we could attract! ;D
More seriously, I think the task with the biggest impact would be (again) Cauldron related. Installing a 64-bit system is needlessly complicated now.

What is your favorite Window Manager/Desktop Manager?
kwin/KDE.

What are some of your favorite Linux applications?
In no real order: kmail, konversation, less, konsole, opera, klipper, git, bash, sed, the sorcery suite, the coreutils suite, kile, fortune, kwordquiz, wesnoth, wormux, kwrite, wine, gettext, nano and that's about it. Some of them are just KDE implementations of common tools, so they may not actually be anything special.

Do you think Source Mage is a good choice for a server?
I have no experience with it as a server, but judging by my workstation's stability and the fact that people do use it that way, I guess it is.

What other things do you enjoy besides computers?
I love mountaineering! And this year has been especially fruitful in that regard - I've been on some 20 tours already and there's still two months to go. :)
Connected to the previous is my interest in wildlife, especially rare flora.

I also recently discovered La Canne. It is a sport in the age old tradition of fencing, but not in the lame olympic way. There is a nice presentation video here (disregard the boxing ring):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6893051058764633264
When magic fails, use a sword!

On the thought front, I like all sorts of puzzles, word plays and ambiguities. Got to stay sharp. ;)

Is there anything at all you would like to add?
Sorbus aria! It is an African word for 'Humanity to otters'. It also sounds cool when pronounced.