Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier, has been the community manager for OpenSUSE for a number of months now. We thought we’d see how the job was coming along. Zonker courteously agreed to be interviewed by us.

SCALE: Was there one thing that convinced you to take the OpenSUSE Community Manager job?

Joe: Yes - the opportunity to work directly with a FOSS project and help encourage Linux adoption.

SCALE: How have you been received by the community? Any surprises so far?

Joe: I think very well. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how enthusiastic the openSUSE community is (I expected some enthusiasm, just not so much…) and how much fun it’s been to be working with the openSUSE community.

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Ken VanDine of Foresight Linux was kind enough to chat with SCALE about life with Open Source software in general, and Foresight Linux specifically. This is that interview.

SCALE: Why don’t we start with you telling us a bit about yourself and how you got involved in the open source community.
Ken: Well, that’s a very long story. I got started using Linux in early 1993, and really loved it right from the get go. I quickly got into a sysadmin gig managing mostly Linux boxes and have been fortune to have been able to work with Linux, not just as a hobby, since about 1994. As a sys admin, I learned about filing bug reports, etc., asking for help on IRC and mailing lists, feature requests via Bugzilla, etc. I just fell in love with the community dynamic of open source, the real feedback into the products I was using, and developers willing to implement features I was asking for. I mean really, how cool is that?

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