Note : This interview was recorded in the summer of 2020. However, due to the pandemic we could not release the episode timely. Therefore, the current status of FSF and recent events are not discussed in this episode. In episode 31, we interviewed Craig Topham from the Licensing and Compliance Team of the GNU Project about GNU software licenses. We started by discussing about his involvment in the compliance team at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and what got him interested in the topic of free software. The portion of the interview centered around the GNU project with an emphasis on the G ..read more

In episode 30, we interviewed Todd Gamblin from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about the Spack project. We discussed his current research project along with his involvement in Spack. We widely discussed the philosophy of Spack, some usage patterns, its capabilities for managing package management in HPC clusters as well as standalone computers and which operating systems it supports at the moment. Todd shared with us his opinion on the trend for containerized workloads to achieve reproducible science and why it may not be the goal we need to set. He highlighted for us the similarit ..read more

In episode 29, we interviewed Jason R Coombs from the setuptools project. We started with a discussion about his background and his interest for Python and other programming languages. Following that, we had a thorough discussion about setuptools. We covered topics such as how he got involved in the project, the nature and composition of a Python package, why packaging your code can be important even for small projects, the hidden complexity of binary packages in the Python Package Index and how to maintain compatibility between Python versions. We also had a brief segment about the security a ..read more

In episode 28, we interviewed Leah Silen from the NumFocus organization. She introduced us to the goals and the mission of the organization. We then had a discussion about the different levels of support provided by the organization to its member projects. She informed us about the legal, financial, technological and logistical support that can be provided by NumFocus. Following that, we asked her about the revenue sources of the organization as well as the possible influence from the corporate sponsors over the decisions and governance of the organization. We also discussed of the requirement ..read more

In episode 27, we interviewed Ralf Gommers from the NumPy and SciPy projects. We started our discussion by talking about his past research experience as a physicist and his transition to open source software and programming. This led him to get involved in projects such as PyWavelets, NumPy and SciPy. Following that, we had a great discussion about NumPy, its many features, its target audience and its performance. We learned why NumPy is not included in Python's standard library and its overlap with Scipy. We also compared the combination of Matlab to NumPy and Python and how users could trans ..read more

In episode 26, we interviewed Bhavani Ravi about the Python data analysis library pandas. After a brief introduction about her use of machine leaning models for pharmaceutical research, we talked extensively about pandas. She told us how much pandas is important for her everyday tasks and the strict quality standards of the project. We talked about the features provided by pandas and its compatibility with other Python libraries. We then discussed the importance of FLOSS in her industry and how they are contributing back to important projects. She share with us her experience as a first time c ..read more

In episode 25, we interviewed Kurt Kremitzki about the paramatric 3D modelling tool FreeCAD. After discussing his previous experiences with CAD software and how he got involved in the FreeCAD project, we asked him about the current development status of the project before digging deeper into a few of the workbenches offered by FreeCAD. We also compared FreeCAD to LibreCAD and QCAD for applications only requiring 2D drawing instead of parametric 3D models and we discussed about compatibility with commercial CAD systems and standard exchange file formats. We were pleased to learn about the devel ..read more

In episode 24, we interviewed Simon Hettrick Professor at the University of Southampton in the UK. We started the discussion with him by asking about his transition from deveoppin high-power lasers to founding the research software engineers (RSE) association and how his experiences got him in his current position. We then discussed about the roles of RSE in research and how funding for RSE evolved over the past. The discussion went on about the RSE association, its growth over time, branches in other countries and local events. We discussed that the relation between FLOSS and more sustainable ..read more

In episode 23, we interviewed Dan Quintana from the University of Oslo. We started the discussion with him by asking the link between all his subjects of interest and where R fits into his workflow. We then had an extensive discussion about R including his must have R packages and the synthpop package for generating synthetic datasets. We then widened the discussion and talked about the multiple facets of open science and reproducibility. Dan then talked about what he sees as one of the next big challenge of science. We finished the interview with our usual quick questions. 00:00:18 Introducti ..read more

In episode 22, we interviewed Robert Dodier from the Maxima project. After a brief introduction and a presentation of Robert's current uses for Maxima he introduced what is Maxima and what can be achieved with it. We discussed some core concepts of Maxima's language as well as how to access the documentation within the software to help users. Then discussion went on about the interesting origin story of Maxima and its origin as a tool for AI. We then talked about the current state of the project and how can someone provide help. As well as our usual quick questions, we had an interesting discu ..read more