JonathanRoberts/F9Interviews/NetworkManager

= Network Manager =

Developer Interview
[[Image:JonathanRoberts_F9Interviews_NetworkManager_Picture1.png]
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 Dan Williams 

Occupation: Software Engineer, Red Hat inc

Location: Boston, MA

IRC Nick: dcbw

Website: http://blogs.gnome.org/dcbw/

Age: 27

Interviewed by: JonathanRoberts
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'''Fedora 8 saw a big push to get Network Manager in F8 with that of F7, and we mostly hit that goal. Since then each update to Network Manager. What are you specifically hoping to see delivered in Fedora 9, and what are the potential benefits for end-users?'''

Dan Williams: The multiple active device rework is on track for F9. This will enable connection sharing and make for smoother connectivity since NM won't take the wireless device down right away when you plug in the cable.

We'll also probably land a rewrite of the of the applet just after F9 to better support multiple active devices. The current applet menu doesn't scale well here. Brian Clark has some pretty awesome mockups for what the applet might look like, which would make it much more functional for users.

Driver are also getting a lot better for F9. Since most new hardware is supported by mac80211, there's so much more consistency there than when we had 3 or 4 different implementations of Wireless Extensions that NM and the supplicant had to talk to. Many of the issues people have with connecting to wireless networks can be traced to poor, inconsistent driver implementations.

All of the Network Manager going to be the default across the whole of the Fedora Project for this release? With the plans to use Policy Network Manager 0.7. Has this problem been resolved, or will it be by the release of Fedora 9?'''

Dan Williams: While I don't directly work on K Manager (I have enough to do with NM itself), I'm excited about having it solid for KDE users. Newer snapshots that work for wired & wireless devices have hit rawhide and are in-process for update in F8. There's more work going on upstream to whack it into shape too. I'd expect that the K Manager situation will be significantly better for F9 than it is for F8.

'''And finally, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? What got you interested in free software originally? What do you like to do with your spare time when not at a computer!?'''

Dan Williams: I did a lot of Mac development before and during college. I worked on the PennMUSH Mac port for a few years, and got involved in the Open Office.org in late 2003.

Outside of work, I enjoy cooking, playing with electronic gadgets, watching movies, reading & buying cellular telephony and used archaeology books, and hacking on Network Manager :)  I sometimes suck it up in various Half-Life-based games (CS, TF, DoD, etc) as 'fa'.