At a Glance:
- Involved in open source since 2003
- Works for the German Aerospace Center
- Eclipse Foundation contributor since 2018
- Project lead for Eclipse SUMO
- Committer to Eclipse SUMO
- Eclipse Foundation committer since 2018
Can you tell us about your background as a developer?
I studied computer science here in Berlin, and after finishing my PhD, I went straight to work for the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which is mainly focused on research. That’s also when I started work on the Eclipse SUMO project, which started at the DLR.
Was that your first encounter with open source?
Not exactly. I’d made some minor contributions to an open source project working on a media player in 2003, which were my first accepted patches. In fact, I think they’re still in there. I also made some contributions to a project working on ways to apply algorithms to graphs, as I did my doctorate on graph theory. But, of course, that was on a completely different scale.
What drew you to open source in the first place?
I think I had my first computer when I was 12, and while the internet wasn’t the same as it is today, we still had a way of sharing things we were working on. Growing up in East Germany, it was a very limited environment, so the community you were able to develop there was both very important to learning and very special.
It’s not always easy talking to people you don’t know and trying to build some kind of community. But it helps a lot when you have something in common with people. And really, that’s what open source is all about — building community.
It was hard to imagine that when we moved the SUMO project to the Eclipse Foundation that the community could take on the kind of scope and scale that it has. Before the move I was mainly of the mindset that people were working on software in closed-source environments for money, and in open source essentially for fun.
Why did your project decide to join the Eclipse Foundation?
It was not a decision we made lightly. By the time it was even on the table, the project had been a functioning open source project for 17 years. So, we had to have an internal discussion about what we stood to gain and, potentially, to lose, by moving the project.
Many discussions at the DLR about the future of the SUMO project led us to our decision. People were asking where it was leading — what was the ultimate goal of the project? And there was some idea of simply giving it to the community, but we wanted to make sure that it would continue to survive and be developed. We also wanted to potentially get the OEMs involved to ensure a level playing field and encourage them to support the project.
So, going to the Eclipse Foundation ultimately made a lot of sense.
How has your experience been since joining the Eclipse Foundation?
Probably like a lot of people my age, when the idea was first proposed I thought “what does the Java IDE have to do with what we’re working on?” Of course, I soon learned there was more to the Eclipse Foundation than Java, and in fact the automotive section of the foundation has been growing by leaps and bounds.
When we started, the onboarding process felt very formal. It wasn’t until I had the chance to meet some of the folks behind the email addresses that it became clear that the rules and framework we were working with were meant to help the project, not just tick boxes.
I also think that in the six years since I’ve joined, the Eclipse Foundation has made a lot of changes, and I think most of them have been for the better.
What have you found most rewarding about your involvement?
It’s been really nice to see the SUMO project grow, both the lines of code and the community around it. Even working at an institution like DLR, which is neither small nor unimaginative, you sometimes end up going around in circles a bit. But one of the great things about being here is that there’s such a large and diverse community that you never run out of new ideas. This is how you end up with really out-of-the-box thinking.
Do you have any particular goals as a community member?
I think there is a need to shift away from the emphasis on the automotive sector, and it may be worth considering changing the name of the Eclipse Automotive Top-Level Project. Obviously, cars have played a vital role in transportation, but there’s reason to believe that role could diminish. Things like the climate crisis are pushing emphasis away from cars and encouraging us to enhance our transportation systems, and, in my opinion, our philosophy — and naming conventions — should perhaps reflect this.
Any advice for someone looking to get more involved in open source?
I always try to tell people who are afraid to contribute code that the only way to improve is from feedback. Nobody has a monopoly on writing bad code; we’ve all done it, and not just early in our careers either. If you wait until you’ve got it perfect, you’ll never contribute it at all, and you’ll never have the chance to improve or see the value of your code.