Interview: Keith Packard, Graphics Hacker

By Dawn M. Foster (91 posts) on August 26, 2009 at 7:30 am

Keith Packard has been developing open source software since 1986, focusing on the X Window System since 1987, designing and implementing large parts of the current implementation. He is currently a Principal Engineer with Intel’s Open Source Technology Center. Keith received a Usenix Lifetime Achievement award in 1999 and sits on the X.org foundation board.

Dawn: What made you decide to join Intel's Open Source Technology Center (OTC) in 2006?

Keith: Intel was about the last place I'd considered working when I started looking for a new position in 2006. But, I came out and interviewed with Imad Sousou, the Director of the OTC, and discovered that Intel had changed when I wasn't looking -- Intel clearly "got it" and had started making sure that Intel hardware was well supported by Open Source software, by working as a part of the community in developing software and supporting the community by releasing documentation.

Mr. Sousou asked me to come to Intel and help fix the Linux desktop, both in continuing my efforts in the broader X window system as well as by working inside Intel to improve support for Intel graphics hardware. It's been a great pleasure to work within the OTC and see how much progress we've been able to make.

Dawn: Out of all of the work you've done at Intel over the past several years, what are you the most proud of?

Keith: The OTC graphics team has led the way in rewriting a huge chunk of the Linux graphics infrastructure in the last two years. Much of this work had been in the planning stages for years, but never really started due to a lack of developer time. Having the support of Intel to build a team able to work with the community in this kind of intensive and long-term effort has been very satisfying.

Dawn: What are your favorite geeky (or not so geeky hobbies) that you do when you aren't hacking on X?

Keith: I've been involved in amateur rocketry for the last several years. I've worked with the Portland State Aerospace Society, as well as built and flown my own rockets. Recently, I've been collaborating with Bdale Garbee on a new rocket flight computer called
TeleMetrum. Of course, the hardware designs are licensed under the TAPR open hardware license and software under the GNU general public license, version 2. With on-board GPS and radio telemetry, this merges rocketry, amateur radio and open source together. And it gets me outside once in a while.

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Comments (1)

September 9, 2009 6:27 AM PDT


Dennis Mofrgan		 Hello Kieth. I saw your name on Wikipedia as being one of
the contributors to TWM. I have happily used TWM for 15 years,
but am now being forced to use Gnome on my new Linux machine
(I am not adept enough to install and maintain my own window
manager and have to depend on local support to work out problems.)
The one thing I absolutely love about TWM and cannot live without
is the ability to instantly change window size back and forth
from short to wide to tall to full using the F3, F4, F5
keys. I constantly use these all the time and it is such a
great feature that I can't understand why everyone doesn't
demand such convenience rather than having to fool around
all the time with mouse clicks and drags. Do you know of
any way I can program the function keys on Gnome to do the
equivalent of the TWM F3, F4, F5 keys?

Dennis

Dennis R. Morgan
Bell Laboratories, Alcatel-Lucent
700 Mountain Avenue 1C-260
Murray Hill NJ 07974-0636
(908) 582-3750
drrm@bell-labs.com

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