Rob Landley, Programmer

SUMMARY:

Linux Developer with speaking, writing, and project management skills.

Programming languages include C, Bash, Python, Java, and Lua. Areas of expertise include embedded optimization, cross compiling, system integration, network administration, kernel tweaking, SMP/threading, web and GUI development. Also worked as college instructor, columnist, and convention organizer.

PROGRAMMING WORK EXPERIENCE:

• 2011  Position: Linux kernel developer for Polycom.
• Project: Board bringup for "Hawking Saturn" teleconference system. Adapted TI Linux branch to hardware (three TI "netra" Cortex A9 SOC, two FPGAs, audio/video I/O, USB3, etc), diagnosed hardware issues, fixed gigabit ethernet and USB3, automated regression test suite for manufacturing, ported drivers between Linux versions, advised on git/gerrit deployment, some driver design work, addressed USB and uboot issues on Mars and HDX boards, helped co-workers debug issues with Android.


• 2011  Position: Linux kernel developer for Parallels.
• Project: Linux Containers. Added container support to network filesystems in Linux kernel (CIFS, NFSv3, 9P), debuged and documented containers userspace tools at lxc.sourceforge.net, traveled to Moscow to liase with OpenVZ developers, ran booth at Scale with OpenVZ maintainer.


• 2010  Position: Linux developer for Qualcomm.
• Project: Port Linux to the Hexagon processor (QDSP6). Debugged kernel and toolchain, bootstraped Gentoo userspace, upstreamed patches to kernel.org and elsewhere.


• 2009  Position: Co-owner of Impact Linux LLC.
• Project: Rockwell Collins contract. Diagnose causes of memory exhaustion in an embedded ARM entertainment system. Create diagnostic tools, create documentation about Linux VM subsystem, deliver tutorial session.
• Project: Cisco/Linksys contract. Prototyped new embedded build system for Cisco/Linksys (based on Aboriginal Linux and Gentoo From Scratch). Performed competitive analysis of OpenWRT. Upgraded existing build systems (Bruschetta/Prosciutto, derived from Broadcom BSP) for WRT610n (mips router) and MediaHub (ARM NAS, replaced with PPC version during development). Ported uClibc++ to Crosstool-NG, debugged a home automation server, proposed transcoding strategy, diagnosed RAID/partitioning race condition, etc.


• 2008  Position: Linux Consultant for Oxford Consulting.
• Project: "Scorpion" Embedded Linux C++ programmer for Ion Geophysical Services. Maintenance and upgrades on SMP Linux server software controlling seismic data acquisition network, consisting of thousands of sensors connected via a proprietary bus. This server software collated and processed shockwave (dynamite) data in real-time to visualize underground geology and find oil.
• Project: ARM fax machine Embedded Linux C programmer for Silicon Labs, working on a new fax machine running ARM Linux. Optimized build environment, converted Python prototype to C, attended lots of design meetings.


• 2007  Position: Fellowship from the Linux Foundation
  • Project: Linux Kernel Documentation. Six month fellowship to create and maintain a central kernel documentation website, improve and maintain existing documentation and related tools, and write new documentation. See "http://kernel.org/doc", the source control repository at "http://landley.net/hg/kdocs", and May-Oct 2007 in the mailing list archive at "http://marc.info/?l=linux-doc".
  
  
• 2006-2007  Position: Embedded Linux Developer for TimeSys
  • Project: "BusyBox" 50% of work week spent maintaining BusyBox.
  • Project: "TimeSys LinuxLink" General embedded Linux development. Acted as domain expert in uClibc and initramfs, worked on cross-compilers and system integration, wrote test software, helped design new build system, spoke at CELF and OLS, answered customer questions, wrote documentation, added Mercurial support to source control system, did Linux kernel development, created a minicom replacement to improve boardfarm automation, etc.
  
  
• 2005  Position: Programmer for Giganews
  • Project: "GCF support". Implemented (in Perl) a dozen test cases for GCF (usenet NNTP forwarding software). Wrote (in C) a statistical usenet spam filtering plugin for GCF.
  
  
• 2004-2005  Position: Consultant at Dell
  • Project: "Rogers" Hardware diagnostic software for SCSI/SAS RAID. Implemented a C++ plugin library according to Dell's existing design, for marshalling data between device firmware (third party binary) and various user interfaces (web based, command line, and standalone Java application).
  
  
• 2003-2004  (Consulting work still under NDA).
  
  
• 2001-2002  Position: Head programmer for WebOffice
  • Project: "iLand gateway" A single box firewall and fileserver for small offices. Web-GUI administration (through Apache with Python CGI), Virtual Private Network (DNAT+SSH+netcat), Network Attached Storage (Samba and custom file transfer CGI), DHCP, Bind, PostgreSQL, root partition on loopback mounted zisofs allowing "firmware upgrade" (whole OS upgraded by replacing GPG signed file). Based on a custom "Linux from Scratch" system with the 2.4 kernel. Designed, implemented, documented, and created manufacturing process for this project.
  
  
• 2000  Position: Head of Linux Development for BOXX Technologies, a high-end graphics/video hardware start-up.
  • Responsibilities: Supervised two people, system configuration/tuning/testing, some software development (C and Java), design of new release management process, customer support/firefighting. Convinced Boxx to reconsider exclusive relationship with Intel and try AMD Athlon, resulting in Boxx and Tyan co-designing the first dual Athlon motherboard (OEMed as Tyan Thunder).
  
  
• 1999  Position: Consultant with Enscicon at Trilogy for IBM.
  • Project: "Order Processing and Forwarding", Java based client/server project connecting IBM's sales and shipping SQL/MQSeries databases. Deployed on AIX and NT.
  
  
• 1998  Position: Contract programmer for Alternative Resources Corporation.
  • Project: 6 month contract at IBM to resume work on "Feature Install" (see 1995) to support several new OS/2 products.
  
  
• 1998  Position: Head programmer for Quest Math & Science Multimedia.
  • Project: "Interactive Diagrams", a series of 45 Java applets for a Pre-calculus tutorial on a CD bundled with a McGraw-Hill textbook.
  
  
• 1995-1997  Position: Full-time development programmer at IBM.
  
  • Project: "JavaOS Application Bringup", debugging JavaOS on Power PC and Intel clients, ensuring compatability with multiple third party java applications.
  • Project: "IBM Software Choice", for purchasing and installing IBM's OS/2 software via the World Wide Web (using Feature Install engine controlled via Netscape plugins).
  • Project: "Feature Install", 32 bit Corba compliant OS/2 install, uninstall, and system inventory software used to install "Falcon" (OS/2 for Power PC) and "Merlin" (OS/2 Warp 4.0).

OPEN SOURCE PROGRAMMING PROJECTS:

• busybox - Maintained versions 1.01 to 1.2.2. Starting in 2003, extended busybox to fully replace the corresponding GNU tools in a development environment (for Aboriginal Linux), and for SUSv3 compliance. Wrote new versions of sort, sed, catv, dmesg, halt, count, losetup, mdev, mkswap, mount, nc, poweroff, reboot, seq, switch_root, umount... Re-implemented Julian Seward's bunzip2 algorithm to compile to less than 7k and run 10% faster. Wrote new test suite, documented standards compliance with SUSv3.

• Aboriginal Linux - Created and maintained an embedded Linux build system implemented as a series of bash scripts. Modular design creates cross compiler, root filesystem, and bootable system image as orthogonal stages. Project goal is to produce nearly identical native development and test environment for multiple hardware targets using commodity PC hardware (emulated via QEMU and accelerated via distcc). Default configuration creates the smallest system image capable of recompiling under itself, based on just seven packages (busybox, uClibc, linux, gcc, binutils, make, and bash). Currently supports x86, x86_64, arm, mips, powerpc, sh4, and sparc targets. See "http://landley.net/aboriginal" for details.

NON-PROGRAMMING WORK EXPERIENCE:

• Adjunct faculty member at Austin Community College (1998-2000), teaching "Intro to Java", "Unix Operating System I", and "Multiuser Operating Systems".
• Stock market investment columnist for The Motley Fool at www.fool.com from 1998-2000.
• Convention Organizer: Penguicon and Linucon. Co-founded Penguicon in Michigan in 2003 (still going, see www.penguicon.org), founded and chaired Linucon (a 501c3 non-profit) in October, 2004.
• Technical Editor for the "The Art of Unix Programming", by Eric Raymond, published 2003.
• Wrote documentation for Linux kernel. See "http://landley.net/writing/" for examples.
• Ran tutorial sessions ("Populating Initramfs with BusyBox and uClibc" and "Introduction to cross-compiling") at Ottawa Linux Symposium in 2006 and 2007. Presented paper "Where Linux Kernel Documentation Hides" and hosted Linux Compiler BOF in 2008.
• Ohio LinuxFest presentation: Developing for non-x86 targets using QEMU.
• Additional presentations at CELF ELC 2010, Flourish 2010, and elsewhere.

FORMAL EDUCATION:

• 1997-1998, 2003-2004 - Enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, as a graduate student in Computer Science. (Withdrew due to work commitments both times.)
• 1995-1997 - IBM internal courses in SOM, OS/2 PM, and Java.
• 1992-1995 - Bachelor's degree from Rutgers University (Camden, NJ). GPA 3.419, Majors in Computer Science and General Science, minors in Math & English.