Meet Raphaël Badin
Earlier this year, Raphaël Badin joined the Launchpad team as a developer.
Matthew: What do you do on the Launchpad team?
Raphaël: I’m a member of the Red Squad reporting to Julian Edwards and I’m currently working on the derived distributions feature.
Matthew: Can we see something that you’ve worked on?
Raphaël: Not yet because this feature is still in the works but once it’s released the changes will be pretty visible.
Matthew: Where do you work?
Raphaël: I work from my home in Paris, France.
Matthew: What can you see from your office window?
Raphaël: The other side of the street … over the rooftops I can see the very top of the Sacré Coeur.
Matthew: What did you do before working at Canonical?
Raphaël: Most recently I worked in a small Python/Django shop active in the field of participatory democracy and public participation. Before that I also worked in the banking industry.
Matthew: How did you get into free software?
Raphaël: I was introduced to Unix in college. When I started to work I had the chance to cross paths with free software zealots and was quickly convinced by the value of free software. I’ve been using Debian/Ubuntu ever since.
Matthew: What’s more important? Principle or pragmatism?
Raphaël: If you really want to choose between the two I would say it is something to be decided on a case by case basis 😉 … but I think they work hand in hand most of the time.
Matthew: Do you/have you contribute(d) to any free software projects?
Raphaël: Mostly small bug reports/patches to Django and Drupal.
Matthew: Tell us something really cool about Launchpad that not enough people know about.
Raphaël: The PPAs are nothing new but are a great way to build and distribute your packages for ubuntu.
Matthew: Is there anything in particular that you want to change in Launchpad?
Raphaël: I believe performance is a major part of the user experience and thus I would love to take part in the ongoing effort to improve Launchpad’s performance.
Matthew: Thanks Raphaël!
