This is so embarrassing. Why would you publish this if apparently Interviewer and interviewee lack basic understanding of the technology?
>No one starts a project from scratch; instead, they turn to libraries like GitHub or GitLab to download packages of code already written, reviewed, and improved by the community.
Completely false on so many levels.
>Developers spend an average of two-thirds of their time adapting open-source software to their needs
No, they don't. This is just made up. Developers develop with open source software. They do not spend 2/3 of their time "adapting" it.
>Our structure is quite unique: we’re a limited liability company owned by the German government
I know of one similar corporation. Deutsch Bahn.
>which is maintained by people selflessly.
This myth comes up again and again. It just is not true. A large part of open source software is created and maintained by corporations.
>Most people have never heard of curl or pi [Python], or the other 60 technologies we work with. But if this software goes down, suddenly the payment systems stop working.
This persons does not understand what python or curl are. They do not "go down". This is just someone not having a single clue what they are talking about.
>You really need to understand how software developers work and how the open-source ecosystem works.
Well. I guess you don't, to get 20 million in budget from the government.
>We face a classic commons problem: everyone relies on open-source software as a foundation for building their own developments, but no one feels responsible for it. Why should I invest in open-source software if my competitor is also using it and not paying for it?
Again. A total myth, this person has zero understanding of the open source landscape.
>What does open source contribute to the debate on reducing the carbon footprint of technology?
Truly an enlightening question. The answer is even worse.
I moved to Europe years ago, and I am still baffled by how IT in general is perceived, even by some professionals. When I compare a project like Bevy running with a yearly budget of ~$200k with someone like this getting a budget of €20M, I feel like going back to bed.
She's a fairly young seemingly career politician heading a fairly new government initiative. This feels like a very negative read with that context.
Reading this like I'd read something from my CEO:
> No, they don't. This is just made up. Developers develop with open source software. They do not spend 2/3 of their time "adapting" it.
Many of our devs jam few-line functions into Spring Boot / JPA / Hibernate / Flask / FastAPI / Django /Some other framework, updating these frameworks, configuring these frameworks. We have a few admins poking configs at PostgreSQL or other OSS solutions. It's not that wrong to call it like that.
> This persons does not understand what python or curl are. They do not "go down". This is just someone not having a single clue what they are talking about.
If you don't build, fix and maintain the software on your own, US embargoes can take down any SaaS solution, and cut you off of binary distribution (I know a guy who couldn't install binaries on an IP that was flagged as russian), source distribution (people getting banned from GH), patches, ...
It does not go down in the traditional sense, but if you have no devs of something in the EU, you can easily get cut off of security updates and get exploited with known problems from a hostile side. If you have your own devs in there it's at least less clear who cuts of whom and who keeps what security problems around in the libraries for whose benefit.
All in all, this reads like a managers take on stuff, but then again, 20M is on the level of pennies at that scale and overall an orientation to OSS and open standards is a good thing imo.
If you want to, you can twist her words in ways that they make sense. I do not believe that she has a sufficient understanding of these technologies to adequately phrase herself. This is, as you say, manager speak.
You can also find out her educational background, which includes no technical qualifications. "Adriana holds a master’s degree in public policy and governance from Maastricht University and a bachelor’s degree in sociology and political science from Goethe University Frankfurt."
A person with these qualifications has absolutely zero business heading a government fund. At minimum I would want this person to either have a technical degree or some industry/FOSS experience. I don't think it is unlikely, that this women has not written a single line of code in her life.
The reason is that only such a person can adequately understand why these projects need funding and what the consequences of not funding them are.
I read their website and it is extremely embarrassing as well.
>"Lineare Algebra ist für viele Prozesse in der Mathematik, den Naturwissenschaften, der Informatik, der maschinellen Bilderkennung und dem maschinellen Lernen unerlässlich, da sie es Entwicklerinnen und Forscherinnen ermöglicht, Berechnungen extrem schnell durchzuführen."
To paraphrase: Researchers use linear algebra because it makes their calculations fast.
You can look at it this way, or you can look at it in a way that, shes the one who convicned politicians to create a fund for OSS. And may be woth time, they will get better.
If you look at the projects they fund, they are good projects.
I believe that it is inherently dangerous to have managers, who do not understand what they are managing. You are correct that the sovereign tech fund has funded some good open source projects, although I disagree with some funding choices. I would have greatly preferred if someone with some technical background were leading this, who themselves has the ability to coherently talk about the subject.
> To paraphrase: Researchers use linear algebra because it makes their calculations fast.
Mh, if I am contrarian: Optimization of linear algebra is an established important subset of numerical computer science, because you can reduce many important problems to sets of linear equations. I studied that for a semester in many details. Many simulations, fluid, weather or mechanical were at least initially implemented as sets of linear equations because linear equation solvers were well-researched and optimized. Because they were fast and had a predictable range of error.
So yes, LinAlg makes other research go fast.
> A person with these qualifications has absolutely zero business heading a government fund. At minimum I would want this person to either have a technical degree or some industry/FOSS experience. I don't think it is unlikely, that this women has not written a single line of code in her life.
>
> The reason is that only such a person can adequately understand why these projects need funding and what the consequences of not funding them are.
Though her job could easily be to be the competent at politics and communication, not code. She may fail at the level you are looking at, but many techies at $work with more chops fail in the other direction much, much harder and don't get anything besides frustration.
>Though her job could easily be to be the competent at politics and communication, not code.
It is extremely difficult to adequately communicate about something you fundamentally do not understand. She is either lying or disastrously misinformed when she claims corporations do not fund open source projects, which are provided for the common good. This statement alone should disqualify her, because it shows that she is either lying or does not understand the point of her work.
The truth is that many important open source projects are either completely, partly or mostly supported by corporations, who provide this software for the benefit of the general public. Her prediction about the "tragedy of the commons" is not universally seen in reality. What is simultaneously true, is that many important open source projects are not funded by corporations or at least completely underfunded.
If the key leader of such a project claims that the later is generally true, any serious political debate will make her look like a liar and fool, when her opponent point out the numerous examples of the later.
Funding open source is not important because corporations just endlessly consume open source projects and never giving back. It is important because, some open source projects are neglected and inadequately funded. Not making that distinction is political suicide if you ever have to defend your budget.
Confession: I did not read the interview before I posted it. You are totally right that the content reveals a lack of understanding on both sides — or the interviewer got a lot of things wrong and published without clarifying first.
> People in the EU are super wise. You have a meal with some sort of French person who works in Brussels—it's very impressive. They're cultured, they have wonderful taste, they understand all these different countries, they know something about Chinese porcelain. And if you lived in a world ruled by them, the growth rate would be negative 1%.
You're reading this like "I am building my website with Wordpress". However, it's not a false statement.
Did you develop your own compiler / interpreter? Did you develop all the libs to parse json, run an http server, etc? Did you develop redis/postgresql...?
Most software (even commercial one) relies on open source libraries / products, so in theory you really never start from scratch.
...overall, I agree it's a weird interview, though. I guess it's the kind of things made to just convince people it's important to get funds.
>No one starts a project from scratch; instead, they turn to libraries like GitHub or GitLab to download packages of code already written, reviewed, and improved by the community.
Completely false on so many levels.
>Developers spend an average of two-thirds of their time adapting open-source software to their needs
No, they don't. This is just made up. Developers develop with open source software. They do not spend 2/3 of their time "adapting" it.
>Our structure is quite unique: we’re a limited liability company owned by the German government
I know of one similar corporation. Deutsch Bahn.
>which is maintained by people selflessly.
This myth comes up again and again. It just is not true. A large part of open source software is created and maintained by corporations.
>Most people have never heard of curl or pi [Python], or the other 60 technologies we work with. But if this software goes down, suddenly the payment systems stop working.
This persons does not understand what python or curl are. They do not "go down". This is just someone not having a single clue what they are talking about.
>You really need to understand how software developers work and how the open-source ecosystem works.
Well. I guess you don't, to get 20 million in budget from the government.
>We face a classic commons problem: everyone relies on open-source software as a foundation for building their own developments, but no one feels responsible for it. Why should I invest in open-source software if my competitor is also using it and not paying for it?
Again. A total myth, this person has zero understanding of the open source landscape.
>What does open source contribute to the debate on reducing the carbon footprint of technology?
Truly an enlightening question. The answer is even worse.