Free Software Consultant

Working experiences

Vocational

November 2018 - June 2022 Senior Software Developer Collabora

March 2016 - October 2018 Free Software Consultant Savoir-Faire Linux

Savoir-Faire Linux is a company of consultants specialized in Free-Software. I am part of the Industrial Solution Team who is in charge of developing the Linux Embedded Systems that are embedded in the devices of our customers.

I implemented a framework in C++ 11 to exchange data between different devices. I used ZeroMQ as the bus for communications and Protobuf as the format for data exchange. I developed a system of plugin based on ld. The code is covered using gcov.

I bumped the embedded software of an IoT device to the latest version of Yocto. I moved the init system to systemd. I fixed low-level and system related issues.

I customized the interface written in LuCI of a network device based on OpenWrt. I compiled and setup the docker daemon to run Docker images on that device.

July 2010 - September 2015 Embedded Linux Engineer Overkiz SAS, Somfy group

Overkiz is specialized in Cloud Computing for Home-Automation. It develops a solution which connects objects from Home to Internet (IoT). It consists of a gateway that links home-automation devices to its servers. We can control objects from Home thanks to a smartphone and Web-Services. I was part of the Embedded Team who is developing the Embedded Linux System of gateways.

I was co-maintainer of our home-made Embedded Linux distribution. I did the integration of software from the Open-Source community.

I was also responsible for the deployment of the embedded software updates.

I set up the Yocto Build System that builds the embedded software. It builds from scratch the whole embedded software. Yocto allows to save hours to the embedded developers and minimizes errors when releases are built introduced by human operations.

I developed home-made frameworks and applications to support new home-automation protocols into our gateways. I was also in charge of developing the application that creates the connection between the box and the server. Frameworks and applications are both developed in C++.

I developed kernel modules and I did two boards bring-up and mainlined them inside into Linux kernel sources.

Training Periods

2009 Master Trainee LC Mobility

LC Mobility is specialized in receiving foreign Ph.D. students. I made a market search about the mobility of the Australian students in Australia.

2008 3rd-year Engineer Trainee Freescale Semiconductors

I was responsible for the development of a battery-charging driver on Freescale smartphone platform (ARM-11 based). This mobile-phone is power-supplied by a Li-ion battery. It runs Nokia S60 (Symbian OS). I developed the driver in C++ using Symbian mechanisms.

2007 2nd-year Engineer Trainee Sagem Monetel

I was in charge of memory optimization (dynamic and static) of a C application embedded in a banking terminal powered by two ARM processors. I used listing and map files generated by the free GNU/GCC compiler to locate heavy memory structures. I reduced the application size by more than 30%.

2004 Technical Trainee Sagem Monetel

I was in charge of changing the compiler of an embedded C application to the free GNU/GCC compiler. I also developed a benchmark to demonstrate the power of a payment terminal during a transaction.

Open-Source Contributions

Buildroot I added package QtWebEngine and config Raspberry Pi 3 (64-bits).

Barebox I fixed readline implementation to prevent from printing a non printable character and from looping to infinity. I fixed a NULL pointer dereference that causes an crash.

genimage I added a hdimage property to set the position of the extended partition recorded into the Master Boot Record.

Lighttpd I mainlined CRLs for client certificate verification and make client verification errors ignored is not enforced.

jack2 I fixed uninitialized members that cause invalid reads when run by valgrind.

Linux Kernel I added two Atmel SoC based device-trees.

Atmel at91bootstrap I brought support for UBI. The goal is to improve critical upgrades against unexpected power-cuts. Critical volumes, such as kernels or bootloaders, are duplicated and stored in UBI static volumes. The bootstrap simply checks the volume integrity using update flag from UBI headers.

CURL I upgraded libcurl to that it is compatible with the latest PolarSSL Library API. I also fixed a bug with the polling mechanism that causes a timeout while processing SSL handshake with the distant server.

OPKG I improved CURL integration to allow libcurl related settings into the configuration file. I also fixed unexpected behaviors.

Dropbear I removed compilation warnings from the entire project.

Miscellaneous

2000 - 2006 Casual Jobs Miscellaneous Employers

Education

2008 - 2009 Master MAE IAE

Last year of Master in Management and Business of Administration.

2005 - 2008 Master 3I Polytech’Grenoble

Engineering degree in Industrial Computing and Microelectronic.

2004 - 2005 DEUG TIC University of Savoy

in Information Technology.

2002 - 2004 DUT ISI IUT of Valence

in Industrial Computing.

2001 - 2002 DEUG SV University of Savoy

1st-year of a 2-year University degree in Biology.

Projects

Personal

2018 blkpg-part Partition table and disk geometry handling utility

blkpg-part creates, resizes and deletes partitions on the fly without writing back the changes to the partition table. Thanks to blkpg-part, it is possible to export any consecutive blocks, that are not already part of a partition, as a temporary partitioned block device. A typically use case in embedded systems is to export hidden blobs that are stored in raw in block devices (i.e. blobs that are not stored into a file-system).

2018 kmake Maintain kernel dependencies by extending Kbuild

kmake runs on top of make using a set of Makefiles to extend the Kbuild’s features. It enhances the kernel build-system with the build of a tiny rootfs and an additional Qemu target to emulate the linux kernel alongside a userland. The userland is a tiny InitRAMFS cpio archive based on a static build of busybox.

2017-2018 dosh Run a user shell in a container with pwd bind mounted

dosh is a shell-like frontend written in bash for docker-run. It runs commands in a container; using the current user, with pwd bind mounted.

2017-2018 tini Simple init daemon that spawns processes and reaps zombies

tini is a damn small process spawner and zombie reaper.

2015-2017 mpkg Managing packages from a shell script

mPKG is a lightweight package manager written in pure Shell. It uses standard utilities such as sh, grep, tar, wget and awk that are shipped in any POSIX system. This makes mPKG suitable for embedded devices that usually embed Busybox which provides everything it needs in a single binary.

2015-2018 templates Some templates source files

Those examples of code are mostly written in C/C++, Shell/Bash, and make/Makefile. Those languages are the foundations of low-level and system development.

School

2009 LHOG Minatec 900MHz amplifier

Conception of a GSM-900 amplifier at LHOG Minatec (micro-nano technology laboratory). Design, simulation, layout, assembly, tests, and characterization.

2008 LHOG Minatec CMOS 6 bits accuracy ADC

Conception of a 6-bits Analog-to-Digital Converter in AMS CMOS 0,35u m technology at CIME Minatec (micro-nano technology laboratory). CMOS comparators had been designed using Cadense, and the Corrector and the Decoder developed in VHDL.

2006 Polytech’Grenoble ASM HC12 assembler

Conception of an assembler for the 68HC12 instruction set. This command line tool was developed in C on Linux.

2005 University of Savoy Windows Desktop Search

Conception of Desktop Search for Windows. I developed the application in Java using the Eclipse environment. The engine indexes all files from the computer and enables searching files by file name using regular expressions. The UI was built thanks to Swing framework.

2004 IUT of Valence 2D Game Engine

Conception of a basic 2D game engine using Microsoft Direct Draw library. The player moves in a 2D map with collision handling. I developed the engine in C++.

Languages

French Mother tongue

English Good knowledge

Computer skills

Programming languages Shell, Makefile, C/C++

Others Linux Kernel, Git, Cross-compilation, Yocto, Buildroot, Docker

Interests

BDE/BDS Polytech’Grenoble Member of Student Association at Polytech’Grenoble. Organization of the Integration event in 2006 (350 students, 3 days). Organization of two Ski event in 2006 and 2007 (400 students, 3 days, 11 engineering school from France).

Mountain Ski, hiking, snowshoes hiking.

Table tennis Player, referee, and coach (9-year practicing).

References

Overkiz Florent PELLARIN, Chief Operational Officer (f.pellarin@overkiz.com)

Savoir-Faire Linux Jérôme OUFELLA, Vice President Technologies (jerome.oufella@savoirfairelinux.com)

Collabora Dave BEVAN, Engineering People Lead Manager (dave.bevan@collabora.com)