Debian miniconf in Cambridge

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 19:08:00 +0000

I spent a few days in Cambridge for a minidebconf. This is a tiny version of the full annual Debconf. We had a couple of days for hacking, and another two days for talks.

I spent my hacking time on thinking about vmdebootstrap (my tool for generating disk images with an installed Debian), and came to the conclusion I need to atone my sins for writing such crappy code by rewriting it from scratch to be nicer to use. I gave a talk about this, too. The mailing list post has the important parts, and meetings-archive has a video.

I haven't started the rewrite, and it's not going to make it for stretch.

I also gave two other talks, on the early days of Linux, and Qvarn, the latter being what I do at work.

Thank you to ARM, for sponsoring the location, and the other sponsors for sponsoring food. These in-real-life meetings between developers are important for the productivity and social cohesion of Debian.

Qvarn Platform announcement

Tue, 10 May 2016 13:16:49 +0000

In March we started a new company, to develop and support the software whose development I led at my previous job. The software is Qvarn, and it's fully free software, licensed under AGPL3+. The company is QvarnLabs (no website yet). Our plan is to earn a living from this, and our hope is to provide software that is actually useful for helping various organisations handle data securely.

The first press release about Qvarn was sent out today. We're still setting up the company and getting operational, but a little publicity never hurts. (Even if it is more marketing-speak and self-promotion than I would normally put on my blog.)

So this is what I do for a living now.

The development of the open source Qvarn Platform was led by QvarnLabs CEO Kaius Häggblom (left) and CTO Lars Wirzenius.

Helsinki, Finland 10.05.2016 – With Privacy by Design, integrated Gluu access management and comprehensive support for regulatory data compliance, Qvarn is set to become the Europe-wide platform of choice for managing workforce identities and providing associated value-added services.

Construction industry federations in Sweden, Finland and the Baltic States have been using the Qvarn Platform (http://www.qvarn.org) since October 2015 to securely manage the professional digital identities of close to one million construction workers. Developed on behalf of these same federations, Qvarn is now free and open source software; making it a compelling solution for any organization that needs to manage a secure register of workers’ data.

"There is something universal and fundamental at the core of the Qvarn platform. And that’s trust," said Qvarn evangelist Kaius Häggblom. "We decided to make it free, open source and include Gluu access management because we wanted all those using Qvarn or contributing to its continued development to have the freedom to work with the platform in whatever way is best for them."

Qvarn has been designed to meet the requirements of the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enabling organizations that use the platform to ensure their compliance with the new law. Qvarn has also incorporated the principles of Privacy by Design to minimize the disclosure of non-essential personal information and to give people more control over their data.

"Today, Qvarn is used by the construction industry as a way to manage the data of employees, many of whom frequently move across borders. In this way the platform helps to combat the grey economy in the building sector, thereby improving quality and safety, while simultaneously protecting the professional identity data of almost a million individuals," said Häggblom. "Qvarn is so flexible and secure that we envision it becoming the preferred platform for the provision of any value-added services with an identity management component, eventually even supporting monetary transactions."

Qvarn is a cloud based solution supported to run on both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenStack. In partnership with Gluu, the platform delivers an out-of-the-box solution that uses open and standard protocols to provide powerful yet flexible identity and access management, including mechanisms for appropriate authentication and authorization.

"Qvarn's identity management and governance capabilities perfectly compliment the Gluu Server's access management features," said Founder and CEO of Gluu, Michael Schwartz. "Free open source software (FOSS) is essential to the future of identity and access management. And the FOSS development methodology provides the transparency that is needed to foster the strong sense of community upon which a vibrant ecosystem thrives."

Qvarn’s development team continues to be led by recognized open source developer and platform architect Lars Wirzenius. He has been developing free and open source software for 30 years and is a renowned expert in the Linux environment, with a particular focus on the Debian distribution. Lars works at all levels of software development – from writing code to designing system architecture.

About the Qvarn Platform:

The Qvarn Platform is free and open source software for managing workforce identities. Qvarn is integrated with the Gluu Server’s access management features out of the box, using open and standard protocols to provide the platform with a single common digital identity and mechanisms for appropriate authentication and authorization. A cloud based solution, Qvarn is supported to run on both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenStack. Privacy by Design is central to the architecture of Qvarn and the platform has been third party audited to a security level of HIGH.

http://www.qvarn.org

For more information, please contact:
Andrew Flowers
andrew.flowers@ellisnichol.com
+358 40 161 5668

pages tagged qvarn

Debian miniconf in Cambridge

Qvarn Platform announcement