Harald Welte, also known as LaForge, is a German

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

. Welte is the founder of the

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

project Osmocom and was formerly involved in the netfilter/iptables and Openmoko projects. He is a member of the

Chaos Computer Club The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of Hacker (computer security), hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an ''eingetragener Verein'' in Germany, with local chapters ...

Biography

Until 2007, Welte was the chairman of the core team responsible for the netfilter/iptables project. He is also credited with writing the ''

UUCP UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) is a suite of computer programs and communications protocol, protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of computer file, files, email and netnews between computers. A command named is one of the prog ...

over SSL how-to'', and contributions to User-mode Linux and international encryption kernel projects, among others. Welte has become prominent for his work with gpl-violations.org, an organisation he set up in 2004 to track down and prosecute violators of the GPL, which had been untested in court until then. Welte was part of Openmoko team, a project to create a

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

platform using free software. However, in 2007, Welte announced his withdrawal from Openmoko, citing internal friction and demotivation. He continues to contribute as a volunteer to the project. On 25 July 2008,

VIA Technologies VIA Technologies, Inc. () is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was once the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, ...

appointed Harald Welte as its open source liaison. According to VIA, in his role as open source liaison, Welte will be responsible for helping refine VIA's open source strategy and optimise its support for Linux. Welte will also "assist VIA to develop drivers that are in line with the standards and best practices of Linux kernel development, enhance the quality and public availability of VIA documentation, and improve interaction with the open source development community". Welte is the founder of the Osmocom project.

Awards

On 19 March 2008, the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

(FSF) announced that it had awarded the

Award for the Advancement of Free Software The Free Software Foundation (FSF) grants two annual awards. Since 1998, FSF has granted the award for Advancement of Free Software and since 2005, also the Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit. Presentation ceremonies In 1999 the a ...

for 2007 to Welte, stating that ''"The awards committee honored both Welte's technical contributions to projects like the Linux kernel and the OpenMoko mobile platform project, and his community leadership in safeguarding the freedom of free software users by successfully enforcing the GNU General Public License in over one hundred cases since the gpl-violations.org project began in 2004."'' On 22 July 2008, Welte received the ''Defender of Rights'' Open Source Award, presented to him by Chris DiBona, who indicated the award was primarily for Welte's work on gpl-violations.org.

References

Sources

* * * * Duration 00:40:31. Covers Welte's pioneering work and software license compliance generally.

External links

Harald Welte's blog

Interview at the 3rd international GPLv3 conference
, June 22, 2006
Audio and video of a panel discussion including Welte
June 23, 2006
Interview in LWN.net
June 12, 2006
Interview at under-linux.org

* ttp://www.golem.de/0406/31852.html Interview with Harald Welte about gpl-violations.org (German) June 22, 2004
Podcast at CIO.com

Audio podcast: Harald Welte on gpl-violations.org and GSM security
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welte, Harald 1979 births Living people Linux kernel programmers People from Berlin Members of Chaos Computer Club