Matthew Garrett is an Irish technologist,

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' ...

, and

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 ...

activist who is a major contributor to a series of

projects including

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, GNOME,

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

, and Red Hat. He has received the Free Software Award from 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) for his work on Secure Boot, UEFI, and the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

Life and career

Garrett was born in

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

, Ireland, and has a PhD in

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. He is the author of several articles on ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (an insect of the Order (biology), order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly", "pomace fly" ...

'' (i.e., fruit fly) genetics. Garrett has been a contributor to the GNOME and the

projects, was an early contributor to

, was an initial member of the Ubuntu Technical Board, worked as a contractor at Canonical Ltd., and worked at Red Hat. At Canonical Ltd. and Red Hat, Garrett worked on power management in Linux. While at Red Hat, Garrett also worked on issues relating to Secure Boot and UEFI and the

to preserve users' ability to run the operating system of their choosing on hardware supporting Secure Boot. This work eventually led to his being awarded the 2013 FSF Free Software Award. Garrett worked at the

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

platform company CoreOS and is cited in the press as an expert in cloud computing issues. From 2017 until 2021, he worked for Google and is currently employed at

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

. On January 9, 2023, Garrett was appointed to the Debian Technical Committee. He has received the Free Software Award from the Free Software Foundation for his work on Secure Boot, UEFI, and the

Advocacy

Garrett has been a strong advocate for software freedom and compliance with the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

(GPL) in the

. For example, Garrett filed a complaint with US Customs against Fusion Garage due to violations of the GPL. In March 2021, Garrett, who had served on the Free Software Foundation's

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

, signed an open letter to the FSF calling for the removal of its entire board and for Richard Stallman to be removed from all leadership positions.

References

External links

Garrett's blog
on Dreamwidth {{DEFAULTSORT:Garrett, Matthew Alumni of the University of Cambridge Irish computer programmers Free software programmers Linux kernel programmers Living people Open source people People from Galway (city) Debian people Ubuntu (operating system) people GNOME developers Google employees Year of birth missing (living people)