Time to shake
I'd like to communicate that I'm shaking my life a bit, and even though I have a lot to say, I'll try to be relatively short.


Five years ago and a few months I changed my life completely, moving to a different city, looking for challenges to be bitten, looking for experience, and for smart people that could make me learn more and faster. At that time, I wasn't sure if Conectiva would fulfill what I was looking for, but even then I decided that it was worth trying. Now it's easy to look back and see that it was exactly what I was after. Conectiva presented me many challenges, and taught me many lessons, in an environment that was highly constructive and included an amazing amount of freedom.

In the background, during those five years, Conectiva has run into many different states of stability. While this situation was bad in many senses, like occasionally taking friends away without notice, it was also good, teaching me to work facing adversity, bringing new friends, and strengthening relations of those who were still there.

Finally, a few months ago, Conectiva was acquired by Mandrakesoft, and became Mandriva. Again, this was bad in a few senses. It'd mean losing our definitive control over a Linux distribution, and the power to decide upon new strategies in an absolute way. But, it was also good, as it'd bring many new challenges, new skillful friends, and would teach us to live in a broader environment.

Now, while it was my original intention to keep working in that environment, I recently had the opportunity to meet personally part of the team behind Canonical, had an overview about the projects they're currently working on, and was invited to join the team.

So, the result of this is that once more, I'm moving. Since August 31st, I'm officially working for Canonical. As was the case five years ago, I'm not sure if this is the right decision. What I do know, however, is that my objectives are still the same: I'm looking for challenges to be bitten, experience, and for smart people that make me learn more and faster. While my previous environment certainly had those qualities, right now Canonical seems to be able to offer challenges which are closer to my personal line of interest.

If you're worried about what this means for the projects I currently maintain, don't be. As was the case when I worked for Conectiva, it's still my objective to make they work on all Linux distributions.

As a final note, I want to thank everyone at Conectiva (and Mandriva) for the excellent time I had while working with you, and special thanks to Cavassin who was my direct manager and gave me freedom and trust. I also want to thank my new (and old) friends at Canonical, for the chance of being with you.

Sincerely,

--
Gustavo Niemeyer