Stormy Peters facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Stormy Peters
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Stormy Peters at GUADEC 2008
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Robyn Peters
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| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Information technologist |
| Employer | Microsoft |
| Known for | free and open source software advocacy |
Stormy Peters is an expert in information technology, which is all about computers and software. She is well-known for supporting and promoting free and open source software (FOSS). This type of software can be used, changed, and shared by anyone.
Stormy helps businesses understand how to use FOSS. She gives advice as a consultant and speaks at many conferences. She also helped start the GNOME Foundation and later became its main leader, called the executive director. Before joining Microsoft in 2019, she worked for companies like Mozilla Corporation and Red Hat.
Her birth name is Robyn, but she has been called Stormy since she was a child.
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Stormy Peters' Career Journey
Stormy Peters studied computer science at Rice University. After graduating, she started her career as a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard (HP). She worked on their Unix development team, helping to create and improve computer programs.
Working with Open Source Software
Around 1999, Stormy was managing the desktop development for HP-UX, which is HP's version of Unix. Her team decided to include the GNOME project in HP-UX. GNOME is a popular open source desktop environment.
Stormy played a key role in explaining how open source software works to HP's leaders. She helped them understand the business side and rules about who owns the ideas behind the software. She later started HP's Open Source Program Office. This office helps HP work with open source projects. In 2000, she became one of the first members of the GNOME Foundation's advisory board.
Leading Open Source Organizations
In December 2005, Stormy became the Director of Product Management for OpenLogic. This company provided services for open source software.
In July 2008, Stormy became the executive director of the GNOME Foundation. In this important role, she worked with sponsors, helped grow the business, and managed marketing for GNOME. She left the GNOME Foundation in November 2010 to work at Mozilla. From July 2011 to June 2012, she also served on the GNOME Board of Directors.
Speaking at Conferences
Stormy Peters is a popular speaker at many open source conferences. She has given important speeches, called keynote talks, around the world. Some of these include the Open Source Business Conference and linux.conf.au. She also spoke at the GNOME.Asia summit in Beijing (2008) and Ho Chi Minh City (2009). In 2010, she gave a keynote at the Ohio Linuxfest.
Joining Microsoft
In August 2019, Stormy Peters joined Microsoft. She became the Director of the Open Source Programs Office there. In this role, she helps Microsoft work with and contribute to open source projects.
