Originally published at: F44 FESCo Elections: Interview Maxwell G (gotmax23) – Fedora Community Blog
This is a part of the Fedora Linux 44 FESCo Elections Interviews series. Voting is open to all Fedora contributors. The voting period starts Monday, June 1st and closes promptly at 23:59:59 UTC on Friday, June 12th 2026.
Interview with Maxwell G (gotmax23)
- FAS ID: gotmax23
- Matrix Rooms:
Questions
Why do you want to be a member of FESCo and how do you expect to help steer the direction of Fedora?
I care a lot about Fedora, and I hope to bring a fresh voice to FESCo informed by my multiple years of active participation in Fedora development. I want Fedora to continue to excel as a Linux distribution and a FOSS community that is welcoming to new users and contributors and ideas. I value the Fedora Foundations and the long-term contributors that have built a great distribution and improved our upstreams and the FOSS community at large.
Additionally, I am interested in ensuring the day-to-day aspects of Fedora development run smoothly and continuing to improve the packager experience. I am closely watching upcoming changes to dist-git (and potentially bug-tracking) in Fedora. I am excited about these changes — this is a great opportunity to address warts with the existing systems — but it is crucial to ensure that the transition fully addresses the project’s needs.
How do you currently contribute to Fedora? How does that contribution benefit the community?
I am part of the Golang and Python SIGs and the FPC and have worked a lot on Packaging Guidelines improvements and RPM automation (macros, generators, etc.). As a FESCo member, I would continue to guide workflow improvements in Go, Python, Ansible Collections, and beyond. We’ve made good strides, but we still have work to do, especially surrounding multi-build updates, mass rebuilds, security bugs, and license detection.
I run the Orphaned Packages Process and maintain the associated tooling. I am also a packager sponsor and have mentored a couple new Fedora contributors. I will continue keeping the Fedora package collection healthy and helping new people get involved in Fedora development as a member of FESCo.
I maintain the Ansible stack in Fedora which led me to work upstream on the Ansible Community Steering Committee and the release manager team.
How do you handle disagreements when working as part of a team?
One of my favorite parts of FOSS communities like Fedora is getting to work with so many passionate people from all over the world toward a shared goal. I think it’s important to keep this is mind when having disagreements. Disagreements happen, but we can always create room for respectful dialogue and compromise. In the end, we are all on the same team.
Where do you think the Fedora Project should position itself concerning the use of ‘AI’ in software development?
I am an AI skeptic and worry about AI’s impact on society, the environment, and human intellectual creation. But I understand that various industries, including ours, are (attempting to) adopt AI-based tools. Just recently, I reviewed a set of AI-assisted contributions to a Fedora package. I am still trying to balance these conflicting notions. I am willing to support AI experimentation based on free/open technologies in Fedora as long as our project’s principles and policies are followed and the community is on board.