The beginning

Unlike many people think, freshrpms.net is not (yet?) a group effort. In late 2000, I started building quite a few rpm packages for my own needs, that couldn't easily be found elsewhere, or at least not so well suited for Red Hat Linux. A few months later, the website on which these packages were hosted changed its name to become what people know today. A long time has passed and I still maintain all the packages I used to, and more of course! A whole community of users, testers and contributors has grown around the website and its packages, which is something I really didn't expect but really enjoy.

The philosophy

I'm a free software believer, and I enjoy giving back to the community that gives me so much. I consider freshrpms.net as my modest contribution, by helping Red Hat Linux users get easy access to high quality add-on packages of neat software not included in the main distribution. The packages themselves are focused on quality, and not quantity. This means that you won't find every software you can think of here, but what you will find should blend into Red Hat Linux as if it was part of the original distribution.

The author

My name is Matthias Saou, I'm half French, half Canadian and living in Spain... an unusual combination. I work as a system and network administrator for various companies. You can visit my personal website on www.marmotte.net, and my blog on thias.marmotte.net. You can contact me at matthias at saou dot eu, or subscribe and post on the mailing-list for problems related to rpm packages.

The systems

If you're curious about what machines are behind all of freshrpms.net, check out the Systems page for quick descriptions and some photos. If you were wondering if I really was a geek or not, you'll now know for sure.

Other

Here is another project of mine : Inercia, an inline skate shop in Barcelona! When free software meets free skating. Same thing for Wikinline, a Mediawiki focused on technical aspects of inline skates. Some more information on S.A.T. too, a group of skaters in Barcelona.
Another unrelated project, yet quite useful at times to get your current public IP address and Internet connection information : Give Me My IP.