As part of the lecture series “Software Development in Industrial Practice” at TU Dresden our employees Katrin Kahle and Matthias Lange are giving insights into developing the open-source software L4Re as “practitioners”. L4Re has been developed at TUD’s chair of Software Technology since 1996. In 2012, our founders Adam Lackorzynski and Alexander Warg spun off the company Kernkonzept and got the first maintainer, Dr. Michael Hohmuth, to join them.
Among our first orders were prestigious projects like Simko3 (the telephone to be used by German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel). Another customer in the very early days was Imagination. Today, L4Re systems ride in modern electric cars and are built into server products that ensure our IT and cybersecurity. These products are approved for processing classified information up to SECRET; NATO-SECRET and EU-SECRET with L4Re solutions as a foundation.
In their presentation Katrin and Matthias talk about Kernkonzept’s development as a company and about our approach to safe and secure open-source software. They cover topics like the code review process, build checks, versioning, and security checks on hardware. A focus lies also at what to consider regarding versioning and documentation if you think about later founding a start-up with a software solution out of university. These are valuable insights for IT students thinking about starting their own business with open-source software.
The ring lecture is free to attend for anyone interested – come on by!