Peter Mattis

Last updated

Peter Mattis
Peter Mattis.png
EducationBS, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science[ citation needed ]
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
OccupationChief Technical Officer
Employer Cockroach Labs
Known for Computer Programming
Website Peter Mattis on LinkedIn

Peter Mattis is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the CTO and co-founder for Cockroach Labs, a company he co-founded in 2014. [1] His work as a programmer includes launching GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) while still in college, [2] and assisting the source code development of CockroachDB, the namesake software of Cockroach Labs.

Contents

Early life and education

Mattis attended the University of California at Berkeley. While still a student in 1995, he developed the first version of GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), along with his roommate Spencer Kimball. [3] [4] Mattis was also a member of a student club at Berkeley called the eXperimental Computing Facility (XCF). [5] Mattis graduated from Berkeley in 1997 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. [6]

According to Mattis in 1999:

Spencer did much more work on the GIMP proper while I did much more on GTK. This provided a fairly clean break that allowed us to work in parallel fairly easily. I probably wrote 95 percent of the original GTK code. The only widgets I didn't write were the file-selection widget, the text widget, and the rulers.

On free software and the motivations to write it and what makes good and enduring free software: [7]

You should understand that the GIMP and GTK weren't written to fill holes in the software available under the GPL (GNU General Public License) and LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License). The GIMP was started because I wanted to make a Web page. GTK was started because I was dissatisfied with Motif and wanted to see what it took to write a UI toolkit. These are purely selfish reasons. That is probably why the projects progressed so far and eventually succeeded. I find it much more difficult to work on something for extended periods of time for selfless reasons.

Career

Mattis was previously employed as an engineer for Google, and is credited for his work Google Servlet Engine [8] as well as helping spearhead Colossus, a new version of the Google File System. [9] [10]

In 2013, Mattis launched the company Viewfinder along with Kimball and Brian McGinnis, formerly of Lehman Brothers. [11] The company developed an app that allowed social media users to share photos, chat privately, and search photo history without leaving the app. [12] The company was acquired by Square, Inc. in December 2013. [13] Mattis moved to Square's New York City office where he became a senior member of the company's East Coast team. [10]

While at Google, Mattis used a database known as Bigtable, and followed the development of its next generation, known as Spanner. [1] The database organizes data between thousands of servers to allow Google applications to stay online, even if an entire data center were to go offline. Mattis wanted to use this software but found there was nothing available outside of Google as either closed or open source that was similar. [1]

He launched CockroachDB as an open source project on GitHub with Kimball, along with ex-Google Reader team member Ben Darnell. [14] They later formed the company Cockroach Labs in order to accelerate development of the CockroachDB software. [1] Mattis serves as the company's chief technical officer and also contributes to the source code development of CockroachDB. [15] [16]

Personal life

Mattis is active in CrossFit and was named CrossFit Brooklyn's athlete of the month in January 2014. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GIMP</span> Open source raster graphics editor

GNU Image Manipulation Program, commonly known by its acronym GIMP, is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks. It is extensible by means of plugins, and scriptable. It is not designed to be used for drawing, though some artists and creators have used it in this way.

An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, and a debugger. Some IDEs, such as NetBeans, JDoodle and Eclipse, contain the necessary compiler, interpreter, or both; others, such as SharpDevelop and Lazarus, do not.

wxWidgets Widget toolkit

wxWidgets is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes. A wide choice of compilers and other tools to use with wxWidgets facilitates development of sophisticated applications. wxWidgets supports a comprehensive range of popular operating systems and graphical libraries, both proprietary and free, and is widely deployed in prominent organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inkscape</span> Vector graphics editor

Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor for traditional Unix-compatible systems such as GNU/Linux, BSD derivatives and Illumos, as well as Windows and macOS. It offers a rich set of features and is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at unlimited resolution and is not bound to a fixed number of pixels like raster graphics. Inkscape uses the standardized Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format as its main format, which is supported by many other applications including web browsers. It can import and export various other file formats, including SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PS and PNG.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spencer Kimball (computer programmer)</span> American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business

Spencer Kimball is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the CEO of Cockroach Labs, a company he co-founded in 2014. His work as a programmer includes creating GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) while still in college, and assisting the source code development of CockroachDB, the namesake software of Cockroach Labs. In addition to Cockroach Labs, Kimball was involved in the founding of other tech startups including WeGo and Viewfinder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glade Interface Designer</span> Graphical user interface builder

Glade Interface Designer is a graphical user interface builder for GTK, with additional components for GNOME. In its third version, Glade is programming language–independent, and does not produce code for events, but rather an XML file that is then used with an appropriate binding. See List of language bindings for GTK for the available ones.

gtkmm is the official C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK. gtkmm is free software distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

Founded in 1986, the eXperimental Computing Facility (XCF) is an undergraduate computing-interest organization at University of California, Berkeley. The "Experimental" description was given in contrast to the Open Computing Facility and the Computer Science Undergraduate Association, which support most of the general-interest computing desires of the campus. As such, the XCF stands as a focus for a small group of computer-scientists uniquely interested in computer science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GCompris</span> Educational entertainment software

GCompris is a software suite comprising educational entertainment software for children aged 2 to 10. GCompris was originally written in C and Python using the GTK+ widget toolkit, but a rewrite in C++ and QML using the Qt widget toolkit has been undertaken since early 2014. GCompris is free and open-source software and the current version is subject to the requirements of the AGPL-3.0-only license. It has been part of the GNU project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GTK</span> Free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces

GTK is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the Wayland and X11 windowing systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNOME</span> Desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like systems

GNOME, originally an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment, is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">F-Droid</span> Repository for free and open source Android apps

F-Droid is an app store and software repository for Android, serving a similar function to the Google Play store. The main repository, hosted by the project, contains only free and open source apps. Applications can be browsed, downloaded and installed from the F-Droid website or client app without the need to register for an account. "Anti-Features" such as advertising, user tracking, or dependence on non-free software are flagged in app descriptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CockroachDB</span> Distributed database management system

CockroachDB is a commercial distributed SQL database management system developed by Cockroach Labs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Darnell</span> American computer programmer

Ben Darnell is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the chief technology officer for Cockroach Labs, a company he co-founded in 2015. Prior to his work at Cockroach Labs, he worked for tech companies that include FriendFeed, Facebook, Brizzly, Dropbox, Viewfinder, and Square, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fractal (software)</span> Messaging and collaboration software for GNOME based on the Matrix protocol

Fractal is an instant messaging client and collaboration software for the GNOME desktop based on the Matrix protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNOME 1</span> First major release of GNOME

GNOME 1 is the first major release of the GNOME desktop environment. Its primary goal was to provide a consistent user-friendly environment in conjunction with the X Window System. It was also a modern and free and open source software alternative to older desktop environments such as the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), but also to the K Desktop Environment (KDE). Each desktop environment was built-upon then proprietary-licensed widget toolkits, whereas GNOME's goal from the onset, was to be freely-licensed, and utilize the GTK toolkit instead.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Finley, Klint (June 4, 2015). "Ex-Googlers Get Millions To Help You Build The Next Google". Wired. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  2. ↑ Deek, Fadi P.; McHugh, James A. M. (2007). Open Source: Technology and Policy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9781139468732 . Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  3. ↑ Wallace, Shawn (2002). Perl Graphics Programming: Creating SVG, SWF (flash), JPEG and PNG files with Perl. O'Reily Media Inc. ISBN   9781449358310 . Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  4. ↑ Beane, Zachary. "Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis". GIMP Gazette. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  5. ↑ Frauenheim, Ed (December 4, 2000). "Free Photoshop for the people". Salon.com. Retrieved August 28, 2006.
  6. ↑ "U.C. Berkeley Alumni Spain". Berkeley Alumni Madrid. January 30, 2009. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Where did Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis go?". LinuxWorld. Archived from the original on April 17, 1999. Retrieved November 17, 2007.
  8. ↑ "OpenGSE Released" . Retrieved January 27, 2009.
  9. ↑ Babcock, Charles (June 4, 2015). "CockroachDB: Ultimate In Database Survival". Information Week. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  10. 1 2 Perez, Sarah (December 3, 2013). "Square Acquires Ex-Googler Team Behind Viewfinder to Help Grow Its NYC Presence". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  11. ↑ Mlot, Stephanie (December 3, 2013). "Square Buys Photo-Sharing App Viewfinder". PC Mag. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  12. ↑ Schmidt, Will (July 16, 2013). "Viewfinder Launches Today, Boasts Strong Communications, Privacy, and Personality". Tech Cocktail. Archived from the original on May 9, 2016. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  13. ↑ Novellino, Teresa (December 4, 2013). "Square doubles down on engineers with Viewfinder". Upstart Business Journals. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  14. ↑ Ewbank, Kay (June 9, 2015). "CockroachDB Released". I Programmer. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Tech Executive Spencer Kimball". Venture Deal. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  16. ↑ Ovide, Shira (June 4, 2015). "CockroachDB Scampers Off with $6.3 Million to Tackle Database Shortcomings". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  17. ↑ "January Athlete of the Month: Peter Mattis". CrossFit South Brooklynn. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.