Mender Hub User Profile Series - Belisko Marek

As part of our blog post series to learn more about our active Mender Hub community contributors, today we are excited to share about Belisko Marek from Slovakia. Marek is a software developer, Linux enthusiast, and loves to work close to hardware. He is a consultant and freelancer for various customers from embedded Linux to RTOS with over 10 years of experience. He is also in process of starting up a software company.

We recently reached out to Marek and asked a few questions.

Mender: How did you find out about Mender initially?
Marek: I had problems with OTA, and I was searching online and found different solutions, Mender was one of them. I liked it from the beginning because the documentation was great. Got going in a few days with integration of couple of boards.

Mender: Do you use Mender yourself? If yes, tell us briefly about the project.
Marek: I used Mender for one small project but did a lot of customer projects by adding Mender to their boards. Most integrations are published on Mender Hub, and then I became a moderator on the hub. I have done 4 to 5 boards so far. I also have one project with one device where I use Mender. It can update church songs and books onto a device that display on a projector. People don’t have to carry books to the church.

Mender: What is your aspiration for Mender Hub being a maintainer?
Marek: I like to share my knowledge plus I can also learn from others and get new projects. Now things are better after forum was moved from mailing list to Mender Hub. Everything in one place is smart. What I am missing is a wiki for special stuff, create extra partition and etcetera. Instead of searching in the hub, maybe create a how-to where people can share special topics with clear steps on how to do certain tasks.

Mender: What do you like most about Mender and any improvements you could suggest?
Marek: Documentation and support. It is stellar. With others you are often on your own, including browsing code to figure out what is wrong. Response time from Github and PRs is nice. If I need something, it happens fast. It is a very collaborative community. In terms of improvements, nothing special comes to mind, what I am using is really cool.

Mender: What do you see as the biggest challenges in embedded/IoT industry today?
Marek: Security. Security is a buzzword today. We must improve. Diversity in platforms is another problem that makes security and IoT difficult. Mender supports embedded products, but should be able to run on smallest devices (with RTSO) as well, regardless of type it must be secure.

Mender: What are some of the most interesting trends you see in the industry?
Marek: OTA is definitely necessary for all connected devices (from small microcontrollers to x86)

Mender: What can be done to make connected devices more secure?
Marek: Establish common platform with public interest and community to build software to be unbreakable, which Mender is already doing. It is better for the whole community working and making one super robust solution, than homegrown and multiple solutions.

Mender Team