From Chef to System Initiative (remastered) (Interview)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

The epic show with Adam Jacob has been remastered! Now with full-length video on YouTube. Adam goes solo with Adam Jacob for an epic pod into his journey to get to System Initiative. From SysAdmin at 8 years old, to discovering Linux and working for Mom-and-pop ISPs, to open source changing his life and starting Opscode and building Chef. Buckle up and enjoy.

Join the discussion

Changelog++ members save 7 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

Sponsors:

• Depot – 10x faster builds? Yes please. Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.
• Auth0 – The identity infrastructure for the age of AI. Built by developers, for developers—Auth0 helps you secure users, agents, and third-party access across modern AI workflows. Token vaulting, fine-grained authorization, and standards-based auth, all in one platform.
  Start building at Auth0.com/ai
• CodeRabbit – AI-native code reviews, built for the modern dev stack. — CodeRabbit is your always-on code reviewer—flagging hallucinations, surfacing smells, and enforcing standards, all without leaving your IDE or GitHub PRs. Trusted by top teams to ship better code, faster.
  Start free at CodeRabbit.ai
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps close to your users — global Anycast load-balancing, zero-configuration private networking, hardware isolation, and instant WireGuard VPN connections. Push-button deployments that scale to thousands of instances. Check out the speedrun to get started in minutes.

Featuring:

• Adam Jacob – Website, GitHub, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• System Initiative
• Ximian
• Any Given Sunday speech
• I’ll Devour You! (I shall look forward to the fight)
• RIP Ezra Zygmuntowicz

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Fejezetek

1. This week on The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Depot (00:00:47)

https://depot.dev

3. Start the show! (00:03:03)

4. SysAdmin at 8?! (00:03:53)

5. From hobby to career (00:10:51)

6. Starting at mom-and-pop ISPs (00:19:13)

7. Linux by doing (00:28:14)

8. The ISP stack (00:32:24)

9. Sponsor: Auth0 (00:38:13)

https://auth0.com/ai

10. Open source started the fire (00:39:43)

11. From HJK to Opscode/Chef (00:46:38)

12. RIP Ezra Zygmuntowicz (00:53:35)

13. You must pay me (00:55:58)

14. Chef was 100% influenced by Puppet (00:59:38)

15. Opscode to Chef (01:03:40)

16. The Billion dollar pitch (01:05:38)

17. $2.5M to launch (01:06:38)

18. Chef-as-SaaS (CaS) was too early (01:09:39)

19. Sponsor: CodeRabbit (01:13:45)

https://www.coderabbit.ai

20. Docker killed the Chef star (01:16:25)

21. !! You have to decide what fuel to burn (01:23:05)

22. Good training (01:24:38)

23. Adam gets emotional (01:26:29)

24. If it wasn't for... (01:31:51)

25. "I shall look forward to the fight" (01:35:21)

26. What matters to you? (01:40:55)

27. Exit well (01:46:40)

28. Picture this in your mind (01:50:31)

29. Initiating System Initiative (01:54:53)

30. Timing is everything (01:58:34)

31. Looming Dockers out there? (02:00:47)

32. The rise of Platform Engineering (02:04:43)

33. Something's coming this Fall (02:12:01)

34. We're done. That was epic! (02:20:02)

35. Closing thoughts and stuff (02:20:51)