Welcome back to our interview series, where we chat with the passionate people behind the Collabora Online code. Collabora Online is made possible by the worldwide team, community, contributors and partners. Today, we’re sitting down with Skyler Grey who we previously met during her internship. Since then she has been fine-tuning the mobile experience and shares insights that illuminate why the ‘little things’ truly make a difference.
About Skyler
Skyler is a software developer at Collabora, focusing primarily on enhancing the mobile apps of Collabora Online. Based out of the Cambridge office, Skyler has a knack for catching “papercuts”—those small usability issues that, when fixed, greatly improve the user experience. Her commitment to open source extends beyond her job, as an active contributor to several other projects and a passionate advocate for free and open source software (FOSS).
What inspired you to get into Open Source? What was your first experience with tech?
I’ve been into tech for a long time – when I was 11 my parents got me a Raspberry Pi and I had some fun messing around with HTML and python. It wasn’t until the start of high school that I really got into computing though. What really got me hooked was my friends who would go in before the start of the day to hang out in the computer labs. Sometimes we played Minecraft, sometimes we opened up old teachers’ laptops, sometimes we wrote code together. The first time I released code publicly it was because GitHub didn’t allow private code without paying. I wanted my code to be on GitHub so I put a note in the README saying “please don’t use this” and put it out into the world. I soon found, however, that releasing code publicly wasn’t so scary and I quite enjoyed it. My code stopped having notes in READMEs to avoid people using it and started to have open source licenses. It became a habit to release every project of mine into the world. Eventually I started finding and fixing issues in the projects I used as well as the ones I made, and the rest is history.
How did you first hear about Collabora Online?
Michael Meeks gave a talk about how to solve large problems at my sixth form college. I had already heard of and used LibreOffice at that point, but it was my first time hearing about Collabora Online. At the end of the talk, he said that if we wanted an internship over the summer we should send him an email. I did, and it was such a great fit that I’m still here 3 years later!
What does working with Open Source mean to you?
It means that the code I write is really, truly free. I mean free as in freedom here. If I worked on code that was not open source, I would have to hide what I was doing and how I was doing it. My code would not be contributing to the community of people who’s work I use and thrive off of every day. As my code is open source, anyone can take code that I have written and use it in their own projects without further permission from me. I think that collaboration, freedom and the feeling of an empowered community is something that we have in open source which you don’t really get in proprietary projects.
What’s the one Collabora Online feature you’re most excited about right now?
It’s the little things that excite me. I think one thing I’m very happy about – which I see as emblematic of more improvements – is the new notebook bar changes. That’s things like the collapsing of large sections down into smaller ones when your screen size changes, say. I see it as emblematic of UI improvements all around Collabora Online. In-fact, what I’ve just been working on falls into that category too: changing the search icons so they match up better between light/dark theme and computers/mobile devices. It’s a tiny papercut really, but papercuts add up.
What are going to be the biggest development challenges over the next few years?
Technology, and the world as a whole, have changed a lot over the past few years. It’s really hard to predict the future, but if I had to say then I would say it’d be weathering that change. That can often mean adapting to what browsers and device manufacturers are doing just to stay the same – for instance I’ve recently been working on a bug which only appeared when you accessed Collabora Online from an Android 16 device. Keeping stuff working as the world changes also shouldn’t have an effect on you, so it’s sometimes fairly thankless, but it’s vital. It’s the salt in your cooking; if it’s properly done, the food may not taste particularly salty – but you’d miss it if it weren’t there. When you’re writing for the platforms we write for, working to the very edge of what is possible on the web sometimes, there can be a lot of maintenance to keep something ticking over without many visible changes.
Describe working at Collabora in three words.
“It’s so open!” I mean this in several ways. First, the people and the culture are very open. At Collabora, people tend to be very receptive to thoughts, ideas and feedback and cross-team communication is encouraged. For example, I’ve had chats with people on the marketing team about technical details so they can better understand and write about the product. I have friends who work in companies where communication of technical people with marketing, sales, etc. is very locked down. I prefer what we have much more.
Second, being open and responsive to our community is encouraged. I enjoy answering questions across different platforms to help others find the solution to their problems. We also incorporate feedback from the app stores into what we plan to do.
And thirdly, and perhaps most obviously, our code is open. Every feature I have written for Collabora Online has been contributed to the commons; shared to the public for everyone to enjoy and build off. I think that’s a beautiful thing.
What’s one productivity tip you swear by?
Spend time making the right thing easy and the wrong things hard. When I don’t follow this, I waste time and procrastinate. When I do follow this, I come to do something and find that a lot of the hard work is already done for me. It’s also – handily – a nice tip for making good user interfaces
Outside of your work, what’s a hobby or interest that you’re passionate about?
I do lots of programming outside of work too; I’m involved in open source even outside of Collabora. I recently was invited to give a talk at the Gerrit User Summit about Jujutsu, and I’ve contributed to projects big and small (REUSE.software for licensing, Fava for my personal accounting, Nixpkgs, Tangled, etc.). I also have the usual bunch of software I make for myself but release under free licenses. Outside of programming I like lots of indoor hobbies – think playing board games, watching television, reading, anything in that area really.
What’s your ‘day in the life’ really like?
Something great about working at Collabora is it’s really flexible. I tend to call with a lot of friends in America so my sleep schedule is “less than ideal”. I work in the Collabora Cambridge Office, which is unusual – most of us work from home – and it’s a short cycle ride away from my house. I normally check my email/messages, do anything that needs to be done – replies to community members, code review, etc., and then settle in to whatever thing I’m working on (normally something about how Collabora Online works on mobile devices). After I’ve worked, I go home. I spend the rest of my day doing my hobbies
and then I go to bed. That, as I say, is a “normal” day – but they don’t all turn out like that. I’ve recently started having a call with some of the people working on the git project which intersects with time when I’d normally be at work – that’s ok, I break for the call and come back afterwards. There’s always options, and I think that’s really nice.
Skyler’s journey is a great example of how starting small, even with a Raspberry Pi and a desire to code with friends, can lead to a career dedicated to contributing to open source. From addressing crucial mobile compatibility issues, to championing the freedom of open source code, her work contributes to ensuring Collabora Online remains a powerful, reliable, and user-friendly office suite for everyone.
