Werner got hooked on Linux in the days of the 0.12 kernel and started to get his hands dirty from early on with contributions like the LILO boot loader, the initial RAM disk (initrd), and the MS-DOS file system. Later activities led him into networking, with the Linux-ATM project as part of his PhD thesis, and he eventually landed in the ambitious Openmoko project. Having had a taste of hardware but unhappy with the promises still left unfulfilled, he then journeyed deeper into the world of electronics and finally joined the Qi-Hardware project, where he now dabbles with making gadgets that aim to blend software and hardware under common principles of freedom.