Merlijn Sebrechts
Senior researcher at imec and teaching at Ghent University. Ubuntu Community Council member. I lead a number of research tracks focused on cybersecurity and trust for software & AI.
- Protecting data and software from physical and digital attacks
- Trustworthy & robust distributed systems
- AI supply chain insight & trust
How to install Ghent University's printers on Ubuntu
Ghent University uses Ricoh Streamline NX for secure printing. The current official guide to add the printers to Ubuntu is quite outdated. It guides you to an old LPD protocol that doesn’t seem to work anymore, and it uses an old settings tool that is gone in modern versions of GNOME.
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UGent VPN from Ubuntu with open source software
Ghent University uses Cisco AnyConnect VPN and recommends the proprietary “Cisco Secure Client”. While I’m happy there is an actual supported option for Linux users, I’d rather not have more proprietary software on my machine, so I looked for alternative ways to connect.
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It's my job as an advisor to say no
Over the past few months, I’ve had multiple conversations with PhD students around a similar topic: the fact that a significant part of my coaching involves critiquing their work and suggesting alternatives.
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Llama's Legal Labyrinth
Meta just introduced the Llama 3.1 AI model and accompanied the launch with a blog post explaining “Open Source AI is the path forward” [a]. But buyer beware: Llama 3.1 itself is a legal labyrinth.
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What is the Apache 2.0 LLVM Exception?
Some open source projects use the Apache 2.0 license “with LLVM Exception” SPDX: "Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception"). So what is the “LLVM exception” exactly, and why do some projects add it to their license?
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A year in the Ubuntu Community Council
Let me tell you a secret. When I was elected to the Ubuntu Community Council in the fall of 2022, I had no idea what to expect. I was excited to start working, but I had no idea what I would be working on.
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