Wim Taymans
Encyclopedia
Wim Taymans is a software developer and Belgian national based in Barcelona
, Spain
. Taymans started his career in multimedia development on the Commodore 64
writing various games and demos. He was known in the Commodore 64 coding community under the nickname The Wim. In 1990 he was the coder behind the C64 game Puffy's Saga which was distributed by Ubisoft
. He later moved on to the Amiga
where he among other things wrote a version of the classic game Boulderdash.
In 1994 he installed the Linux
operating system on his Amiga and has since been involved with the development of various multimedia
technologies for the Linux platform. His first efforts on Linux were some assembly optimizations for the rtjpeg library; later, he worked on
the Trinity video editor before teaming up with Erik Walthinsen to create the GStreamer
multimedia framework.
In 2004 he started working for Fluendo
in Spain as employee number 3. While working for Fluendo he designed and wrote most of what today is the 0.10 release series of GStreamer. In July 2007 he left Fluendo together with many of the other GStreamer developers and joined up with United Kingdom company Collabora
. As part of his current job at Collabora he maintains and develops GStreamer further, with the aim of providing Linux and other Unix and Unix-like operating systems with a competitive and powerful multimedia framework.
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Taymans started his career in multimedia development on the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
writing various games and demos. He was known in the Commodore 64 coding community under the nickname The Wim. In 1990 he was the coder behind the C64 game Puffy's Saga which was distributed by Ubisoft
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
. He later moved on to the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
where he among other things wrote a version of the classic game Boulderdash.
In 1994 he installed the Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
operating system on his Amiga and has since been involved with the development of various multimedia
technologies for the Linux platform. His first efforts on Linux were some assembly optimizations for the rtjpeg library; later, he worked on
the Trinity video editor before teaming up with Erik Walthinsen to create the GStreamer
GStreamer
GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.GStreamer allows a programmer to create a variety of media-handling components, including simple audio playback, audio and video playback, recording, streaming and editing...
multimedia framework.
In 2004 he started working for Fluendo
Fluendo
Fluendo DVD Player is one of the first products that can be bought that allows legal/licensed DVD playback for Unix/Linux users...
in Spain as employee number 3. While working for Fluendo he designed and wrote most of what today is the 0.10 release series of GStreamer. In July 2007 he left Fluendo together with many of the other GStreamer developers and joined up with United Kingdom company Collabora
Collabora
Collabora Ltd. is a private company founded by Robert McQueen, Robert Taylor and Philippe Kalaf based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with offices in Cambridge, Montreal and Barcelona. Collabora's mission is to make Open Source the de-facto standard in the industry. It does this by providing...
. As part of his current job at Collabora he maintains and develops GStreamer further, with the aim of providing Linux and other Unix and Unix-like operating systems with a competitive and powerful multimedia framework.