I build software, create music, and ship products.

Software engineer, musician, and entrepreneur working across code, sound, and product design.

View projects View résumé

Projects

My work across software, open source, Linux, music, writing, and video.

Software, sound, and everything between.

Engineer

My recent work spans iOS, web, AI-powered educational apps, and long-term open-source maintenance.

Originally from Lyon, France and based in Los Angeles, I hold a Master's Degree in Computer Science from the University of Nice.

Musician

I am an active musician and producer, interested in where sound, software, and design meet.

Entrepreneur

I build and ship useful products, combining engineering experience with a practical product focus.

View résumé
Stéphane Peter

Let’s make something cool.

For product work, software collaborations, or music projects, email me directly.

Catloaf Software, Inc. is my independent product studio, building and maintaining mobile, web, and AI-powered products.

Catloaf Software, Inc. is the company behind my product work. Founded in 2010, it has grown from an Apple-focused app business into an independent studio that ships and maintains products across iOS, Android, and the web.

Products in market

  • Text With brings conversational educational experiences to faith, history, and literature across mobile, web, and voice surfaces.
  • Teachee is a virtual teacher that assigns homework.
  • Fretuoso helps musicians learn the fretboard for guitar, bass, ukulele, banjo, and mandolin.
  • Texts From is a long-running family of daily-quote apps available across Apple and Android platforms.

Product and engineering work

The studio combines product planning with hands-on delivery: native apps, web apps, backend systems, AI integrations, analytics, subscriptions, store delivery, and post-launch iteration. The work also includes performance, reliability, UX polish, and release operations for products that need to keep improving after launch.

I have always been a strong proponent of Open-Source Software.
I maintain a number of public projects on both my personal GitHub and the Catloaf Software organization.

Some of the projects I currently maintain include:

  • Makeself, a widely used Unix packaging tool for creating self-extracting archives and installers.
  • Loki Setup, the Loki Games installer for Linux and UNIX.
  • translateR, an AI-powered App Store Connect localization tool that supports more than 38 languages.
  • Codex Skills, a curated collection of agent skills converted for use with Codex.

I also maintain and contribute to a range of public projects through the Catloaf Software organization, including work across mobile, web, and developer tooling.

Sponsor

You can now contribute financially to my open-source work by becoming an official GitHub Sponsor! Check out the available tiers and feel free to send a few bucks my way - any amount is appreciated!

UNIX systems have been an early love in my career as a software developer.
As an early adopter of Linux, all the way to the foundation of modern systems from Apple and Google, UNIX technologies are an important part of my daily work.

Codehost, Inc.

I am currently the lead software engineer for Codehost, where I designed BrightQ, a user-friendly suite of software to distribute and setup printer drivers, based in part on Apple’s CUPS. Besides Linux, the software was also ported to Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, and HP-UX, with past ports to SCO and IRIX.

It is currently the official UNIX solution for Canon MFPs in North America, and is also available for other major manufacturers including Ricoh, Sharp, and more.

I am also a seasoned Linux systems administrator, and was responsible for developing critical aspects of the Codehost licensing server.

Loki Software, Inc.

I worked on the Linux ports of several major video game titles while working at Loki. These included:

As a developer, I also helped build the then-nascent infrastructure for Linux gaming and worked on several related open-source projects that live on to this day:

  • Loki Setup, now ported to a variety of other Unix systems and used by Codehost’s BrightQ.
  • Makeself, initially a relatively simple shell script for creating self-extracting archives I built while at SciTech, it is now used as the basis of many popular installers and packages for UNIX systems.
  • Simple Directmedia Layer: SDL was the core library used when porting games to Linux, and I contributed several patches during my tenure at Loki - including a fun ASCII-art video driver!

SciTech Software, Inc.

One of my first experiences as a professional Linux developer was porting the (now defunct) SciTech Display Doctor suite of display drivers to Linux, back in 1998.

I also participated in the Linux port of SciTech’s MGL graphics library that was in use by major video game studios at the time, providing direct hardware access to video cards on PC.

I have been blogging in various places over the years.
I also wrote a few articles for print publications.

Blogs

Published Articles

Music is a lifelong passion of mine.
I learned to play keyboards as a kid, then later taught myself guitar, bass and drums.

Listening

While I enjoy listening to a wide variety of different music styles, from classical to jazz fusion all the way to extreme death metal, I am particularly passionate about modern progressive rock in its various incarnations.

Some of my favorite artists in that genre include:

  • Spock’s Beard - one of the top acts in the genre today, I became a huge fan since I first saw them live. I have also become the official online manager for their keyboardist, Ryo Okumoto, and I help manage his online presence and social accounts.
  • Neal Morse was the founding member of Spock’s Beard, and left to pursue a solo career focused on Christian prog. An incredibly prolific artist and definitely one of the founding fathers of Modern Prog.
  • Dream Theater, the gold standard for metal-infused musicianship. John Petrucci is one of my favorite guitarists and I play his signature MusicMan guitar.
  • Opeth, a Swedish death-metal band that evolved into one of the most innovative prog bands today.
  • Steven Wilson, along with Porcupine Tree, is one of the flag-bearers of modern progressive rock.
  • The Flower Kings, another very prolific Swedish progressive rock band. Roine Stolt is another pillar of modern prog.
  • Pain of Salvation, yet another very eclectic progressive rock/metal band from Sweden. Daniel Gildenlow is a genius.
  • Transatlantic, a prog supergroup started by members from Spock’s Beard, Dream Theater, the Flower Kings and Marillion. A big gateway drug for me when I started exploring the genre.
  • Mike Keneally, an all-around musical genius and Frank Zappa alumnus who is a fixture of the LA prog scene. I try to catch as many of his live shows as I can.
  • Heliopolis, a brilliant new prog band on the LA scene (and cool friends to boot).
  • … and so much more.

On the more popular side, these bands are considered foundational to progressive rock and really helped shape my taste in music:

  • Queen, my first love with rock music. Bohemian Rhapsody is still my favorite song to this day.
  • Pink Floyd, the kings of psychedelic prog.
  • Rush, on the harder side of prog.
  • Yes, who with Genesis and King Crimson defined the early days of prog in the 70s.

Attending

I go to a lot of live shows, and living in Los Angeles we are very fortunate to have access to regular performances by some of the top musicians in the world. I can honestly say that I go out to see more live concerts than movies in theaters.

I can be spotted very often at gigs of my favorite artists around town, and I am a regular at the Baked Potato club in Studio City. So much great music happening all the time there, this place almost feels like a second home to me.

CalProg is a great organization putting up consistently awesome prog shows in Southern California. I am proud to have been a regular patron since its inception back in 2003, although they have since stopped putting together their annual festival.

Performing

My first musical instrument was the keyboard, for which I had lessons as a kid after showing an early interest. I even started writing my own music as a child. These days, my favorite instrument is the electric guitar. I bought my first Ibanez RG at the Guitar Center store in Hollywood in 2001 and am completely self-taught.

I later expanded to other stringed instruments and can be occasionally spotted playing electric bass with the Peninsula Symphonic Winds in Palos Verdes, where my wife also performs on French horn.

I have also started learning to play the drums in the summer of 2017. I have been posting a few videos of my progress on my YouTube channel.

I am otherwise not currently part of any band or studio project, though I have been known to occasionally write and record music in my home studio.

For a recent performance of my guitar playing, here is a video of myself performing the classic “Johnny B. Goode” at my wedding in July 2014.

Managing

Through my new company Catloaf Productions, I have had the privilege to help some of my favorite musicians with their online presence, social media, marketing and other business needs. Most notable mentions are Ryo Okumoto from my favorite band Spock’s Beard and ProgJect, a prog supergroup he recently joined. It is truly a labor of love for me!

Online

I have an interest in film and video production and have hundreds of videos posted on YouTube and other sites.

I do most of my video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro.

YouTube Channels

  • My main channel, where I post a variety of things. Lots of footage from concerts I attended, the occasional personal videos, etc.
  • The Catloaf ASMR YouTube channel is exploring a new interest of mine, ASMR videos that help trigger feelings of relaxation in some people.
  • I manage the official Ryo Okumoto YouTube channel and related social pages, and occasionally produce some of the videos posted there (via Catloaf Productions).
  • I also manage the official ProgJect YouTube channel!
  • The Catloaf Software channel mostly contains promotional videos for our apps.
  • I maintain the Peninsula Symphonic Winds channel, as well as do most of the filming and editing of the concert videos being posted there.
  • A more personal channel, mostly for family in France. This is where you’ll find our wedding footage.

Other Sites