My Highlights from the Newly Announced LinuxCon Schedule

Today we announced the full schedule for LinuxCon North America that will take place in Vancouver from August 17 – 19th. This year we had even more of a challenge than usual in putting together the program. Why? There were so many great submissions. (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who submitted a talk and please don’t be discouraged if you didn’t make it this year. You had a lot of competition and we would love to see your submissions at subsequent events or in subsequent years. Check our events schedule for more events in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere.)

This year is the 20th anniversary of Linux, which we have already been celebrating with a special video and contests. But this year’s speaker line up for LinuxCon will be a celebration on its own, with topics and speakers from across the industry, across the community and across the globe. While we do have a focus on enterprise Linux development and administration, I hope our speaker line up reflects the reach of Linux in technology and culture. Here are some of the sessions I am most looking forward to:

•  What’s Inside Benchmarks? Wim Coekaerts is the Senior Vice President of Linux and Virtualization Engineering for Oracle. He is responsible for Oracle’s complete desktop to datacenter virtualization product line and the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program. This is a great opportunity to learn from a leader in the Linux industry. Wim isn’t a suit who dabbles in Linux; he’s the real deal.
• A Conversation with Linus Torvalds. We’re extremely lucky to have Linus take part in LinuxCon. This will be a great discussion between two lively developers: Linus and Greg KH. And the big question: will Linus wear a tux to the LinuxCon Gala?
• Linux: a short retrospective and an opinion on the future. There are people who claim they are thought leaders and then there are those like Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger who shape the future of technology with their insight. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger is Chairman Emeritus of the IBM Academy of Technology, and Visiting Professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This will be thought provoking and a truly special opportunity to hear from a master.
• Linux: How it Runs the World of Finance. Without Linux there would be no high frequency trading. Christoph Lameter is a well recognized expert in high performance computing and Linux on wall street. This talk will open your eyes about just how important Linux is to our economy.
• Linux filesystem and storage tuning. This is an indepth tutorial given by a kernel expert, Christoph Hellwig. This session will deliver real benefit to advanced system administrations. I think this session alone would give enough value to justify the trip to LinuxCon. It’s a rare opportunity to learn from the best.

Those are just a few of my favorites. What are yours?