The Top 10 Best Linux Videos of 2013

This list of the best Linux videos of 2013 combines some of the most watched Linux Foundation videos of the year, along with a selection of the most inspiring, compelling, or just plain fun videos produced by others in the Linux community. In choosing videos for inclusion, we avoided purely promotional videos in favor of those that celebrate big milestones, seek to educate, or communicate a broader message about the values and mission of Linux and open source software. See the full playlist on the Linux Foundation YouTube channel or scroll down to see the top 10 (with a bonus video, just for fun). What was your favorite Linux video published in 2013? Tell us in the comments, below! 

1. What the Tech Industry Has Learned from Linus Torvalds: Jim Zemlin at TEDx, Concordia University, Portland

Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, otherwise known as “Linus Torvalds’s” boss, explains how to achieve the same success that Linus, Linux and free and open source software have achieved.

“When you stand on the shoulders of giants, when you use free software and take part in this grand collaboration, you can innovate at ever higher levels,” he says.

2. Eben Moglen Appeals to the European Union Parliament to Use Free Software

Software Freedom Law Center founder and Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen explains the GNU public license (GPL), free software, and the importance of software freedom to a functioning democracy to the EU Parliament.

“The idea that you can be sold a computing device which you can’t understand, can’t study, can’t change, can’t fix, and therefore can’t prevent from spying on you is the advent of the industry the GPL and other FOSS institutions were designed to prevent,” he says. “Recent events in the world have reminded everybody why computers you can’t trust aren’t safe to use and have underlined the importance of technology individual users can understand and modify in preventing outright political oppression.” 

3. Richard Stallman’s Speech on his Internet Hall of Fame Induction

In the same year we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of GNU, creator Richard Stallman gave this acceptance speech at the Internet Society’s Internet Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

“If we want the Internet to be something good for human freedom…we need to fight hard.”

 4. Linux Kernel Panel at LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America, 2013

A roundtable discussion on the Linux Kernel from maintainers Tejun Heo, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Sarah Sharp and Linus Torvalds. The session is moderated by Ric Wheeler and covers diversity in the kernel community — an issue that garnered increasing attention this year.

5. Linus Torvalds Interviewed on Stage at LinuxCon and CloudOpen Europe, 2013

It’s rare to get a full hour of Linus talking on video in depth about kernel issues. In this discussion, Dirk Hohdel peppers Linus with questions, including whether they could do a kernel release focused on stability and bug fixes instead of new features — a proposal that Linus later came to consider.

6. IBM: Why Innovate on Power?

IBM this year announced a $1 billion investment in Linux on its Power Systems. This video explains how diverse industries including weather, health care, and transportation are processing enormous amounts of data to inform innovation.

“When you add the capabilities of the Power platform to our investment in Linux, OpenStack, and open source in general then you really get the tools you need to innovate.”

7. Red Hat: Celebrating 20 Years of Open

Red Hat began celebrating its 20-year anniversary in June. This video is a thank-you note to the open source community for sharing their ideas and inspiring innovation.

“A single idea shared in the open can change everything.”

8. Google’s Keynote on Self Driving Cars at Embedded Linux Conference, 2013

One of our most-watched videos of the year was Google Developer Andrew Chatham’s keynote presentation on Google’s Linux-based autonomous vehicle.

“Why is Google even qualified to do this? After all, we’ve never built a car… The answer is we think this is fundamentally a software problem and something you can apply massive amounts of data to (along with) our existing experience in building digital maps to produce a real solution to this really challenging technical problem.”

9. Education and Free Software: Jon Maddog Hall

Jon Maddog Hall spoke at Campus Party Europe conference in London about the importance of free culture and free software in education, what universities and high schools should be teaching students about computers, how to set up inexpensive computer labs with open source software and hardware, and how to get a job in computing.

“In the new web-based environment we should be teaching people how to do distributed development, how to work with people you don’t see face to face; how to license software the proper way and how to understand if the licenses meet your needs; how to develop foremost standards and then how you innovate above the standards and below the standards.”

10. Valve’s Gabe Newell and Linus Torvalds on Linux and Gaming

First Valve co-founder Gabe Newell declared Linux the future of gaming at LinuxCon North America, then Linus professed his love of Steam at LinuxCon Europe. And now Valve has joined as a corporate member of the Linux Foundation.

“We’ve seen tremendous evolution and innovation in the open space and we think that that process is gonna continue,” Newell says.

11. (Bonus Video!) What Does the Chameleon Say? (Ylvis – What Does the Fox Say parody)

This is just fun. SUSE’s parody video released at SUSECon features a dancing chameleon.