Matt Welsh

New Challenges to the Linux Community

• Language: English
• Duration: 2 * 45 minutes
• Level: c

Linux has certainly evolved beyond its garage-hacker roots. People take Linux seriously now. It's often cited as the chief competitor to Microsoft, and the success of Red Hat and other companies is a strong indicator of Linux's continuing growth in the operating systems market.

But is that all? Have we won? Is Linux simply "good enough" now and we can continue to just ride the wave of hype and IPOs until we're all rich?

I argue that despite our successes, there are still a number of important challenges facing the Linux community. Unless we start to take action now, Linux won't be able to stay on the bleeding edge of technology. It's important that we remember the "fire beneath our feet" lest we become complacent and think that we don't need to continue working hard to keep up with changes in technology and the marketplace.

In this talk, I'm going to outline some of the major issues facing the Linux community today, and talk about what I think can be done to solve them. These include problems with hardware support, the lack of experienced developers, the difficulty of finding good documentation, and the inherent limitations of the Open Source development model. I think that Linux can continue to be one of the most important operating systems in the market, but only if we have some direction to keep us on the right track.

Matt Welsh

is a long-time Linux hacker and enthusiast, having founded the original Linux Documentation Project in 1992. He is the author of the highly-acclaimed book "Running Linux", published by O'Reilly and Associates, as well as the seminal "Linux Installation and Getting Started Guide". He has acted as editor and columnist for "Linux Journal" and "Linux Magazine", and has promoted Linux at numerous conferences, workshops, and user groups. Professionally, Matt is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, working on high-performance architectures for next-generation Internet systems.