LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America this year hosted the developers and maintainers building the software that is running our lives. It also hosted the DevOps professionals and SysAdmins supporting the systems that keep those lives humming along. These events have become the one place where leaders from a variety of projects in the software community can come together. The result is new technologies that will fuel the future.
Highlights from the event included some of these things. There are too many to list here, but this is a sampling.
* We’re always really happy to have Linux creator Linus Torvalds join us when he’s able. He took the stage on opening day for the Linux Kernel Panel with fellow developers Shuah Khan, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Andy Lutomirski and Andrew Morton. A lot of technical detail was discussed, but perhaps the most quoted line was Linus’ comments about the desktop.
* Directly after the Linux Kernel Panel wrapped up, Linus met briefly with about-to-be-7th-grader Zachary DuPont. Zachary wrote a letter to The Linux Foundation earlier this year as part of a school assignment. He was asked by his teacher to write to his hero. We were so moved by the letter, that we invited him to join us at LinuxCon and meet Linus. When I talked to Zachary afterwards, he said, “none of the other students in my class got invited to meet their heroes.”
* The Linux Foundation announced a new Linux Certification program for SysAdmins and Engineers. It’s a different approach to testing and certification: It’s available anytime, anywhere; it’s peformance-based with tasks conducted in the command line; and it’s distribution flexible. More than 1,000 free exams were given out to attendees of the event.
* If you had to name the hottest open source projects right now, you wouldn’t be taken very seriously if you didn’t include Docker. Docker Founder Solomon Hykes took the stage and shared new details about the way the project works and the changes happening with how applications are built.
* Another interesting keynote was from Local Motors’ CEO Jay Rogers. The company is building cars based on the model Linux pioneered and is having a lot of success.
* With ComicCon Chicago taking place in parallel with the event last week, we were inspired to host a costume contest and invited the community to dress up as their favorite super hero. For the brave souls that participated, we salute you.
* And, no LinuxCon and CloudOpen would be complete without a Linux Quiz Show with Libby Clark (this site’s amazing editor). Once again, she puts Linux kernel developers and SysAdmins to the test.
You can watch all the keynote videos on our YouTube channel, and stay tuned on our social media channels for details on our next event, LinuxCon, CloudOpen and Embedded Linux Conference Europe.
Relive the energy of last week’s event with the following video. Or, if you weren’t there, get your shot of Linux adrenaline.