* Happenings and mutterings at LinuxWorld San Francisco 2005
While I was not able to attend LinuxWorld in San Francisco last week, Network World was all over the show with reporters and affiliates covering the event.
Some of the highlights of the show includes a keynote speech by Martin Fink, HP’s vice president of Linux, who challenged rivals IBM and Sun to get behind open source licensing more whole-heartedly.here.
Specifically, Fink took aim at Big Blue’s IBM Public License, and Sun’s Common Development and Distribution Model, under which Solaris 10 is licensed. He said too many licenses will end up confusing users interested in open source, and could lead to legal conflicts down the road. Fink’s main point: the GNU Public License (GPL) is the way to go. More on this story
My colleague Jennifer Mears scored an interesting interview with Microsoft’s top Linux guru (yes, Microsoft has one) Bill Hilf, director for Microsoft’s platform technology strategy organization. In the chat, the former IBM open source technologist discusses his 300-machine Linux lab, the difference between Microsoft and IBM, and how folks in the open source community and in Redmond accepted him in his new role. Read the Hilf interview here.
And to get a feel for what was going on at the show sessions and on the floor, check out Jennifer’s LinuxWorld notebook, where you can read more about Microsoft’s Hilf, new Linux strategies for big systems vendors such as HP and IBM, and one technologist’s view on just how safe the Linux operating system really is. The LinuxWorld Reporter’s Notebook is here.
