OSCON 2009 Update #2 by Russ, K5TUX

Wednesday:

• "Btrfs: A new Linux file system", presented by Valerie Aurora of Red Hat.
  • Btrfs (B-Tree file system) is a possible replacement for Linux ext3 and ext4 filesystems.
  • Features:
    • seamless integration with multiple underlying devices, similar to LVM
    • built-in checksumming
    • on-the-fly snapshots
  • (An interesting interview with Valerie is at Linux Magazine. -Ed.)
• "The Linux Defenders: Stop the Trolls, Protect Linux, Further Innovation"presented by Keith Bergelt of Open Invention Network.
  • A discussion of freedom, intellectual property, prior art, and software development. The Open Invention Network buys software patents to protect them and not exploit them as a revenue stream.
• "Building a Private Cloud with Ubuntu Server"presented by Rick Clark and Søren Hansen of Canonical.
  • Virtualization using Eucalyptus.

Thursday:

• "Why It Is Hard To Be Fast"presented by representatives from Intel.
  • A discussion of the reasons why the pace of improving computer speed has slowed over the past few years.
• "The Role of Users in Open Source Projects" presented by Stormy Peters of the GNOMEFoundation.
  • A discussion of why users are important to an open source project and how they can be more involved.

Friday:

• "The Art of Klingon Programming" presented by Paul Fenwick (Perl Training Australia)
  • A hysterical talk about programming Perl in the Klingon language. (Unfortunately, we cannot find a link to the slides. -Ed.)
• Walking tour of The Tech Museum of Innovation.
  • A behind the scenes look at the development of the museum exhibits. All of the technology used for the exhibits was developed with open source tools.