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.