Please note: We may add or remove speakers as necessary.
Mark Bolzern, WorkGroup Solutions
The Future of Linux, Why Linux is Significant
I feel that Linux will prove over the next five years to be among operating systems, as the PC revolution was to hardware, the one common standard that everyone has access to. Major players such as DEC are already investing money in this notion with a DEC Alpha porting project, as are Apple to PowerPC, SGI to MIPS, and others as well. This brings Linux to more platforms than any other Operating System. There are also projects underway for Motorola, SPARC, HP/Precision, and other chip architectures.So why another new operating system when there are already so many others? Is Linux just another Unix? Aren't there already too many? Of course there are, and that is why we need one with the power to replace the others. From many perspectives that is Linux. Linux is about four years old in name (When Linus Torvalds released his kernel under the GNU license onto the Internet), but is much older in fact and concept. Long before Linus Torvalds was involved, a generation ago, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) created the GNU License.
Biography
Mark Bolzern, President of WorkGroup Solutions Inc (WGS), appears often as a guest editorialist in various magazines, and as an in-demand public speaker. WGS manufactures and distributes Linux Pro, one of the top Linux titles, provides commercial support for Linux, and distributes FlagShip, an advanced application development system for most common Unix Systems, as well as other related products. Mark currently serves as an officer of Linux International, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering development and recognition of Linux, as well as being the founder of CLUE, the Colorado Linux Users and Enthusiasts group.
Lloyd Brodsky, AmerInd
Intranet Support Of Collaborative Planning
Jeff Farnsworth, Caldera
OpenLinux Standard: Caldera's Flagship Linux Distribution
OpenLinux Standard is shipping! OpenLinux Standard is Caldera's new 32-bit, Linux 2.x-based distribution. Caldera surrounds the Linux kernel with licensed technologies and products, including: Netscape® Navigator© 3.01 Gold, Netscape® FastTrack© Server 2.0, Sun® Microsystem's Java© Development Toolkit (JDK), STAR DIVISION'S® StarOffice© 3.1 Productivity Suite, NetWare® Client and NetWare Administration Enhancements, Software AG's® Adabas© - Personal Edition and OpenDOS 7.01. Jeff will detail Caldera's efforts to convince mainstream industry vendors to port their products to Linux. During the Q&A, Steve will address both technical and marketing oriented issues presented by ALS attendees.Biograpy
As marketing manager, Jeff Farnsworth is responsible for the Caldera Independent Vendor Program (IVP), which encourages the third-party development of OpenLinux through development support, and access to =97 the Caldera sales channel.
Farnsworth has nine years of combined marketing and high-tech experience. He began his career at WordPerfect Corporation as a marketing communications manager working with the following products: WordPerfect for UNIX, OS2 and VAX/VMS. His management responsibilities included all promotional activities for the following departments: Marketing and Channel Sales, General Sales and Training and Certification.
Following his WordPerfect experience, Farnsworth became the Technology Unit manager for PPCH Advertising in Salt Lake City, Utah. At PPCH he developed marketing and promotional strategies for technology clients whose products ranged from office productivity and graphic/special effects software, to broadcast routing hardware.
Prior to his position at Caldera, Farnsworth was marketing director for The Pro Image sports apparel retail franchise where he implemented and directed corporate marketing strategies through public relations and advertising.
Farnsworth holds a bachelor's degree in advertising from Brigham Young University. He also holds an MBA (with marketing emphasis) from the University of Utah. Farnsworth spent two years as a volunteer in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish.
Jon Hall, Linux International
Linux: The Little Operating System That Could
The phenomenon of Microsoft marketing has created an illusion that Microsoft is the heir apparent to the world of computer science. The combination of low price, huge volumes and its CEO on every magazine cover has many computer executives and analysts declaring a victory for Microsoft before its products even ship.
However, just as Netscape and Java created a "one-two" punch for Microsoft, causing them to try and switch direction mid-stream, perhaps Linux can turn the tide of Microsoft domination.
This talk will examine how this might be done, and why it would even be desirable from both an end-user and computer science point of view.
Biography
Jon "maddog" Hall is a Senior Leader in Digital's UNIX Software Group. Jon has been in the UNIX group for fifteen years as an engineer, Product Manager and Marketing Manager. Prior to Digital, Jon was a Senior Systems Administrator in Bell Laboratories' UNIX group, so he has been programming and using UNIX for over 19 years. In addition to Jon's work with Digital UNIX, Jon is also Executive Director of Linux International, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of Linux, a freely distributable re-implementation of the UNIX operating system. Digital is the first system vendor to join Linux International, and is a Corporate Sponsoring Member. Jon is directly responsible for the port of Linux to the Alpha processor.
Jon started his career programming on large IBM mainframes in Basic Assembly Language, but his career improved dramatically when he was introduced to Digital's PDP-11 line of computers as chairman of the Computer Science Department at Hartford State Technical College. There he spent four glorious years teaching students the value of designing good algorithms, writing good code, and living an honorable life. He has also been known to enjoy discussing aspects of computer science over pizza and beer with said students.
maddog (as his students named him, and as he likes to be called) has his MS in Computer Science from RPI, his BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University, and in his spare time is writing the business plan for his retirement business:
Maddog's School of Microcomputing and Microbrewing
In this talk I will describe ELF shared library internals and function across several architectures -- what makes for position independent code, the function of the PLT, and how the shared library loader bootstraps given that it is a shared library itself. Throughout, I will highlight interesting or troublesome points encountered while implementing ELF on the DEC Alpha.Richard Henderson is a former student of Texas A&M University who, since graduation, has filled his spare time working on the Linux/Alpha compiler tool chain, sailing, and sampling the wares down at the pub.
Lester Hightower, Progressive Computer Concepts
Linux Means Business
This talk will explore the use of Linux in business. A case study of Linux inside United Railway Signal Group, the MIS contract in which PCC has most widely deployed Linux, will be the basis for the material presented. This case study will include a functionality, performance, and cost analysis of server hardware and software, client hardware and software, and support.
The functionality and costs of the Wintel fat-client vs. the UNIX/X Windows thin-client model will be examined. PCC has deployed diskless, net-booting thin-clients running Linux on both new and aging Intel, AXP, and Sparc hardware thoughout United at a fraction of the cost of traditional, dedicated XTerminals.
The talk will touch on the use of the Internet backbone in building a corporate WAN. The URSG DOCS (Daily Operations Control System) which runs entirely on Linux and is used by all of United's offices around the US will be demonstrated as part of the presentation. This integrated, customized Intranet system replaces a disjoint collection of mass-produced, off-the-shelf packages and scattered and non-scalable FoxPro database applications. The URSG DOCS enables easier workflow and increased efficiency throughout United's operations. Some time will be spent discussing the relative merits of UNIX/Linux Intranet servers versus the competition.
Biography
Lester Hightower is Vice President of Development at Progressive Computer Concepts, Inc., in Jacksonville, Florida. PCC is an Intra/Internet and UNIX/Linux development/consulting firm that heavily utilizes Linux to provide cost-effective custom computing solutions to its customers. Prior to PCC, Lester was the lead developer for the version two rewrite of the Wide Area Networked Environment project (www-wane.scri.fsu.edu) at the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (www.scri.fsu.edu) in Tallahassee, Florida.
Lester recieved his BS in Economics from the Florida State University. In his spare time he enjoys finding creative ways to tinker with Linux while keeping his wife convinced that he spends all of his spare time with her.
Phil Hughes, SSC
Linux Connectivity For Humans
Linux has been in the news for the last couple of years. It is a wonderful system for hobbiests, a wonderful chance to look inside an operating system and a wonderful chance to get something very close to Unix for free.Linux has gone from a community effort to a commercial success. It is experiencing significant growth along with commercial development and market acceptance. In this talk I look at how this magic happened and what all of us can do to keep that magic happening in the future.
Phil Hughes has been working in computing as a programmer and design specialist since 1968. He has worked with Unix since 1980 as a systems programmer, consultant, trainer and writer. He is currently publisher of Linux Journal magazine.
Miguel de Icaza
Linux RAID System
I will be talking about the RAID-1 and RAID-5 personalities as developed by Ingo Molnar, Gadi Oxman and me for the Linux kernel. The extensions planned to add volume management capabilities to Linux will also be discussed.Biography
Miguel de Icaza is part of the team that brought Linux to the SPARC. He is the maintainer and principal author of the GNU Midnight Commander and lately has developed an interest in storage issues for the Linux kernel even if all of his high end tests are done on 1 meg loopack files.
Todd Lewis, Mindspring
Linux Security
Name: Todd Graham Lewis
Email: tlewis@mindspring.com
Company: MindSpring Enterprises
Topic: Linux & Internet Security
Bio: Todd Lewis is an engineer at Mindspring Enterprises, a leading
Bio: national internet service provider headquartered in Atlanta, GA,
Bio: where he also serves as Network Security Officer.
Michael Maher, Red Hat Software
Red Hat Package Manager (RPM)
David Mandelstam, Sangoma
Technology Of Wide Area Networking, And The Role That Linux Can Play In It
Wide Area Networking is one of the hottest topics in Information Technology today. This talk will cover an overview of common WAN technologies with special emphasis on real world applications.Topics include:
- Asynchronous and Synchronous communications,
- Electrical interfaces (RS232 and V.35/RS422/EIA530
- Point-to-Point lines (HDLC)
- Frame Relay
- X.25
- Linux as a WAN router
Biography
David Mandelstam is President of Sangoma Technologies Inc.
Sangoma manufactures Wide Area Networking cards for the PC platform, mostly for sale to OEMs who use them to support their own products. Sangoma's involvement with Linux began when several Linux enthusiasts began writing WAN routing drivers based on the Sangoma Frame Relay implementation. Eventually it seeped through even to Sangoma's rather slow upper management that if such a lot of effort was being put in by volunteers, supporting WAN routing under Linux must be a Good Thing. Hence the development of the WANPIPE Frame Relay, Synchronous PPP and X.25 routing cards.
David has an M.Sc. degree from Cranfield University in England. He has been with Sangoma since the founding in 1984. Previously he has worked in the energy conservation industry, and in aerospace engineering.
David S. Miller
Design And Performance Issues Encountered In The Sparc Linux Port
Since it's inception over two years ago, the Sparc port of Linux has been a reasonable success, as has Linux in general. This talk will focus primarily on two things, firstly the general approaches the developers of the Sparc port used to achieve such high performance which the port is know for. It will also touch topics concerning generic parts of the kernel where I needed to make changes either to ease porting or to achieve higher performance, this will include the memory management, VFS, and networking subsystems. This talk will also touch upon future enhancements which are being made for 2.2.0 Linux, including SMP work entailing multi-threading the Linux kernel.
Biograpy
David S. Miller is a systems programmer at the CAIP Research Center of Rutgers University on the Busch Campus. He spends most of his time getting fast hardware to run under Linux, and converting linear algorithms into logarithmic ones.
Jim Paradis, Digital Equipment Corpation
Running Linux/x86 Software On Linux/Alpha
In this talk I will describe EM86, an emulator and runtime environment which allows Linux/x86 executables to run unmodified on Linux/Alpha. I will give a brief introduction to the problems of emulation, binary translation, and runtime environments. I will then describe the architecture and implementation of EM86, along with some of the more interesting challenges I faced in the process of implementation.Biography
Jim Paradis is a member of the AMT group of Digital Semiconductor. The AMT group is responsible for developing software technologies to enable the use of Digital Semiconductor devices in customer applications. Jim has been working with AMT for the past six years on such projects as DECmigrate/Ultrix (a MIPS-to-Alpha binary translator), FreePort Express (a SPARC-to-Alpha binary translator) and Linux/Alpha. Jim lives in Worcester, Massachusetts in a 110-year-old house that is constantly under renovation with his wife, nine cats, four computers, and entirely too much construction debris.
Eric S. Raymond
The Cathedral And The Bazaar
I anatomize a successful free-software project, fetchmail, that was run as a deliberate test of some surprising theories about software engineering suggested by the history of Linux. I discuss these theories in terms of two fundamentally different development styles, the "cathedral" model of FSF and its imitators versus the "bazaar" model of the Linux world. I show that these models derive from opposing assumptions about the nature of the software-debugging task. I then make a sustained argument from the Linux experience for the proposition that "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", suggest productive analogies with other self-correcting systems of selfish agents, and conclude with some exploration of the implications of this insight for the future of software.Biography
Eric S. Raymond is on Linus's little list, and is a full-time Linux freeware hacker. He wrote much of the ncurses screen library, is the author of the POP/IMAP client fetchmail, and co-maintains the Sunsite archive. He also maintains the Installation, Distributions, and XFree86 FAQs, and is the current editor of the Jargon File (aka "The New Hacker's Dictionary"). Eric lives in Malvern, PA and (when not hacking) enjoys reading SF, playing flute or guitar, practicing Tae Kwon Do, and blowing holes in silhouette targets with a Colt .45. His home page is at https://www.ccil.org/~esr.
Don Rosenberg, Stromian Technologies
Linux And The Commercial Market: How-To And What Next?
Linux is a free and open system, but a commercial marketplace is growing up around it with added-value products such as installation aids, utilities, and help and maintenance. From imbedded systems to office applications, the market is growing via Direct Sales, Catalogs, OEM, Integrators, and Resellers. Learn the benefits and drawbacks of these channels, and how to enter them.
Biography
Donald K. Rosenberg is at Stromian Technologies, a consultancy for OEM software licensing; before starting Stromian he did licensing at Q+E Software and at INTERSOLV. He has industry experience in international heavy construction and mining (Koppers, Beazer), and holds a Ph.D. and M.B.A.
Linus Torvalds, Transmeta
Linux: World Domination 101
BiographyLinus Torvalds is the person to blame for all of this. He's a software engineer at Transmeta Corp, and holds a MSc in computer science from Helsinki University.
Mike Warfield, Internet Security Systems
Anatomy Of An Attack: Analysis Of A Hacker Intrusion
What happens when a hacker breaks into your system? How do you detect it? What do you do to determine how he got in? How badly are you compromised? How do you get him out of your system and keep him out?
These are questions you need to ask yourself before it happens to you.
This talk will examine an actual hacker intrusion which I was called in to analyze. I will cover the chronology of the incident, the analysis of the attack, and the corrective measures. Names, numbers, and locations will be altered to protect the innocent but the incident was real.
Biography
Mike Warfield is the Senior Engineer for Internet Security System and the project lead for the Internet Scanner, a security testing tool which runs on Linux. He has been a Unix systems engineer, Unix consultant, Security Consultant and network administrator on the Internet for over a decade. He has degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering and is a member of IEEE and ACM.
Mike has been one of the resident Unix gurus at the Atlanta UNIX Users Group for almost 8 years and is one of the founding members of the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. He has his own personal web server and operates several others, most running Linux. He had two of the first non-Netscape secure web servers in the United States.
Steven Webb, Caldera
Caldera OpenLinux
Using Caldera OpenLinux for Web-base database Applications. Steve will walk ALE attendees through the development of database applications using Software AG's Adabas-D on Caldera's OpenLinux product line. Steve will show how using Adabas-D's ODBC interface with Nombas ScriptEase product you can produce robust CGI Web applications. He will show examples of database applications used on Caldera's Web site and answer any questions about Caldera's Web products.Biography
As systems engineer for the Caldera Technical Marketing Group, Steven Webb manages the corporate training program for the OpenLinux product line. He also participates in the marketing and sales development of Web-based database applications.
Webb has 17 years of working experience in the computer industry, with emphasis on data-processing. Prior to his position at Caldera, Webb worked for Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and then returned to his alma mater, Brigham Young University. While at BYU, he managed the Division of Admissions and Records Computer Production. His duties there included the conversion of the Division's 100+ "home-grown" online programs to CICS, and the management of a 200-user Novell-based LAN.
Recently, Webb developed award-winning Workflow and Imaging programs. He also designed and developed Web-based applications - including the innovation of an interactive facility Picture Class roll system for BYU.
Webb holds a bachelor's degree in business management (with a minor in computer science) from Brigham Young University. He spent two years as a volunteer in New York City and is currently pursuing a master's degree in instructional design and development.
Bob Young, Red Hat Software
Linux Isn't A Product, It's A Process
The collection of kernels, drivers, compilers, utilities, and tools that make up the hundreds of programs known collectively as the Linux Operating System represent a true revolution in the approach to software development in general and Operating System development in particular.
This revolution has three parents:
- The Internet is the necessary tool that has allowed software developers who sit at points all over the globe, who have never met, to act like a well coordinated team.
- The Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.com) is responsible for both the GPL and the GNU tools that Linux needed to be a useful OS. (for the record: I am not a Lignux advocate :-)
- Linus Torvalds' contribution to initiating, and leading the Linux kernel development is well documented but cannot be understated.
This talk is one person's view as to how this remarkable revolution might continue to thrive without the central control and huge monetary resources normally required to develop and market Operating System software.
Young's role as the head of marketing at a leading Linux vendor gives him more incentive than most to study the future of these technologies, including who (and how many) individuals and organizations are using these technologies instead of commercially restricted alternatives.
Biography
Between 1976 by 1993 Young earned a living as an entrepreneur in the computer industry founding two successful international hardware finance companies. In 1993 he launched into the publishing business with New York UNIX magazine, a regional Open Systems publication, and assisting with the launch of the Linux Journal. Young soon recognized the opportunity that the Internet-based cooperative software development model represented and co-founded Durham NC based Red Hat. The success of Red Hat Software, and the rapidly growing user base of its Red Hat Linux 0S, demonstrates that the cooperative development model has strong appeal to computer software amateurs and professionals alike.