LinuxCon Preview: Details on the Watson Exhibit

After strutting its stuff on Jeopardy! earlier this year, IBM's Watson will be included at LinuxCon in a special exhibit August 17-19, 2011. We got some time with the IBM Power Systems Product Marketing Manager Ian Jarman to better understand what we can expect and what Watson and its IBM team have been working on since their very public victory earlier this year.

Please tell us about the Watson exhibit planned for LinuxCon. What should attendees expect?

Jarman: You can try your luck against Watson in a simulated demonstration of the system used on the Jeopardy! show. You'll also be able to learn more about the technology behind Watson, including its impressive 90 IBM Power 750 servers, with 2880 POWER7 processor cores and 15 TB of memory. Most of all, I hope you share some of the passion and excitement that I and so many others feel for Watson. The most moving moments I experienced on the project were actually during some of Watson's pre-show sparring matches. These were held in the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights in the small, practice Jeopardy! set right by the Watson machine room.

Playing against two previous Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions contestants, Watson cruised to victory in the first game. Seeing Watson in action close up, you couldn't help but have a very deep and special feeling of pride for all the people on the IBM Research team. In the second game, however, a young defense analyst from Washington D.C. hit the two daily doubles and won a close game. I happened to be sitting next to her mother in the audience just a few feet away, and I could literally feel her love and pride at having such a talented daughter. So, I left IBM that day knowing just how difficult it was going to be to compete against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in the exhibition match. The stakes and the risks were going to be very high indeed. And this grand challenge was not going to be about man v. machine; it was going to be about people at their very best.

Photo Credit: John Tolva

Since its impressive appearance on Jeopardy!, what has Watson and the Watson team been working on?

Jarman: The IBM Research team has switched its attention to commercializing Watson technology, with health care as their first target. We don't expect Watson to replace doctors, of course, but we believe that Watson's DeepQA technology will be very valuable as an advisor in medical diagnostics. And the fact that Watson was based on commercially available Power 750 servers, makes it easy for us to scale Watson down to a system designed for a group medical practice.

Why is Watson based on Linux? What advantages does Linux give the supercomputer?

Jarman: Actually, we don't view Watson as a supercomputer. Compared to the Power 775 Supercomputer that has up to 500,000 POWER7 cores, Watson looks like a fairly small cluster. Instead, we prefer to talk of Watson as a workload optimized system, using a cluster of commercially available servers. In any case, using Linux was vital to the IBM Research team as they based their Watson development on a number of open source technologies, including Java, Apache, Hadoop and Apache Unstructured Information Management Architecture or UIMA. Watson also was a great showcase for Linux on Power Linux, demonstrating POWER7 scalability and performance in a unique Linux benchmark.

This is such an important year for both Linux and IBM. Linux turns 20 and IBM is celebrating 100 years. How has Linux shaped the kind of company IBM is today? How has it contributed to your company overall?

Jarman: In 2000, Linux received an important boost when IBM announced it would embrace Linux as strategic to its systems strategy. A year later, IBM invested US$1 billion to back the Linux movement, embracing it as an operating system for IBM servers and software. IBM’s actions grabbed the attention of CEOs and CIOs around the globe and helped Linux become accepted by the business world.  By inserting IBM developers directly into Linux communities, IBM engaged Linux development in natural ways, as a team of individuals, rather as than a lumbering and monolithic corporate contributor. IBM learned that involvement required influence in place of control and embraced the broad Linux community—benefitting greatly from the wisdom of the crowds. In 2011, Linux is a fundamental component of IBM business—embedded deeply in hardware, software, services and internal development. It is present in every IBM business, geography and workload, and its use only continues to increase.

IBM’s success today, and in the future, is inextricably linked to the healthy growth and expansion of Linux development.

For more information about Watson's appearance at LinuxCon and how you can test your own knowledge against the machine, visit our LinuxCon website.

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LinuxCon Preview: Marten Mickos on Why Linux Dominates in Cloud

As we prepared to announce our LinuxCon schedule this week, I talked to one of our keynote speakers, Eucalyptus Systems CEO Marten Mickos. Eucalyptus was one of the first companies on the cloud computing scene and Mickos is among the most respected open source entrepreneurs in the industry (having been CEO of MySQL AB before its acquisition by Sun Microsystems).

Mickos took a few minutes to share his thoughts on cloud computing and Linux, the new Open Virtualization Alliance, and how Linux has shaped our lives over the last 20 years.

I've heard people make the case recently that without Linux, cloud computing would not exist or would still be in the distant future. How has Linux enabled cloud computing, and why is it (Linux) so important for the future of the new enterprise environment?

Mickos: There are many reasons for this. Importantly, Linux became the dominant platform for all things web, so it's natural that Linux continues to be the foundation for the next paradigm: the cloud.

On a more technical note, Linux is an operating system built for scale-out (rather than scale-up). In previous software architectures, scale-up was the dominant design. But in a cloud world, everything has to scale out. That's why Linux is a perfect fit for cloud.

There are other reasons too: the world of software is increasingly flat. Anyone and everyone can participate and contribute. As the leading open source operating system, Linux is the natural magnet for such crowd creativity. That's why Linux evolves faster than other operating system.

Finally, it certainly helps that many of the key technologies needed in a cloud environment are open source products that run well with Linux. To name just a few: KVM, Puppet, Mule, Spring, Hadoop, MySQL and Eucalyptus.

As an early company to the now crowded cloud computing space, what is Eucalyptus doing today to help Linux enterprise and mobile users?

Mickos: You are right that Eucalyptus was among the early pioneers when the project started as an NSF-funded research project in 2007 at UC Santa Barbara. We early on decided to focus on enterprise and mobile users. From a technical standpoint, we chose the GPL license and we wrote the product in Java for highly-scalable, mission-critical use.

The product goes through extensive QA in our own internal cloud, and it's packaged and ready for people to download and put in production. In the past year, we have seen more than 25,000 new Eucalyptus clouds start up all over the world. It's great to know that we are being useful to students, researchers, developers and businesses!

We innovate fast and add new features to the product that our users are requesting. You can see the features of our upcoming release 3.

Because we are fully compatible with the cloud API of Amazon Web Services, you can move any AWS application onto Eucalyptus. Additionally, we make sure we have a strong ecosystem of partners with products that work well with Eucalyptus. This is what enables users of all types to quickly get going with their various cloud projects.

Can you tell us more about the new Open Virtualization Alliance? Why is Eucalyptus investing here, and what do you hope comes from the efforts?

Mickos: KVM is a powerful hypervisor with a great future. The fact that it is embedded in the Linux kernel makes it the obvious choice for Linux-based cloud deployments. Eucalyptus supports all major hypervisors, but we have a natural affinity to the ones under an open source license. In the Open Virtualization Alliance we get to participate in important work on performance enhancements on KVM in general and the KVM-Eucalyptus combination in particular. We share with our users a passion for software that runs fast and scales well.

So, can you give us a sneak peek into what we should expect from your LinuxCon keynote in August?

Mickos: I will talk about the shift of software infrastructure to the cloud paradigm, and about the implications this will have on free and open source software. I happen to believe that the shift to cloud is bigger than the shift to the Internet was fifteen years ago. Nearly all aspects of the software stack are in for a big disruption.

This August also marks the 20th anniversary of Linux. What do you think is the most interesting or important impact Linux has had on the world of technology?

Mickos: You know, I think Linux's most important impact is societal. Linus (Linus Torvalds in Pictures) showed all people on this planet that open collaboration leads to superior results. We need more openness, more transparency and more collaboration in this world. Thanks to Linux, it is happening. We see other areas of society learn from the world of free and open source software. The current big social trend on the mobile web has (perhaps unknowingly) borrowed many characteristic from the Linux project.

That said, Linux has had and continues to have a profound impact on the specific world of technology. There isn't a car or a medical device or a computer that doesn't run some sort of open source software today. Every leading web or mobile service uses open source software. Linux wasn't the first and isn't the only one, but it is the standard bearer of this amazing movement.

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It’s a Wrap! (LinuxCon Japan 2011)

LinuxCon Japan 2011 just concluded in early June. While many industry and cultural groups have canceled scheduled conferences and performances in Japan due to the triple tragedy of March 11, the Linux Foundation moved forward with its annual meeting. Turnout was great – reportedly 500 strong – and the technical program was strong. There were also some great opportunities for socializing and renewing acquaintances. The Compliance Mini-Summit drew an impressive audience of about 40 people for a four-hour program that included presentations and a panel session from open source compliance leaders: Shane Coughlan of Opendawn discussed the evolution of FOSS governance Sunil Kumar D and Timo Jokiaho of Huawei shared a corporate perspective on GPL compliance Bill McQuaide of Black Duck Software and Steve Grandchamp of OpenLogic, respectively, shared their insights into corporate adoption of FOSS and their wisdom and experience about FOSS compliance and governance Phil Koltun of the Linux Foundation discussed ways to get started with a compliance program Tsugikazu Shibata, a member of the LF Board of Directors, joined Bill and Steve to provide a Japanese perspective on compliance program implementation. LinuxCon Japan also enjoyed a lively kickoff session, with Linus Torvalds reminiscing about 20 years of Linux kernel work, as prompted by questions from Greg Kroah-Hartman and the audience.   Part of the dialogue was...

LinuxCon Japan 2011 just concluded in early June.  While many industry and cultural groups have canceled scheduled conferences and performances in Japan due to the triple tragedy of March 11, the Linux Foundation moved forward with its annual meeting.  Turnout was great – reportedly 500 strong – and the technical program was strong.  There were also some great opportunities for socializing and renewing acquaintances.

The Compliance Mini-Summit drew an impressive audience of about 40 people for a four-hour program that included presentations and a panel session from open source compliance leaders:

Shane Coughlan of Opendawn discussed the evolution of FOSS governanceSunil Kumar D and Timo Jokiaho of Huawei shared a corporate perspective on GPL complianceBill McQuaide of Black Duck Software and Steve Grandchamp of OpenLogic, respectively, shared their insights into corporate adoption of FOSS and their wisdom and experience about FOSS compliance and governancePhil Koltun of the Linux Foundation discussed ways to get started with a compliance programTsugikazu Shibata, a member of the LF Board of Directors, joined Bill and Steve to provide a Japanese perspective on compliance program implementation.

LinuxCon Japan also enjoyed a lively kickoff session, with Linus Torvalds reminiscing about 20 years of Linux kernel work, as prompted by questions from Greg Kroah-Hartman and the audience.   Part of the dialogue was of particular pertinence to those of us involved with compliance work.  A member of the audience asked, regarding the kernel:  “Are you still happy with the license or do you think it needs an upgrade or do you regret having chosen the GPL back then?”  Linus’ response was worth transcribing:

“I’m very happy with the GPL.  The reason – the original Linux license – I don’t know how many people know this – probably most – I did not actually start out with the GPL.  I started out with my own personal license that I wrote that was, like, one paragraph and the license – I have it somewhere – but it basically said you can charge no money for this.  You have to give source code back.  And that was it. And it was not a license that would probably ever stand up in court, or at least it wasn’t well known.  And then the “no money can change hands” turned out to be a problem very early on.  Even in, like, early ’92, you had small distributions that would copy floppies for people at Unix user’s groups or selling them in Byte Magazine or something like that.  And they wanted to charge, like, five bucks for the service of copying two or four or twelve floppies at that time.  And they said “I really need to charge money for this because it’s my time and my floppies.”   So I said OK, I will change the license.  I looked around and I thought the GPL version 2 was exactly what I was looking for, saying that I give this out because I like doing it, but I want people who make changes and improvements … I  want those changes and improvements to come back to me under the same license.   And I think it’s a very fair license.  I think it’s a license that is also very successful. And I think it’s something that really speaks to people at a very deep level, the whole fairness notion that I give you something, you give me something back.  And I’m very happy with the license.  It’s worked very well.”

If you’re interested in the entire hour-long discussion with Linus, check out the video at the Linux Foundation site.  (The GPL remarks come at around the 53-minute mark.) For more LF resources on compliance, including white papers, webinars, self-assessment checklist, and open source tools, go to the Linux Foundation’s open compliance program webpage.  The Linux Foundation offers on-site and confidential training on how to implement a compliance program.  For more information, please see our training descriptions or send email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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LinuxCon North America Is Coming, and the Schedule Is Set

The Linux Foundation is out with its schedule of events for this year's LinuxCon North America conference. It's slated for August 17th to 19th in Vancouver, Canada.

The Linux Foundation is out with its schedule of events for this year's LinuxCon North America conference. It's slated for August 17th to 19th in Vancouver, Canada. It will take place at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Vancouver, and you can register now. The lineup of speakers looks to be outstanding. Linus Torvalds is speaking, as are Eben Moglen, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, Eucalyptus Systems' CEO and MySQL pundit Marten Mickos, and many others.

In addition to keynotes, roundtable panels and 75 conference sessions, LinuxCon will feature a range of tutorials, lightning talks, and other events. There will be a number of developer lounges available.

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My Highlights from the Newly Announced LinuxCon Schedule

Today we announced the full schedule for LinuxCon North America that will take place in Vancouver from August 17 - 19th. This year we had even more of a challenge than usual in putting together the program. Why? There were so many great submissions. (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who submitted a talk and please don’t be discouraged if you didn’t make it this year. You had a lot of competition and we would love to see your submissions at subsequent events or in subsequent years. Check our events schedule for more events in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere.) This year is the 20th anniversary of Linux, which we have already been celebrating with a special video and contests. But this year’s speaker line up for LinuxCon will be a celebration on its own, with topics and speakers from across the industry, across the community and across the globe. While we do have a focus on enterprise Linux...

Today we announced the full schedule for LinuxCon North America that will take place in Vancouver from August 17 - 19th. This year we had even more of a challenge than usual in putting together the program. Why? There were so many great submissions. (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who submitted a talk and please don’t be discouraged if you didn’t make it this year. You had a lot of competition and we would love to see your submissions at subsequent events or in subsequent years. Check our events schedule for more events in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere.)

This year is the 20th anniversary of Linux, which we have already been celebrating with a special video and contests. But this year’s speaker line up for LinuxCon will be a celebration on its own, with topics and speakers from across the industry, across the community and across the globe. While we do have a focus on enterprise Linux development and administration, I hope our speaker line up reflects the reach of Linux in technology and culture. Here are some of the sessions I am most looking forward to:

 What’s Inside Benchmarks? Wim Coekaerts is the Senior Vice President of Linux and Virtualization Engineering for Oracle. He is responsible for Oracle’s complete desktop to datacenter virtualization product line and the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program. This is a great opportunity to learn from a leader in the Linux industry. Wim isn’t a suit who dabbles in Linux; he’s the real deal.A Conversation with Linus Torvalds. We’re extremely lucky to have Linus take part in LinuxCon. This will be a great discussion between two lively developers: Linus and Greg KH. And the big question: will Linus wear a tux to the LinuxCon Gala?Linux: a short retrospective and an opinion on the future. There are people who claim they are thought leaders and then there are those like Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger who shape the future of technology with their insight. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger is Chairman Emeritus of the IBM Academy of Technology, and Visiting Professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This will be thought provoking and a truly special opportunity to hear from a master.Linux: How it Runs the World of Finance. Without Linux there would be no high frequency trading. Christoph Lameter is a well recognized expert in high performance computing and Linux on wall street. This talk will open your eyes about just how important Linux is to our economy.Linux filesystem and storage tuning. This is an indepth tutorial given by a kernel expert, Christoph Hellwig. This session will deliver real benefit to advanced system administrations. I think this session alone would give enough value to justify the trip to LinuxCon. It’s a rare opportunity to learn from the best.

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Preparing for LinuxCon Japan: Tsunami Relief, Comic Relief

We're excited to be hosting LinuxCon Japan next week, June 1-3, in Yokohama. Bringing together the Linux community in Japan and supporting the country after its devastating tsunami is very important to us. Linus Torvalds will be there next week, as will a variety of Linux community leaders and contributors.

We recently announced a couple of programs we hoped could contribute to relief efforts in the country and give everyone in the Linux community a chance to support, one of which concludes this Tuesday. All new Linux Foundation individual membership dues we receive through end of the day May 31, 2011 will go to the U.S Fund for UNICEF Children of Japan. You can sign up to become a member and support this cause at The Linux Foundation membership page.

We have also designed an exclusive T-shirt to be available in the Linux.com Store. All revenue generated from sales of this Japan-specific T-shirt throughout this year will be donated to the same fund. We'll announce here on Linux.com when that T-shirt is available to purchase.

Lastly, we're considering running a regular comic strip on Linux.com but want your thoughts. So, here is one we thought was fun and that helps us prepare to kick-off LinuxCon Japan next week!

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LinuxCon Japan Keynote Speakers Announced

The Linux Foundation has confirmed the keynote speakers for LinuxCon Japan 2011 and announced that it will donate program funds to the relief efforts to help those affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan

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More Ways to Get to LinuxCon: Submit Your Video

We need you! And, we want you to join us at LinuxCon. That's why today we're announcing that we will give away one free LinuxCon pass per 20th Anniversary of Linux Video Contest entry.

Our annual Video Contest is one of the only ways that individuals can promote Linux as they see fit and enter it to be considered for high-level visibility and promotion as the annual winner. And, with this year's focus on the 20th Anniversary and with Linus judging, that visibility should be bigger than ever.

But, we understand it takes a little bit of work to put a great video together, and we want to thank you for that effort. That's why we're giving away free passes to LinuxCon for each entry. A free pass to this year's event is one to put in the scrapbook: with the 20th Anniversary Gala taking place opening night of the event, the Video Contest winner being revealed onsite, and keynotes from Jim Whitehurst and Clay Shirky, among other speakers, it's going to be one for the history books.

Don't forget that the big winner of this year's Video Contest gets their choice of an expenses-paid trip to one of four events: SXSW, LA Film Festival, LinuxCon North America or LinuxCon Europe.

Get your entry in early and start racking up the community vote. Linus will be considering community favorites when he chooses the ultimate winner.

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