Daily archives: March 10, 2005


IBM’s Richard Moore delivers great Linux talk! 1

On Tuesday, 8th March 2005, Richard Moore who is a member of IBM’s Advanced Linux Response Team gave a very informative and interesting talk on Linux to the BCS Hampshire Branch at Southampton Institute.

The talk discussed the issue of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and how Linux differs fundamentally from proprietary operating systems in general.

He explained why Linux source code is so good in comparison to other operating systems. One major reason for this is due to the many thousands of developers who are able and willing to contribute to the code because it is open source. Detailed information on the structure of the code that goes into the Linux kernel revealed that only a small portion is specific to any particular architecture be it mainframe, Intel, or whatever. Therefore most of it is platform independent.

A question from the audience revealed that IBM has recently released thousands of patents. As a result Richard Moore felt that recent debate in the media about patents restricting open source development were debatable.

Of other possible interest to OSSG is that a member of the Green Party in the audience informed the speaker that his party was the only one with a specific commitment to open source software in its manifesto.

Richard Moore told me after his speech that he would be willing to give a talk at an OSSG event. He gives talks on various different Linux topics in addition to this one entitled “The Business value of Linux – Oxymoron or Opportunity”. The slides for this will appear on the BCS Hampshire website fairly shortly.

Mark Elkins