THE NEXT 100 YEARS OF GNU/LINUX
Klaus Knopper
The combination of GNU software together with the Linux kernel has
shown a path to freedom and access to information technology for
everyone, directly or indirectly, from the average worker over the
student to medium- and large-sized companies, freeing them from their
dependencies of third party proprietary and cost-intensive license
contracts. Open Source seems to be not only a philosophy and idea about
freedom of science and knowledge exchange, but also a chance for a
fast-growing industry based on innovative software development and
services that everyone should be able to afford (sometimes even at a
zero-cost rate). Still, there are some obstacles to take, ranging from
problems that have a technical solution like ease of use, accessibility
and coverage of needed features, to nontechnical, human-made problems
like the upcoming software patents and existing monopolies,
historically grown dependencies and last but not least "politically"
inspired reasons, and a lot of money in all the wrong places.
In this keynote, risks and chances as well as some personal predictions
from the author about the next 100 years in GNU, Linux and Free
Software and the IT industry itself will be presented, some of them may
very well surprise you.
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