MemCon 09 is the most important conference and exhibition addressing business, market applications, device technology, and standards for memory and storage. I personally did not attend it, however I’m following blog post feeds and tweets about it, politics around semiconductor is fun.
After Anu Murthy of SanDisk’s presentation titled “Storage in Operator Netbooks”, Richard Munden blogged about 2 presentations he enjoyed. He points out, which I quote :
The next step in the evolution is to replace Windows with Linux. This further reduces the hardware requirements while improving performance. It means you can’t run Office but the alternatives are free.
It is the Hardware manufacturers who are taking those initiatives. Does this mean that because Linux is opensource Hardware manufacturers participate in opensource development ? Are they improving essential parts that matter most to them, instead of developing another OS ? Everytime, there is an article about who is developing the Linux Kernel, most of the time it is biased from my point of view because they point to software companies. On the other hand, Red Hat Inc. does put a lot of effort for the Linux Kernel development.
We all have seen Fedora’s commitment for OLPC Project. Release after release, performance on Fedora is improving. Fedora is a model, leading by example.
A Mixed-Signal Semiconductor company Wolfson Microelectronics, (which develops audio chips for IPod) invests a lot on opensource as well. They even have a dedicated website for their opensource contribution.
Chitlesh Goorah
