Mr. Allison is a Lecturer in the Computer Systems Laboratory at Stanford University and is also an independent consultant. He is currently on the Editorial Board of Microprocessor Report. He has served on the editorial boards of several magazines (IEEE Computer, IEEE Software, Dr. Dobb's Journal, etc.). He was a founder of the People's Computer Company, which promoted personal computing in the early 1970's.
Mr. Augustin is founder, CEO and President of VA Linux Systems. The company has been recognized as one of the top 50 Private Companies by Red Herring, one of the top 100 companies by Upside Magazine, and a "Cool Company" by Fortune Magazine. Larry says his real claim-to-fame is entering the Linux business instead of joining his fellow Stanford students David Filo and Jerry Yang in starting Yahoo. Mr. Augustin is a member of the Linux International Board of Directors and the author of numerous books and technical papers. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and MSEE from Stanford University.
Mr. Conover is a Senior Technology Editor for Network Computing magazine. He reviews network infrastructure and high-speed networking products, including ATM, Fast Ethernet, and Fibre Channel. Prior to Network Computing, Conover was a software engineer at Intel, providing hardware and software verification for their Ethernet products.
Mr. Kegal is a senior programmer at Disappearing, Inc., where he writes high performance email server software. Previous to that he was Senior Programmer for Activision where he designed and implemented portable multiplayer networking code for games on several platforms. Mr. Kegal has been programming for some of the best California hi-tech companies since the early eighties. Geeks sometime enjoy reading his pages at Dan Kegal's Web Hostel.
Mr. Ledford is manager of IHV Technical Relations at Red Hat Inc. and an active Linux kernel developer. He is the author of the aic7xxx driver in Linux, and is involved in benchmarking Linux kernal patches and driver patches. He also participated in the initial Mindcraft Windows NT 4.0 vs. Linux tests at the PC Week labs.
Dr. Marshall McKusick writes books and articles, consults, and teaches classes on UNIX- and BSD-related subjects. While at the University of California at Berkeley, he implemented the 4.2BSD fast file system, and was the Research Computer Scientist at the Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) overseeing the development and release of 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD. McKusick earned his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He has a Masters degree in Computer Science and Business Administration, and a doctoral degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. He is a past president of the Usenix Association, and is a member of ACM and IEEE.
Mr. Petreley is Editorial Director of the web publication LinuxWorld and Contributing Editor for InfoWorld. Mr. Petreley ran a programming, training, and consulting firm in New Jersey for several years before joining InfoWorld full time in 1990. He says that decision was made for him due to a mission-critical application. He applied to become a full-time Christian missionary in Kenya but the mission was too critical of his application, so he joined InfoWorld instead. He is a member of the Linux International, Linux.com, and LinuxWorld Expo Board of Directors.
Mr. Shapiro is a Research Staff Member at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center where he works on high-performance secure operating systems. In previous lives, he has worked on both compilers and CASE tools. Shapiro was a co-founder of HaL Computer Systems, and has been an officer of several small software companies. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a MSCS from Stanford University.
Mr. Torvalds created Linux in 1991 while he was a Finnish graduate student. What started as Torvald's small personal project has evolved into an operating system estimated to run on seven to ten million machines. An International Data Corporation study said shipments of the Linux operating system surged by 212 percent in 1998, a growth rate that outpaced Windows NT, NetWare, Unix, and all others in the server market.
Mr. Zipper is Senior Editor at ClieNT Server News and The Online Reporter. ClieNT Server News is an independent observer of Microsoft, Windows NT and "other phenomena" - a category that includes extensive coverage of Linux-related issues. Prior to ClieNT Server News, he spent 15 years with Electronic News, starting as correspondent and eventually becoming the senior bureau manager in the US. He also spent four years as Middle East Correspondent for Fairchild News Service, covering high-technology and non-technology related news for 12 publications, and spent several years on daily newspapers in New York and Florida. Mr. Zipper wrote his first line of code back in 1966 while an undergraduate student majoring in Political Science with an electrical engineering minor, an almost unheard of combination. His graduate school major was in Science, Technology and International Affairs.