[Updated: April 27] — The Linux Foundation has posted the schedule for a virtual online version of the Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2020. Registration for the interactive, June 29 to July 2 event will cost $50.

In March when Arrow announced its free, online-only Embedded to Go conference, which took place April 1-3, we were surprised that despite the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference was still scheduled to take place June 22-24 in Austin, Texas. Now, the Linux Foundation has announced that due to safety concerns over the Covid-19 pandemic, it will switch to a web-based “Virtual Experience” taking place June 29 to July 2.

Linus Torvalds

Although the conference is not free like Embedded to Go, registration is only $50, compared to $800 to $1,200 for last year’s Aug. 21-23 ELC conference in San Diego. OSS/ELC has a lot more relevant content for LinuxGizmos readers than Embedded to Go or the virtual Embedded Online Conference scheduled for May 20, which was free for early birds, but now costs $190. The Linux Foundation has yet to decide whether the ELC Europe conference scheduled for Oct. 26-28 in Dublin will switch to virtual as well.

Krste Asanović

The Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America will provide 230 keynotes, conference sessions, tutorials, and BoFs on embedded Linux topics. Interactive content and collaboration experiences include live speaker Q&A, 1:1 chat and group networking lounges across a range of topics, and an interactive sponsor and demo showcase where attendees can talk to sponsors in real time, watch demos, and download resources.

The events will be held on Central Daylight Time (CDT UTC−05:00), and access to content will be available for a year to registered attendees. In addition, “all recorded sessions will be transferred to The Linux Foundation YouTube channel within 8 weeks of the event so they are freely accessible to anyone, anywhere,” says the Linux Foundation.

Keynote speakers include Krste Asanović, the co-developer of RISC-V and co-founder of SiFive, as well as the LF’s Kate Stewart, Director of Strategic Programs, on “Open Source in Safety Critical Systems.” On opening day you can see the traditional Jim Zemlin keynote remarks and a conversation between Linus Torvalds and Dirk Hohndel, VP and Chief Open Source Officer at VMware. Other keynotes will be given by executives at Launchable, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, IBM, Red Hat, MongoDB, eBay Uber, and more.

Kate Stewart

As usual, we have cherry-picked some of the more embedded-focused presentations that caught out attention, but there are plenty more where these came from:

• Linux GPIO: Evolution and current state of the user API — Bartosz Golaszewski, BayLibre
• Living on the edge: pure open source AI stack with Panfrost, GStreamer and Tensorflow Lite — Marcus Edel and Aaron Boxer, Collabora
• Linux in Open Source Hardware with RISC-V — Drew Fustini, BeagleBoard.org Foundation
• ASoC: Supporting audio on an embedded board — Alexandre Belloni, Bootlin
• A USB model for sharing host Internet connectivity with devices — Daniel Berliner, Xaptum
• Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 — How open source software and Linux is powering the next generation of robotics — Katherine Scott, Open Robotics
• Enterprise Edge Computing with Project EVE — Roman Shaposhnik, Zededa
• A collection of deep learning packages for IoT devices — Yihong Wang and Va Barbosa, IBM
• There is no store for self-driving car parts: Running the ultimate battery-powered device with Linux — Stephen Segal and Matt Fornero, Cruise
• Using MIPI DSI as main display interface — Marcel Ziswiler, Toradex AG
• Real-time Linux: What is next? — Daniel Bristot de Oliveira, Red Hat
• LF Energy / Messages from the field: Defining a fit-for-the-future grid — Shuli Goodman, LF Energy
• Go RISC-V Go: The state of software development tools for RISC-V — Khem Raj, Comcast
• Upstreaming a Qualcomm SoC — Vinod Koul, Linaro
• Linux Kernel: Stop over-cooling! — Thara Gopinath, Linaro, and Ram Chandrasekar, Qualcomm Innovation Center Inc.
• The OpenAMP Project and its working groups: Standardizing the interactions between operating environments in a heterogeneous embedded system — Nathalie C. Chan King Choy and Stefano Stabellini, Xilinx
• Open source IoT networks to make an impact around the world with Project OWL — Bryan Knouse, Project OWL

[Update: The founder of the Embedded Linux Conference, Tim Bird, has just been elected as a member of the Linux Foundation board. Panasonic’s Hiromi Wada was re-elected for a two-year term. Bird has long worked at Sony where he is core Linux developer and maintainer of Sony’s Linux kernel. He was previously Chief Technology Officer at Lineo.]

 
Further information

The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2020 will be held online from June 29 to July 2, with registration costing $50. Registration will open May 5. More information may be found on the FAQ page and events calendar page.