The Linux Foundation announced keynote speakers for its LinuxCon event, scheduled for August 17-19 in Vancouver, B.C. LinuxCon 2011 will host a celebration to mark the 20th anniversary of Linux, and feature keynotes including Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, technology author Clay Shirky, and HP CTO Phil McKinney, who will talk about WebOS.

Held last August in Boston, LinuxCon is a more open alternative to the invitation-only Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. This year's Vancouver conference will be co-located with the KVM Forum, as well as other community mini-summits. A call for papers for the event is open through April 22, says the Linux Foundation (LF).

The LF kicked off the 20th anniversary celebrations for Linux at its Collaboration Summit last week with a video contest on the topic, to be judged by Linus Torvalds. On August 25, 1991, Torvalds announced Linux in an email, although several other dates ranging from July to October could work just as well, said the Linux creator in a recent interview.

The big event, however, appears to be at LinuxCon on August 17 when the LinuxCon Gala celebration will "gather an unprecedented who's who of Linux' past, present and future," according to the non-profit Linux advocacy group. The party will adopt a "Roaring 20s" theme, with a live band, casino, full dinner, and open bar.

The winner of this year's Linux Foundation Video Contest will also be revealed at LinuxCon. In addition, the 20th Anniversary Video Booth, which is traveling to LF events throughout year, will be onsite for attendees to record personal messages about Linux. 

Confirmed LinuxCon keynote speakers include:

• Jim Whitehurst (pictured) CEO of Red Hat, will speak on the 20th anniversary of Linux and "detail the biggest challenges we still face and what the next 20 years looks like."
• Mark Charlebois, director of Open Source Strategy at Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), will discuss the role of Linux in mobile development and innovation.
• Phil McKinney, vice president and CTO at HP, will elaborate on the company's WebOS platform strategy.
• Marten Mickos, CEO at Eucalyptus Systems and former CEO of MySQL, will discuss the changing enterprise Linux landscape as it relates to cloud computing.
• Allison Randal, technical architect for the Ubuntu project, and former chief architect of the open source Parrot project, will discuss Ubuntu's future.
• Clay Shirky, book author and New York University professor on Internet and Society, will discuss how collaboration is impacting today's culture. Shirky's recent books include Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators and Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.
  

Further information

LinuxCon will be held August 17-19 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Registration costs U.S. $500, through July 8. More information for the LinuxCon call for participation, which is open through April 22, may be found here. Other information includes show registration sign-up, and details on the 20th anniversary Gala.

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