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Conference slides

Below are pointers to slides from various conference presentations that I've given.

Why kernel space sucks — linux.conf.au 2013; 1 Feb 2013, Canberra, Australia
A few years ago, kernel hacker Dave Jones gave a highly entertaining talk entitled Why Userspace Sucks, about the ways in which various userspace systems and applications kill performance by wasting system resources on pointless tasks. I'm not contradicting anything that Dave says, but it seems at least fair to point out that there are places where kernel space sucks too. This presentation is about one of those places with special interest to me—the programming interface between the kernel and user space—a place where kernel developers have inflicted a steady stream of small train wrecks (to borrow Dave's term) on userspace.
An introduction to Linux IPC — linux.conf.au 2013; 30 Jan 2013, Canberra, Australia
An overview of Linux IPC techniques.
Why kernel space sucks — LinuxCon North America 2012; 29 Aug. 2012, San Diego, Ca., USA.
(An older version of a presentation described above.)
Linux and Free Software: What and Why? — Jugo Creativo 2012; 7 Jun. 2012, Bucaramanga, Colombia. (Qué son Linux y el Software libre y cómo beneficia su uso a las empresas para lograr productividad económica y ventajas técnicas?)
A talk for a non-engineer audience on what Linux and Free Software are, how they're created, where they're used, and the importance and advantages of Free Software. Presented in English to a Spanish-speaking audience, so there's a few Spanish terms sprinkled among the slides.
Why kernel space sucks (video) — OpenFest 2011; 5-6 Nov. 2011, Sofia, Bulgaria.
(An older version of a presentation described above.)
Writing Secure Privileged Programs — linux.conf.au 2010; 18-23 Jan. 2010, Wellington, New Zealand.
Best practices, and mistakes to avoid, in order to write secure (C) programs.
What happens when kernel and userland don't talk? — linux.conf.au 2009; 19-23 Jan. 2009, Hobart, Australia.
A discussion of bugs and design errors in the kernel-userland API, some theories about their causes, and some suggestions about how to improve matters.
Who owns the interface? — Linux Plumbers Conference 2008; 17-19 Sep. 2008, Portland, OR, USA.
A presentation that considered which groups determine the features that are and are not included in the Linux (kernel and glibc) programming interface, coupled with a discussion of the problems that result from the fact that ownership of the Linux interface is distributed across several groups.
What we lose without words — LinuxConf Europe 2007; 2-4 Sep. 2007, Cambridge, England.
A discussion of problems in newly released APIs on Linux. LWN.net had a nice summary write-up.
Do man-pages matter? — linux.conf.au 2007; 15-19 Jan. 2007, Sydney, Australia.
An exploration of how improving kernel-userland interface documentation reduces bugs in, and improves the design of, kernel-userland interfaces.
A whirlwind tour of changes in the Linux 2.6.x system call API — linux.conf.au 2006; Jan. 2006, Dunedin, New Zealand.
A 3-hour tutorial describing new features in the Linux 2.6 kernel-userspace interface.
An introduction to building and using shared libraries — linux.conf.au 2006; Jan. 2006, Dunedin, New Zealand.
A tutorial presentation on building and using shared libraries on Linux.