Clarkson University Wins Linux Mainframe From IBM

Market Wire, 20050229

Clarkson University today was awarded a Linux-enabled IBM mainframe as the winner of IBM's Linux Scholar Challenge. Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, received the highest overall average score among 669 universities with the greatest number of students submitting the most innovative Linux applications.

Reflecting the worldwide reach of Linux, winners of the Challenge include students from Australia, Bulgaria, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.

Twenty-five students from 14 countries were awarded IBM ThinkPad(R) laptops running Linux for developing Linux applications that ranged from developing software for cluster management and load balancing to building a Linux-based robot named, "Cyclop."

Announced in August, IBM developed the Challenge to familiarize students with the open source Linux operating system and the workings of the open source community. IBM received more than 1,400 registrations from 64 countries.

"The overwhelming response to the Linux Scholar Challenge proves how deeply Linux is entrenched in the university community worldwide," said Steve Solazzo, vice president, Linux, IBM. "The open source community thrives on new thinking and initiative. I'm delighted that IBM could play a role in encouraging tomorrow's programmers to build exciting projects on Linux today."

Three qualified winners will be offered Summer 2002 internships at IBM's Linux Technology Center, where they will work on dedicated Linux projects and receive the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth of resources at IBM. The results of the work during the internship will directly impact IBM Linux products and technology that will drive the next phase of e-business.

Clarkson University submitted three of the 25 winning entries. The students' projects were given high marks for creativity, thoroughness, clarity, and results. Dwight Tuinstra, a student at Clarkson, is among the winners for developing a project that focuses on file system improvements to provide a robust, well-documented, fully-functional cleaner for the LinLog LFS.

The predominant number of entries included Linux projects that enhanced usability, developed an application, or built tools for the Linux environment. Contest winners were selected by an IBM panel of technologists from IBM Research, the IBM Linux Technology Center, and other IBM developers involved with Linux.

Other winning examples from around the world include:

- Michael Berhanu from the Australian National University built a software product, called "BugSeeker," using existing software written under the GNU General Public License, to automatically run test scenarios and collect data from the tests. - Barnaby Gray from the University of Cambridge wanted to implement an ICQ messaging client to implement the new ICQ2000/2001 TCP based protocol and add functionality. Christening his project "ickle," he posted his improvements on ickle.sourceforge.net, has received feedback from users, and has moved up in the top 15 sourceforge rankings. - Becko from Varna's Technical University in Bulgaria worked on a Trafflog project to develop reliable and independent software for IP accounting. - Helmut Cantzler of the University of Edinburgh in the UK enabled his application to display triangular meshes from a variety of file formats. Helmut's Mesh Viewer to display triangular meshes can be found at www.dai.ed.ac.uk/~helmutc/mesh_viewer. - Mika Pruikkonen from the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland developed a discovery/test tool for SCTP to debug and test other SCTP applications. - Bruno Silva and some teammates from the Universidade de Aveiro in Portugal introduced a Linux-based robot with vision system called Cyclop. The robot can perform tasks suchas following a line drawn on the floor while detecting cylindrical pedestals holding pool balls. - Sreeram Jaswanth from the International Institute of Information Technology in India developed software for cluster management and load balancing. - Rimon Barr from Cornell created an application that he and others are using called, "rImap,"the remote Imap, Generic Mail Replicator.

Clarkson University will be among other schools attending IBM's University Day on Thursday, January 31 at LinuxWorld, where they will tour IBM booths, get a chance to learn more about IBM research projects, Linux trends and challenges, and IBM's university projects.

About IBM

IBM is the world's number one server company and information technology provider, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM helps customers, business partners and developers in a wide range of industries that leverage the power of the Internet for e-business. For more information, visit www.ibm.com

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