Bdale Garbee - HP
Chief Technologist for Open Source and Linux
Speaking Topic: Open Avionics for Model Rockets

As HP's Open Source & Linux Chief Technologist, Bdale Garbee advises the lead technologists in other HP business units and other HP decision makers on technology and community aspects of Linux and Open Source applications. He mentors internal communities on how to productively participate in the Open Source development process, and encourages the adoption of Open Source software and principles across the company. A contributor to the Free Software community for more than 25 years, Bdale's background also includes many years of hardware design, Unix internals, and embedded systems work. He was an early participant in the Debian project, helped port Debian GNU/Linux to 5 architectures, served as Debian Project Leader, is chairman of the Debian Technical Committee, and remains active in the Debian community. Bdale serves as President of Software in the Public Interest, is on the board of directors of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum, and is a member of the Linux Journal Editorial Advisory Board. He is a frequent speaker at Linux and Open Source conferences, and works closely with various projects in the Open Source community. Beyond his work at HP, Bdale engages in a variety of personal activities. His most significant hobby is amateur radio, where he is widely known for his contributions to packet radio, weak-signal communications, software defined radio, and building amateur satellites.

Abstract

Bdale and his son enjoy building and flying model rockets. But when we went looking for an electronic altimeter to measure how high our flights were going, the products we found required the use of proprietary software for configuration and to extract the data recorded... and that's no fun! This presentation will report on our experiences developing open hardware and associated open source software to satisfy our altitude curiosity, punctuated with photos and video clips. We'll also talk about plans for a collaboration to build a more sophisticated avionics system for our higher-powered rockets.