Linux Plumbers Conference

Linux Plumbers Conference
The Linux Foundation · Public domain · source
Name	Linux Plumbers Conference
Abbreviation	LPC
Status	active
Genre	technical conference
Frequency	annual
Location	rotating international cities
First	2010
Organizer	Linux Foundation

Linux Plumbers Conference The Linux Plumbers Conference is an annual technical conference for developers focused on plumbing-level components of the Linux kernel, GNU C Library, systemd, eBPF, and related low-level infrastructure. It convenes contributors from projects and organizations such as Red Hat, Intel Corporation, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon Web Services and Facebook to coordinate design and implementation across subsystems including kernel.org, Wayland, X.Org Foundation, Mesa 3D Graphics Library, and OpenSSL. The event emphasizes collaborative problem-solving among maintainers, contributors, and vendors to resolve cross-project interface, performance, and stability issues.

Overview

The conference format blends microconferences, tutorials, and BoF sessions to foster interaction among maintainers of Linux kernel, glibc, systemd, PulseAudio, PipeWire, Wayland', X.Org Server, and complementary projects like QEMU, KVM, DPDK, Open vSwitch, and Netfilter. Speakers and attendees often represent corporations and foundations including The Linux Foundation, Linaro, Canonical, SUSE, Oracle Corporation, NVIDIA, Broadcom, Arm Holdings, NGINX, Inc., and Mozilla Foundation. Panels frequently include contributors from academic and research institutions such as MIT, University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, ETH Zurich, and University of Cambridge.

History

Originally convened to complement larger events like LinuxCon and Kernel Summit, the conference emerged in 2010 as a focused forum for low-level coordination among teams driving projects hosted on kernel.org and governed by organizations such as The Linux Foundation and Linux Foundation Research. Early gatherings attracted maintainers from X.Org Foundation and contributors to Wayland and Mesa 3D Graphics Library, while subsequent years saw expanded participation from server and cloud operators including Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft Azure. Over time the event has run alongside or near conferences such as Open Source Summit, KubeCon, FOSDEM, OpenStack Summit, and DebConf, reflecting intersections with projects like Kubernetes, Ceph, Open vSwitch, and DPDK. Past locations have included major tech hubs and conference centers associated with San Diego Convention Center, Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Vancouver, Dublin, Tokyo Big Sight, and Prague.

Organization and Governance

Governance typically involves a program committee drawn from representatives of corporations, open-source projects, and foundations, including delegates from The Linux Foundation, Linaro, Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE, Intel Corporation, AMD, NVIDIA, and IBM. Technical stewardship arises from longstanding maintainers of Linux kernel subsystems, maintainers of glibc, systemd, and tooling projects like perf, bcc, and bpftrace. Sponsorship and venue partnerships often involve cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure), semiconductor firms (Broadcom, Qualcomm), and enterprise vendors (Oracle Corporation, Red Hat). Decisions on sessions, microconferences, and BoFs are coordinated through a call-for-proposals process that aligns with maintainer roadmaps from projects such as kernel.org, Wayland, Mesa 3D Graphics Library, QEMU, and KVM.

Topics and Tracks

Typical tracks address kernel subsystems including scheduler work, memory management disputes, I/O schedulers, device driver interfaces, power management with players like ACPI, real-time extensions informed by PREEMPT_RT, and networking stacks tied to Netfilter and DPDK. Graphics and display discussions intersect with Mesa 3D Graphics Library, Wayland', X.Org Foundation, DRM (Direct Rendering Manager), and GPU vendors such as NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel Corporation. Container and orchestration intersections include sessions that reference Kubernetes, Docker, CRI-O, containerd, and storage projects like Ceph and GlusterFS. Observability and tracing segments draw on eBPF, bcc, bpftrace, SystemTap, perf, and LTTng tooling. Security and cryptography conversations involve OpenSSL, GnuPG, SELinux, AppArmor, and hardware-backed features like TPM.

Participation and Attendance

Attendees range from individual maintainers and independent contributors to representatives of corporations such as Red Hat, Intel Corporation, Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, NVIDIA, AMD, Canonical, and SUSE. The conference encourages cross-project collaboration with participants from projects including kernel.org, glibc, systemd, Wayland', X.Org Foundation, Mesa 3D Graphics Library, QEMU, KVM, DPDK, Open vSwitch, and eBPF communities. Academic attendees from institutions like MIT, University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, and Carnegie Mellon University contribute research perspectives, while sponsors often include foundations and consortia such as The Linux Foundation, LF Networking, and Linaro.

Notable Outcomes and Impact

Outcomes frequently include coordinated roadmaps and consensus on ABI stability, kernel interfaces, and integration plans for projects like systemd, glibc, Wayland', Mesa 3D Graphics Library, eBPF, and DRM (Direct Rendering Manager). Historically, sessions have advanced upstream work affecting Linux kernel releases, influenced adoption of eBPF in observability stacks, clarified driver models used by NVIDIA and AMD, and shaped real-time efforts like PREEMPT_RT. Collaborative results have informed cloud infrastructure developed by Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft Azure, and contributed to improvements in virtualization stacks used by QEMU and KVM. The conference also serves as a nexus for standardizing interfaces referenced by distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora Project, openSUSE Project, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Category:Computer conferences