Torvalds on the Internet of Things: Security plays second fiddle
For the first time, Linus Torvalds has spoken at an embedded Linux conference, the Linux Foundation's 2016 Embedded Linux Conference & OpenIoT Summit.
It's not that embedded Linux hasn't been important before. Your DVRs and Wi-Fi routers almost certainly run Linux. What has changed is that the Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming embedded Linux from being a topic only programmers could love to one everyone will be using soon.
This development caught Torvald, Linux's founder, by surprise -- 15 years ago. "I never see the entire chain running Linux. Twenty five years ago I started Linux wanting a workstation. From that to a server wasn't a surprise. There was no single point where I was surprised, but 15 years ago I started seeing these odd, embedded systems. The first one that really caught my eye was a gas pump running Linux."
