Thank you for attending the first ever Linux Plumbers conference. We are so glad you could come. Last July, during one of our monthly Portland linux community beerings, we were griping about how difficult it was to solve system level problems due to a lack of communication between projects - particularly for problems that cross the user space and kernel boundaries. After enough whining and beer, it occurred to us that we actually had the ability to do something about this, and so we decided to put on a conference who's goal was to bring people together who are working on the infrastructure of the Linux system, put them together in a room and force them to talk to each other. Luckily, it still seemed like a good idea after the beer wore off.

The format of this conference is a little different. We have a 10 micro-conferences - each run by a different person. The microconf content was determined by the runner. Some microconf runners chose to simply have a series of talks, and others will be more of a roundtable discussion. Each one will likely be slightly different. Please let us know what works and what doesn't. In addition, we have a track of unrelated talks that don't fit into any of our microconfs. I want to thank Andy Grover our program chair and all the program committee members and microconf runners for putting together this exciting program. Thanks Andy. And because we know we can't think of everything, we have a bunch of open rooms available for you to schedule your own talks, or schedule a BOF. There's a signup sheet in the back with the rooms that are available and their capacity(?).

I want to extend my thanks to some people - without whom we would not be able to be here. Firstly, I want to thank the Linux Foundation for agreeing to shepherd this conference - without the help of the Linux Foundation, and particularly Amanda and Angela we would never have been able to pull this off. Next I want to thank Portland State University for hosting this conference. They have always been an important part of the Portland Open Source community, and they have been a true collaborator in this project - not only as our hosts, but as volunteers as well. I want to thank the sponsors who took a risk on a first time conference - Our Platinum sponsors Intel and IBM, our Gold sponsor NetApp, and our Silver Sponsors HP, Google, Montavista, and SanDisk. In particular, our Platinum sponsors Intel and IBM not only put their money where their mouths are when it comes to supporting Linux, they have sent volunteers to help us during the conference - you'll see them wandering around with the funny hats on. A large group of volunteers have donated countless hours of work all year to seeing this conference through - and although there's no way to adequately thank them, I want to thank all the volunteers who have helped us get here today.

Tess Stewart, who has organized all the logistics for this conference has a few logistical things to tell you about before we get to the keynote.

Mention the bike stuff - introduce Deepak and Mark. Introduce Sri.

Mention the wireless stuff