Stream: Open Mainframe Project
Time: 12:00 - 12:45
In the spirit of open collaboration, major Linux distributions—Fedora, openSUSE, and Debian—have joined forces within the Open Mainframe Project to form the Linux Distributions Working Group. Their mission: to streamline and unify support for the s390x architecture across distributions. What began as a bold idea has grown into a thriving, cross-community effort, now also including SUSE, Canonical (Ubuntu), AlmaLinux, and Rocky Linux. This talk explores how these diverse communities are working together to maintain and improve the mainframe ports with support, sharing patches, coordinating development, and building common tests for using openQA. By aligning efforts, they support each other, accelerate innovation, and ensure that all distributions benefit from collaboration leading to robust, consistent support for IBM Z systems. Attendees will gain insights into the practical benefits of this collaboration, the challenges faced, and how open source principles are driving real-world impact in the Linux ecosystem. Whether you're a developer, sysadmin, or architect, this session will show how cooperation across traditional boundaries is shaping the future of Linux on the mainframe.
There is currently no attachment for Harmonizing Mainframe Ecosystems with a Collaboration Among Linux Distributions
Sarah Julia Kriesch is working as a Senior Lead, Mainframe Architect (Open Source) at Kyndryl. She is studying her Master in Information Systems at the University of Bamerg in part-time. She is enthusiastic about Linux, open source in general and mainframe platform stuff. She is openSUSE Member and is contributing as a Release Engineer for the architecture s390x to openSUSE. She is also one Founder and Co-Chair of the Linux Distributions Working Group at the Open Mainframe Project. Sarah wants to bring all Linux Distributions together for achieving collaboration, better support (for all) and better solutions (for all usable).
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