User:Jayvdb/Saved pages/Val Henson

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Valerie Henson (also known as Val Henson) is a programmer who has made minor contributions to the Linux and Solaris kernels. She is also a writer and an activist for women in computing.

Contents

[edit] Computing

Henson received two Bachelor of Science degrees from New Mexico Tech in 1999 and is currently employed by Intel as a software engineer. Former employers include Sun Microsystems, Synergy Microsystems (now part of Curtiss-Wright) and IBM.

Henson has contributed to both the Linux kernel and Sun Solaris operating systems. Major contributions include:

  • being part of the team that designed and implemented the ZFS filesystem for Solaris[1];
  • co-invention of chunkfs;
  • maintaining the Gemini (PowerPC variant) sub-architecture of Linux[2]; and
  • maintaining several Linux network drivers.

Other Linux kernel patches include contributions to TCP/IP, PowerPC, interrupt handling and the ext2 file system in Linux.

Henson also writes and presents on kernel-related topics, having given talks at the Ottawa Linux Symposium 2002[2] and OSCON 2006[1] conferences among others. Henson organised the first Linux File Systems Workshop in 2006.

[edit] Women in computing

Henson has been active in the LinuxChix community since 2001, and as the creator of and one of the ongoing moderators of the grrls-only mailing has been one of the key volunteers in the community.[1] In addition Henson is actively mentoring women with careers in computing, advising on negotiation and career tactics.[2]

[edit] Selected bibliography

  • Valerie Henson, 2006. The Kernel Hacker's Bookshelf, lwn.net. [3] [4] [5] [6]
  • Jenn Vesperman and Val Henson, 2004. Building and Maintaining an International Volunteer Linux Community, UseLinux '04. [7]
  • Val Henson, 2003. An analysis of compare by hash, Hot Topics in Operating Systems 2003 [8]. This paper has led to a rebuttal:
    • John Black, 2006. Compare-by-Hash: a reasoned analysis, USENIX Annual Technical Conference--Systems and Experience Track, USENIX 2006 [9] [10]
    • Val Henson and Richard Henderson, 2004, "Guidelines for using compare-by-hash", [11]
  • Val Henson, 2002. HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux, The Linux Documentation Project. [12]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Val Henson Bio as speaker at O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2006
  2. ^ a b Val Henson Bio as speaker at Ottawa Linux Symposium 2002

[edit] External links

Category:Solaris people Category:Linux kernel hackers Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing