Roberto Di Cosmo is an italian computer scientist and director of

IRILL The Innovation and research initiative for free software (, IRILL) is a French research center. This centre was created in September 2010 by INRIA with Pierre and Marie Curie University and Paris Diderot University and is located on the Jussieu Camp ...

, the Innovation and research initiative for free software (). He graduated from the

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. It was founded in 1810 wi ...

and obtained a PhD from the University of Pisa, before becoming tenured professor at the

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, then professor at the

Paris 7 University Paris Diderot University, also known as Paris 7 (french: Université Paris Diderot), was a French university located in Paris, France. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 197 ...

. Since 2010, he has been director of the

. Di Cosmo was an early member of the AFUL, association of the French community of

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

Free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

users and is also known for his support of the Open Source Software movement. He became famous after releasing a paper criticizing

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

in 1998, entitled ''Piège dans le cyberespace'' ('' Hijacking the world, the dark side of Microsoft''). The future of Microsoft
,

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, 2 May 1999, retrieved 2011-07-12 Reviewed Work: Hijacking the World: The Dark Side of Microsoft by Dominique Nora, Roberto Di Cosmo, Kirk McElhearn Review by: Jack Kessler The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy Vol. 69, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 531-533
Co-written with the journalist

Dominique Nora "Dominique" is a 1963 French language popular song, written and performed by the Belgian female singer Jeannine Deckers, better known as Sœur Sourire ("Sister Smile" in French) or The Singing Nun. The song is about Saint Dominic, a Spanish-born ...

, this book is now available under the BY-NC-ND

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

licence. His most famous contribution to Linux is the first "live"

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

(2000 to 2002),

demolinux DemoLinux was one of the first Live CD Linux distributions. It was created by Roberto Di Cosmo, Vincent Balat and Jean-Vincent Loddo, in 1998. The DemoLinux CD was created to make it possible to use Linux without having to install it on the hard ...

, which made it possible to boot Linux from a

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

without setting up the entire distribution. He was one of the founders, and the first president, of the

Open Source Thematic Group Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001 * ''Open'' (YF ...

within the Systematic innovation cluster. Di Cosmo is a member of the Board of Trustees at the

IMDEA Software Institute IMDEA () is a project founded by the Madrid Regional Government, included in the ''IV Regional Plan of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation 2005-2008 (PRICIT)'', for the purpose of setting up advanced research centers and higher educati ...

.IMDEA Software Board of Trustees
On June 30, 2016, Inria announced the creation of the

Software Heritage Software Heritage provides a service for archiving and referencing historical and contemporary software with a focus on human readable source code. The site was unveiled in 2016 by Inria and is supported by UNESCO. The project itself is structu ...

initiative, which was conceived and is directed by Roberto Di Cosmo.

References

External links

Own Page
*

' free under licence CC-BY-NC-ND. Printed: Calmann-Levy 1998,
Demolinux

Interview of Roberto Di Cosmo in I-CIO, July 2009

{{DEFAULTSORT:Di Cosmo, Roberto Italian computer scientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)