DreamWorks wins an award for its innovative use of Linux
Linux (and principally Red Hat Enterprise Linux) has become the primary production platform for the animation industry, largely due to the engineering efforts of DreamWorks. Behind that effort sits Ed Leonard, chief technology officer at DreamWorks, who has been recognized for his work with an Annie Award for "promoting the Linux open system for animation in animation studios and gaming software development."
I first met Ed back in 2004 while still at Novell. I was trying to dislodge Red Hat within DreamWorks. Needless to say, I failed. :-)
Ed was a director back then. He's since become DreamWorks' CTO, largely due to the innovative work he has done with HP and Red Hat to make Linux a star in the animation industry. In turn, this work has made Linux better for all of us, wherever we sit in the computing industry.
I, too, want to thank Ed Leonard for his contributions to Linux. Ed demonstrates the power and value of open-source software. He doesn't have to write code to have a tremendous impact on Linux and open source. Sometimes it's how customers choose to deploy open source and drive its creators to improve upon it that make the best contributions of all.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
