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 Cam ...

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

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa The Scuola Normale Superiore (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. Together with the University of Pi ...

and obtained a PhD from the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa (, UniPi) is a public university, public research university in Pisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Together with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced S ...

, before becoming tenured professor at the

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

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, then professor at the Paris 7 University. 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 ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and

Free Software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

users and is also known for his support of the

Open Source Software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

movement. He became famous after releasing a paper criticizing

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, 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, 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 that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

(2000 to 2002), demolinux, 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 computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

without setting up the entire distribution. He was one of the founders, and the first president, of the Open Source Thematic Group within the Systematic innovation cluster. Di Cosmo is a member of the Board of Trustees at the IMDEA Software Institute.IMDEA Software Board of Trustees
On June 30, 2016,

Inria The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name French Institute for Research in Comp ...

announced the creation of the Software Heritage 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)