Jim Gettys
Jim Gettys | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 15, 1953 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. in Earth and Planetary Sciences) |
| Occupation(s) | Computer programmer, software engineer |
| Known for | X Window System, X.Org, One Laptop per Child, HTTP/1.1 editor, bufferbloat research |
Jim Gettys (born October 15, 1953) is a prominent American computer programmer recognized for his influential role in advancing software engineering and enhancing Internet efficiency.
Activity
Gettys was employed at the Cambridge Research Laboratory of DEC and played a foundational role in creating the X Window System during his time at MIT. He later contributed to the development of X.Org, where he held a position on the board of directors.
Up until January 2009, he served as Vice President of Software at the One Laptop per Child initiative, concentrating on software development for the OLPC XO-1. Between 2009 and 2014, Gettys was part of the team at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs.
He co-established a research group dedicated to studying bufferbloat and its detrimental effects on Internet performance, maintaining an active role from 2010 through 2017. His efforts strongly promoted the adoption of fair queuing and active queue management, with particular emphasis on RFC8290.
Gettys has been a member of the GNOME foundation board and contributed to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) by editing the HTTP/1.1 protocol specification within the framework of the Internet Engineering Task Force.
He was instrumental in founding handhelds.org, which supports Linux development for handheld devices. During his tenure at OLPC, Gettys focused on enhancing conventional Linux applications to improve speed, reduce memory consumption, and increase power efficiency, challenging prevailing programming assumptions regarding memory versus computational trade-offs.
Gettys earned a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT in Earth and Planetary Sciences (course 12 — EAPS).
Awards
In recognition of his contributions to HTTP/1.1, Gettys was honored with the Internet Plumber of the Year award in 1997. Additionally, he is a representative for The X Window System Community as a custodian of the Flame, which is USENIX's Lifetime Achievement Award received in 1999.
External links
- Jim Gettys' homepage at Handhelds.org
- jg's ramblings (Gettys' blog where bufferbloat issues were initially revealed)
- bufferbloat.net (ongoing research on bufferbloat)
- The X Window System, Version 11 (November 1990)
- The (Re)Architecture of the X Window System (July 2004)
- Network Performance Effects of HTTP/1.1, CSS1, and PNG (June 1997)
- Pages with script errors
- Articles with short description
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- Living people
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
- Free software programmers
- X Window System people
- American computer programmers
- Hewlett-Packard people
- Linux people
- 1953 births