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Wrap-up of LinuxWorld 35

Posted by Hemos from the rolling-it-all-up dept.
Having finally flown back home, recovered from the gain/loss of sleep, time zones, and of course, the obligatory luggage being lost, we're trying to wrap-up the latest installment of LinuxWorld. If you are interested in some commentary and stories coming out of LWCE, click below.
The big issue of LWCE was something that didn't occur even in the same state as the show. The Red Hat IPO, complete with lotsa confusion and news went up, and showed that, yes, Wall Street is interested in Linux.

One of the more interesting commentaries brought up the newest Linux Spokesperson-Casper Weinberger. Yes, the former Secretary of Defense is an Open Source guy. Strange. It also brings up the living penguins that were on the show floor. I dunno-it still seems to me that live animals on a show floor has to be tantamount of animal abuse, under some sort of law.

A number of good interviews came out of the show - one with RMS where he talks about the whole GNU/Linux thing, Communism. The interview is done in the inimitable Stallman style, so...be warned. *grin* In a parellel vein, ESR talked with ZD, foretelling amongst other things, the downfall of Microsoft and FUD issues. MSNBC did a nice story on Gnome, giving it some of the props needed. The KDE folks were also at the shows, with some nice displays at their screen in the booth.

We spent almost every waking moment in the .Org pavilion, a scary sort of place with furniture with no back support, and lots of people wandering through. Included amongst these people was no less then three documentary film crews. I think two+ is a sign that a movement has reached commericial mainstream. So, uh, congrats to....someone.

Some great picture shots came in - thanks, as always, to Marc Merlins' wrap-up complete with some good shots. Marc's, as always, is incredible comprehensive. Read it. If you want some shots of .Org pavilion, the Slashdot party (Woo-hoo! Good beer! *grin* ), check out Joey Hess' page. HUGE # of pictures, and still more going up.

The show was fun. Lotsa people who we don't get to see, except at the conventions. The commericial element was stronger then at the last show, but I think it was evident that the companies attending understood that they at least needed to give a nod to the feelings of the Community. This being the 2nd round of a show this size, I think the initial glamour of "Woo! Big Show!" is wearing off, and people are getting to work at these. It makes things a little less glamourous, but what the attendees/exhibitors of the show did see is that Linux is something to be taken seriously. Every major media outlet had people there, warndering the floor, and media like CNN ran pieces about it during the show. With the first IPO under its' belt, the establishment of several major shows, and major vendors established on the scene, I think Linux continued success looks good.
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Wrap-up of LinuxWorld More

Wrap-up of LinuxWorld

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  • I headed up to SJ looking for a few things at LW.

    Now understand that I am not a vaunted IS 'professional', I run engineering for a large multi-national entertainment company. So you'll pardon (or minimally flame) any linux newbie comments.

    What I was looking for:

    1) Video post-production software
    2) file servers speaking NFS, NT, & Netware
    3) simple webservers that would slip under IS radar (read RAS)

    Well, I was both impressed and disappointed. Items 2 and 3 were there in abundance, but 1 was nowhere to be found. I guess we need to convince Adobe to put Premire and such on linux.

    Basically, it seemed that the hardware, coding tools, and office-type software were well represented. The high end database stuff from Oracle, Sun, etc. were all there too. Too bad I don't care about RDBS (whatever that is). The guys at Oracle and IBM love it. We actually spent more time in IBM's booth looking at the large flat screen displays than listen to the sales pitch.

    While GIMP is sweet, it cannot be substituted for highend production graphics and video tools that exist in Mac & NT. I'm sure they will be there eventually (considering SGI's promises..) but they don't seem to be there yet.

    Same thing when looking for a linux version of Autocad. This type of 'industrial strength' software that cost upwards of three grand a copy doesn't seem to exist in linux yet. Once that happens, guys like me can start signing the purchase orders and get the money flowing to linux friendly companies.

    Comments? Flames?
  • We shipped some of the extra cd's back from the show. If you send me your contact info. I'll see that you receive one. Send your info. to: kathleen_moran@idg.com.

  • Wish I could've been there... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But I suppose that reading about it is second best, no? Any idea of Linux-type conferences going on in the Northern Arizona/Southern Utah area?

  • congrats to... (Score:3)

    by Erich ( 151 ) on Monday August 16, 1999 @04:44AM (#1745069) Homepage Journal
    I think two+ is a sign that a movement has reached commericial mainstream. So, uh, congrats to....someone.

    The congrats goes to us. Every one of us who has written a patch, reported a bug, advocated using linux in the right place. Every one of us who has written up some documentation or helped a friend do an install. Every one of us who answers newsgroup posts or ask slashdot posts.

    Many of us have put effort into Linux (and free software in general), and we are seeing people take notice. We have built it, now they are coming. And as corporations start to use our software, they will need their own itch scratched, and Free Software will continue to grow and become stronger and more flexible.

    The other day my friend showed me a really nifty piece of software called podfuk. It basically (so far as I can tell) combines vfs libraries from Midnight Commander and the CODA filesystem... so you can cd into tar files or ftp sites, and the actual work is done in userspace. It's a very, very elegant hack, and I think it is exemplary of the quality and flexibility of the software that we have. I don't even want to think of how you could do that on an NT or Mac machine.

    So, give yourself a pat on the back. We've come a long way. And we are getting the fame that we crave.

    Now, get back to work. We still have lots to do.

  • I think that Rob and the gang have done an incredible job keeping us up to date on what's been happening at the various trade shows. For someone who can't be there, it is a real blessing. However, I cannot help but point out one piece of news that you guys seemed to have left out this year. The coverage was great, but there's one important thing that has been on the minds of geeks everywhere - which RedHat employee got to sleep with Mae Ling Mack this year?

  • There are rumors of an Expo in Colorado next year.
  • This grammar sucks. Anyone want to volunteer to work as editor for the mighty /.?

    I'll do it. I'm mean, tho. :)

    --
    Blue
  • Does anyone know how to purchase a binder (or CD) full of the presentations that were used at the conference? In true free software / open source fasion, such information should be freely available, but I am willing to pay!

    thanks,
    phil

  • The other day my friend showed me a really nifty piece of software called podfuk. It basically (so far as I can tell) combines vfs libraries from Midnight Commander and the CODA filesystem... so you can cd into tar files or ftp sites, and the actual work is done in userspace. It's a very, very elegant hack, and I think it is exemplary of the quality and flexibility of the software that we have. I don't even want to think of how you could do that on an NT or Mac machine.

    Actually, Internet Explorer 5.0 introduced a new concept called "Web Folders" (I think). Web Folders allow you to view FTP sites just like any local (or LAN) resource. It's not fully integrated into the system -- it just pops up that type of a window when you enter a FTP URL. But it seems to work, reasonably well. (It seems exceptionally slow, but that may just be due to my connection speed.)

    Aren't there some third-party applications available for Windows which allow you to view zipped archives just like you described for Linux? I think I've used one in the past, but I don't remember how well it worked.

    Ryan
    Another Linux enthusiast...

  • My biggest recommendation is. KEEP SOMEONE in the office :) It was pretty dissapointing to only have 1-2 new articles a day, the server crash and images not show up for almost a week.

    I know being "Slashdot" is fun, but like any business you have to have someone around to run the darn thing. Remotely Working works for reading emails and stuff, but you can't expect a server to run by itself or to be able to fix problems remotely.

    other then that, congrats on the expo! wish i could have been there to see it, but alas. i was working
  • ZDNN: So when will you consider that you've 'won'?

    Well, when Linux's server market share goes over fifty per cent -- or when Microsoft's stock price crashes, whichever comes first. And again let me interpret that: I'm not saying that Microsoft's stock price crashing is the goal, but when it does, the resistance to doing things right goes away.

    We're not taking seats away from Unix, and we're not particularly interested in taking seats away from Unix. Most of the surveys show we're taking seats away from NT -- and I believe Novell has taken a big hit. But we're not killing Solaris. That's OK -- we don't want to kill Solaris.

    Since when does Microsoft's stock price have anything to do with the technical goals of Linux? Does RedHat's fat stock increase "resistance" to commercial Unix?

    Also, "We're not taking seats away from Unix" !?
    The hell you're not. How ESR belives that a free unix is not going to take seats away from $$Unix is beyond me.

    "We don't want to kill Solaris" - I thought that creating an Open Source clone of Solaris was pretty much the primary design goal of Linux.



    --

  • Taking the /. crew to task (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, at least one media outlet (CNN?) complained about the behaviour of the Slashdotters, who appeared to be more engrossed in a Nerf shootout than in their interview. Sorry, guys, when you're on the exhibit floor, you are representatives of the developer/OSS/free software community whether you like it or not. There is a difference between childlike mirth and childlike rudeness and inattentiveness. By all means, cultivate the former, but save the latter for the after-party.
  • I may be wrong, but I remember something like this as one of the demos for userfs when it first came out (at least 2 years ago)... I may be wrong. Can anyone back this up?
  • You can get things in windows that add windows explorer capability for some different kinds of files -- including ftp and zip files. But it's not nearly so elegant... you have to use different programs for each type of thing you want to browse (rather than just link in a new library from MC) and my experience has been if you try to do things like open a zip file from an FTP site that things go haywire. I'm not sure that the system is actually implemented with real filehandles, either; it might just pass a temp file into the program. In any case, podfuk is really nifty and elegant. And I don't use windows enough to discuss the system-level details of the winzip or web folders extensions.

  • Stallman's best interview! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sounds like he has learned to live with the fact that Linux has become more well known than the GNU system. His message is important and nobody says it better than he does - he needs to continue doing that... I don't want to have to use MS Office.
  • Yeah, happened to me earlier too, but if you're reading this, it's ok now.
  • Rob shot me with a nerf dart!

    Ok, I think it was a nerf dart...

    ...that's really all I have to say...

    ...I need a life.
  • Hey,

    We're hackers not PR agents. The .org booth was decked out in a very relaxed style, and a very relaxed attiti=ude. Linux shows won't run like Comdex... (at least not the .org area). I saw Rob and many others give serious interviews.. if CNN is upset then they need to learn the new proceedure.

    Besides... Debian had the stockpile of weapons... the rest of us there were defending ourselves ;-0
  • Keep your eye on SGI!!! Remember, they've announced that they're moving to Linux EOF... so my guess is that a prot of their software can't be far behind....

  • Hypocrisy from ESR (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From the top of my head (not exact quotes):
    "We don't want to kill Solaris"
    "We want to kill NT"
    What the hell is the difference? They look both non-open-source to me. Or is it just because one of them is a Unix which is his favorite operating system?
    He says early on in the article that defeating Microsoft
    is not a primary goal, but providing good reliable software is,
    yet the rest of it is about terrorizing the PR agency, bringing Microsoft's stock price down or Linux programmers will be more
    clueful than MSCEs...

    He also claims to speak for everyone by the use of phrases like "I don't think anyone will argue with this..." when discussing his strategy for defeating MS.

  • Well, Linux might not be competitive with Sun/Solaris server systems yet, but it Linux on commodity x86 systems certainly competes favorably with Sun's (and HP, IBM, etc.) traditional Unix workstation business. SGI has figured this out, which is why they're moving away from Irix/MIPS workstations and towards Linux/x86.

    In fact, I would guess that most real Linux desktop deployments (aka real work, and not futzing with HTTP/MP3/IRC) are at the expense of a commercial Unix vendor, and not at the expense of Windows NT.
    --
  • I know that Linux Central gave away a cdrom with some of the presentations(in html) on it along with the LDP, Linux Gazette and other stuff.
  • I know, I was there- and he was doing his "GNU/Linux" spiel again whilst accepting the IDG Linus Torvalds community award.
  • They were giving them away all three days
    of the expo. Perhaps LinuxCentral will be offering the things (with some completions- the CDs have some awfully annoying gaps in the coverage of content from the presentations!) for something like $2 + s&h.
  • Maybe posted articles would first go through some sort of editorial server which would assign articles to a group of editors who would do minor corrections, or consult with the author for clarification, whichever is necessary. Then the editors could pass the corrected articles back to the editorial server which would post the article, perhaps after getting an "OK" signal from the original poster. Maybe the server would automatically post articles that didn't get any editorial attention within some time threshold, in case editors are (or become) unavailable.

    OK, who wants to write the server??

  • The other day my friend showed me a really nifty piece of software called podfuk. It basically (so far as I can tell) combines vfs libraries from Midnight Commander and the CODA filesystem... so you can cd into tar files or ftp sites

    Windows Commander (www.ghisler.com [ghisler.com]) does all that. It's the only thing that allows me to keep my sanity in windows. It does all of the major archive formats (except bzip). PKZip, tar, and gzip/compress is implemented internally, and most other formats work provided you have the proper commandline software (rar, arj, uc2, ace, etc). It even performs "magic" (as in the file command) to determine archive types, so you can cd into a zip file even if it was accidentally named with any other extension. It does ftp vfs as well, and it does that quite well. It's improved on the MC way of doing it, too. Ctrl-F does it. MC's way kind of annoys me, especially if you mistype the site name and have to wait for it to figure out the site is down (though I've taken to just killing it nowadays).

    I was thinking of making my own similar file manager for KDE, based more on Windows Commander with some MC things thrown in like file colourisation.

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