Linuxworld Expo Wrapup 74
I was at the Expo on Thursday and Friday. Some of my impressions of the conference:
It's getting more business-y and less geeky every year. There are a lot of reasons for that, and it isn't all bad, but it's still vaguely sad to see.
HP and IBM accounted for about half the floor space - seriously. The Expo promoters must have played the two companies off against each other as far as conference participation went, and besides the large areas devoted to these companies, there were other large sections that were intended to represent an average company solving all its problems with Linux - these areas were jointly sponsored by HP, IBM and the other big companies at Linuxworld. It was - quite - as if the entire conference was owned by IBM and HP, but it was pretty close.
There was virtually no BSD presence. I think I saw some NetBSD people - that was it.
The .org pavilion is still going strong - while the rest of the conference is getting more business-oriented (fewer engineers and more salesdrones), the non-profit free and open source software area is still sizable and well-attended.
There were fewer "check out our neat new hardware gadget running Linux" booths and more "buy an expensive rack server running Linux from us" booths.
Linux.conf.au sucked a fair number of the geekiest attendees away from LWCE. Okay, the Australian conference is a lot smaller, but it's still dumb to schedule them simultaneously.
A Trend With Expos (Score:4, Insightful)
Pictures??? LAME!!! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Pictures??? LAME!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Some pics:
http://www.thetechzone.com/display.php?i=165&p =1 [thetechzone.com]
Small article then lots of pics (some cute some HORRENDOUS):
http://www.graphicpower.com/showreports/boothbabe
More babe lovin':
http://www.psillustrated.com/e3_2000/babes_report
And last, a short documentary on booth babes:
http://www.gamesfirst.com/articles/shawn/boothbab
Enjoy!
Re:Pictures??? LAME!!! (Score:2)
Stallman in a bikini would be an improvement over some of those unshaven he-shes.
Urghughggughhhh
Re:Pictures??? LAME!!! (Score:1)
Re:Pictures??? LAME!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pictures? Fester runs Linux!!! (Score:1)
http://www.osw.ca -- Open Source Weekend (Score:2, Informative)
How dare! (Score:5, Funny)
The Backrub Booth! This was the BEST part of the whole show! For $15 I got an amazing backrub by a woman named Ebony
Ebony!! Fucker thats my wife!!
Re:How dare! (Score:1, Redundant)
Recap ... (Score:5, Interesting)
No presence from BSD??? Well no shit, guess what, BSD isn't another linux distro, they are in fact their own operating systems, that they only thing they have in common with linux is some of the same software runs on both systems. BSD does not "sellout" and doesn't have a buncha weirdo zealots running around claiming it is going to replace windows.
As far as expo's go, they're a good thing, but they only help to get the word out, not much more. Most everything covered at the expo was already known facts that were resaid to the public.
Zuh... (Score:1, Funny)
Ask Slashdot Answers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ask Slashdot Answers? (Score:5, Informative)
Today is Sunday in the U.S. It is not Monday or Tuesday. I will post those answers Monday or Tuesday.
(sigh)
- Robin
Re:Ask Slashdot Answers? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ask Slashdot Answers? (Score:1)
" I'll have time to type up the answers over the weekend and post them Monday or Tuesday."
Translation: I am too busy selling a truckload of mousemats, coffee mugs, keyrings, cuddly penguin toys and other assorted expo detritus on eBay.
Hm!
T&K.
Where's XFree86 4.3.0? (Score:4, Informative)
The XFree86 website is intentionally cryptic about such plans to keep people like me from -expecting- it on such-and-such a date.
Let's hear from people in the know!
Re:Where's XFree86 4.3.0? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's XFree86 4.3.0? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm looking forward to the animated cursors myself, Jimmac has made some really nice ones
Future of expo? (Score:1)
.
Sheesh, barf me (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need mansions or yachts to feel good about ourselves. Maybe one reason we don't need money as much as some people is that we save a bunch by using Free and/or Open Source software...
On the other hand, I don't need a vow of poverty to feel good about myself. Man, overcompensating a little about your apparently humble existence? Nothing wrong with that, of course, but throwing your "less rich than thou" attitude in people's faces is just as bad as throwing financial success in people's face.
Just for the record, the amount of money you earn -- either a huge amount or a small amount -- is absolutely no direct measurement of one's character. Apparently Miller believes it is.
Re:Sheesh, barf me (Score:4, Funny)
I'm just tired of the idjit "You must be getting paid off by Microsoft!!!" accusations we get every time we so much as mention that company's name. It has been especially fierce lately because of their presence at LinuxWorld and the fact that we (gasp!) have dared to write about it.
My point (which you apparently didn't notice as it flew over your head) was not to play holy over income or lack thereof, but to slam in the idea that no, we are not only not paid by Microsoft to write about them, but that we don't have enough financial need to be susceptible to bribery if they offered, which they haven't.
Not that I expect you to believe any of this, since this is exactly what you'd expect a paid Microsoft flog to say, isn't it?
Whoops! Gotta go! I had more to say, but Chairman Bill is paging me. Maybe he wants to pay me $20,000 to write an article about how Microsoft's SQL server is so much more secure than PostGres.
(The preceding paragraph is a JOKE. I say this in case any Slashdot readers forgot to wear their aluminum foil deflector beanies [zapatopi.net] today and have had their senses of humor deactivated by CIA mind control rays.)
- Robin
Re:Sheesh, barf me (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I expect you to believe any of this, since this is exactly what you'd expect a paid Microsoft flog to say, isn't it?
What the hell? I didn't say anything about Microsoft. Look, you started with (reasonably) trying to state that you aren't paid by Microsoft. OK, fine, point accepted. But then you went off on this tangent about somehow that making a low enough amount of money somehow shields you from taking money from Microsoft (seems like the opposite would be true to me, but moving on...). My point is that the amount of money you make has nothing to do with your ethics, and bringing that into the discussion to prove something proves nothing. Ethics is the question, not income.
I'm just tired of the idjit "You must be getting paid off by Microsoft!!!" accusations we get every time we so much as mention that company's name.
Everyone who matters with an ounce of sense knows that it's absurd that you would be getting paid by Microsoft. They are saying that basically to troll. In any case, ethics can only be proved by past actions, so personally I wouldn't waste time trying to "prove" it.
Anyway, I accept that perhaps I misinterpreted what you wrote, but I think my point is valid.
OpenSource in the White House? (Score:4, Funny)
And then it will turn out that they were accidentally released under the BSD licence, they'll get sued for acting wrongly!
-Mark
The Best Part of Linux World (Score:2)
Open Source Massage! (Score:2)
Linux World Expo must have been a cool party.
Debian Expo. (Score:4, Informative)
here [debianplanet.com] and
here [debconf.org]
NetBSD @ LW (Score:3, Informative)
NetBSD did have a booth there.. (Score:2)
Interest in the NetBSD Project was certainly high, and we received numerous curious questions, ranging from the unavoidable ``So, ugh, what kernel version does your distribution include? 2.4?''
Did anyone come up to check for a pulse? (Score:1, Funny)
Audio Interviews (Score:2)
Nothing fantastic but it's nice to hear people talking about things rather than reading it.
Re:Audio Interviews (Score:1)
The site is here [80.225.36.237] for a few hours.
Way to endorse MS (Score:5, Insightful)
I see the trend here lately is to bash people who bash MS. Well maybe sometimes that's called for. Let's not forget the facts though, Microsoft is literally trying to wipe linux from the face of the earth.(I'd like to see someone argue with that fact) This award will only help them in that endevor, thus I think my calling them morons is in this case justified.
BTW incase anyone notices, I posted something similar at the newsforge site but it might not show up , so I reposted here.
Re:Way to endorse MS (Score:2, Interesting)
OK.
Linux, in its current form, is MS's best way to solve its two biggest problems.
Firstly, if a significant share of the "wintel" market goes to Linux, MS will no longer be a monopoly--and can go back to doing whatever cuthroat things it wants to for another twenty years, without the government having cause to intervene and tell it to stop being evil.
Secondly, the presence of a free Linux gives it an escape vector to channel software pirates to. If MS _really_ wanted to wipe Linux from the world, they could simply cut the prices on their OS distributions for home users to $25 a pop, which would effectively kill of piracy of windows.
The really nice bit is that Linux / OpenOffice / KOffice provide MS with all of the beneifts of serious competition without any of the real competition. (When was the last time that you saw a Linux flyer in the mail?) There are all sorts of innovative ideas that Linux software comes up with, and MS can steal and benefit from them as much as they benefit from MS.
In short: MS benefits from Linux as much as Intel benefits from AMD, and wiping it out is far, far more trouble than it's worth. MS just wants to marginalize Linux so it can maximize its profit margin, and let Linux & Apple fill in the rest.
Plus, MS knows that Linux is better in some situations, and supports it. Heck, my webpage runs on Frontpage under Linux!
Re:Way to endorse MS (Score:2)
Microsoft only has the chance to do evil things because it is a monopoly, and anyway it's not like they are unduly worried about what the US govt says or thinks. They've been told to stop being evil many times, and so far haven't shown many signs of slowing down.
Secondly, the presence of a free Linux gives it an escape vector to channel software pirates to. If MS _really_ wanted to wipe Linux from the world, they could simply cut the prices on their OS distributions for home users to $25 a pop, which would effectively kill of piracy of windows.
Other than the fact that $25 is still $25 higher than Windows (and many, many people get windows "for free"), I think that'd do jack all to stop Linux. Very few people I know use Linux because it's cheap. In fact I know quite a few who have spent more on distros than they would have ever done on Windows. Maybe for corporates that'd make a difference, but if they slashed the price of Windows what funds all their other loss-making ventures?
The really nice bit is that Linux / OpenOffice / KOffice provide MS with all of the beneifts of serious competition without any of the real competition. (When was the last time that you saw a Linux flyer in the mail?)
Huh? How does that work? If anything that description would apply to Apple which is firmly under Microsofts thumb, and couldn't get high market share anyway due to not using commodity hardware. People are indeed switching all the way from Windows to Linux, and the assault on the corporate desktop is probably going to begin in about a year, at which point there will be no doubt that it's real competition.
Note that how many flyers you receive isn't a good way to measure competition. The home user desktop is still a few years away yet.
In short: MS benefits from Linux as much as Intel benefits from AMD, and wiping it out is far, far more trouble than it's worth.
A monopoly is about the most valuable thing you can have. Anyway, if they weren't interested in wiping it out why all the anti-GPL rhetoric earlier? Why have they been going around telling people Linux might open them up to patent lawsuits?
Microsoft are printing cash in the current situation, and almost certainly don't want to see the status quo end after so long.
Plus, MS knows that Linux is better in some situations, and supports it. Heck, my webpage runs on Frontpage under Linux!
No, I'm sure any MS rep would tell you Windows 2000 would make a far better server platform. The reason you can do that is because Linux is a force in the server world that's stronger than FrontPage is in the client world. So it'd be a case of "You can't use FrontPage for this, our servers run Linux", "Oh well". They support Passport on Linux/Apache as well, doesn't mean they like it, only that they can see it makes business sense.
So really there are three possible futures. In the first one, Microsoft fights Linux to the last and is destroyed. In the second, Microsoft isn't destroyed but merely recedes into the sunset, like IBM in the PC market. In the third, they succesfully make the transition to writing software for Linux and stick around (though not as a monopoly).
Re:Way to endorse MS (Score:1)
MS has been doing evil things for a long, long time. The monopoly only keeps those who dislike their evil from finding an equally viable alternative (though Openoffice is, praise be to the coders, just about what I want. Developer build 643 fixed the last major bug, and once it rolls into 1.1 I can learn to live without Word's Outline View.)
Other than the fact that $25 is still $25 higher than Windows (and many, many people get windows "for free"), I think that'd do jack all to stop Linux.
I didn't say stop Linux, I said stop Windows piracy. $100 for the right to install Windows on a second PC is too much. $25 is just about right.
Huh? How does that work? If anything that description would apply to Apple which is firmly under Microsofts thumb, and couldn't get high market share anyway due to not using commodity hardware.
The benefits of competition for anyone are a drive to improve their product--and in the case of noncopyrightable nonpatentable ideas, a way to get new ideas and yet another source of feedback on the UI.
OpenOffice has some elements of it that are simply better than Word--I haven't used it extensively, and I can tell that. The UI folks at MS are probably looking over every new Word Processor, to see what the "scratch and itch" coders of Linux think should be done differently (and how well their changes work.)
A monopoly is about the most valuable thing you can have.
No, it isn't. Monopolies bring regulation and obstruction and resentment. The most valuable business line is a product that is capitalistically better than anything else in the market--but isn't a monopoly.
Anyway, if they weren't interested in wiping it out why all the anti-GPL rhetoric earlier? Why have they been going around telling people Linux might open them up to patent lawsuits?
Because the GPL works against them--and it isn't a core part of Linux. If MS got the GPL outlawed, it'd take all of a month for Linux to be re-released under a new license.
Also, MS is trying to marginalize / minimize Linux--but that's not equal to wiping it from the face of the Earth.
No, I'm sure any MS rep would tell you Windows 2000 would make a far better server platform
And when the client says "I run two webservers and your OS license is too much", they'll likely say something like "well, if you really want to run the risk of X, X, and X, we'll help you by doing Y."
But what sales reps say and what the company knows are two entirely different things.
Yeah well.. LCA rocked :) (Score:2)
There was a LCA dinner.. one person wore a suit, and he was a lawyer, so no-one complained
If I had my choice again, I still would have gone to LCA.
Question ? (Score:2)
photos? (Score:2)
(mumbles) if I find one, I promise I'm posting it here.
--T.
linux.conf.au (Score:2, Insightful)
It cost us getting Maddog Hall, and it cost LinuxWorld a lot of very cool people, but you can find out about them on your own.