Slashdot Mirror

Dear Slash-dot user,

As many of you already know, Andover.net, Slash-dot's publisher, was recently aquired by VA Linux Systems , the premier provider of Linux-based, high performance server solutions. I am taking this opportunity to personally welcome each and every Slash-dot user to the new VA-Andover.net team.

Over the next few months. our master developers will be working with the Andover.net and Slash-dot editorial staffs to improve this site with enhanced reliability and brand new features. VA has donated four StartX MP servers , "tweaked" by the expert engineers who build these systems, to make Slash-dot a faster and more reliable service for all. These systems will be integrated with the current Andover.net hardware as soon as April 2000; look for an annoucement to be posted on the front page!

Some users have expressed some concerns about VA's aquisition affecting the content of news released on Slash-dot. Not to worry, as this has already been discussed, and in 90% of cases the final editorial control will rest with Rob Malda, or as you know him, Captain Taco! :)

With over six years of experience in the Linux world, VA Linux Systems is well suited to help bring Slash-dot into the 21st Century and make it the first stop on the Net for Linux news and discussion! I'm looking forward to it!

Yours truly,

Larry M. Augustin
President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
VA Linux Systems

P.S. - In the next few weeks, look for links to special deals on VA Linux computers available only to Slash-dot readers! Just our way of welcoming our new team members!

Check this primo web page for unhealable deep cut discounts on cool computer equipment dood

man

And can Iget a copy of the VA Linux distribution for my computer at home?

Take a look here.

Surprise surprise, VA Linuxdot, err, Slashdot, bashes a different Linux distro.

Bzzzzzt!

VA Linux is not another distro. From their website:

VA Linux Systems Software Package v.6.0

Although we do not create our own distribution, VA optimizes the Linux kernel for each system type and includes the most popular Linux distributions preinstalled.

Yuppers. Suprised more people haven't noticed.

The VA Linux press release is over there. ANDN share prices have jumped through the roof on pre-trading, apparently.

...j

The receipe VA Linux + Xybernaut + Crusoe
would IMHO give birth to one of the hottest
markets for computing, the world has ever seen.

VA Linux would have the money, Xybernaut would
have the know how (and some nice patents) and
Transmeta would have the right piece of silicone.

Imagine a Linux powered wearable computer with
wireless connectivity to the Web. Any thoughts?

I'm amazed.

That's all there is to it.

For years, SGI has treated GL and then OpenGL as one of the crown jewels. Even the API exposed a lot of their hardware architecture. The source of OpenGL was what made those amazing framebuffers go. Now, to see Kurt Akeley going on about open source and releasing source to Open GL....

As far as I'm concerned, this is definitive proof that SGI has become as much an open source company as Red Hat or VA Linux.

Wasn't there like this dispute over www.linux.com. That Fred van Kempen (was it him, some Dutch guy?) eventually sold this domain for a lot of money.

And, if I remember right, there was quite a big difference between the amount he could have got and the amount he actually got.

--
See you at the LinuxWorld Expo!

A binary-only driver will be available with a shim to enable the interface with XFree.
It is our hope that the source will be releasedat some point, as we are actively promoting
the benefits of Open Source with the parties involved.

As an alternative to using the binary only driver we plan to qualify the GeForce with the
existing Open Source TnT driver. However there is a performance increase with
the binary-only nVidia driver.

It is my understanding that the drivers will be available free of charge. I don't have any
new information on the status of OpenGL.

Hope this helps to clarify exactly what is going on. If you have any further questions
please email me or Chris DiBona and we'll do our best to get answers for you.


--Kit
cosper@valinux.com

A binary-only driver will be available with a shim to enable the interface with XFree.
It is our hope that the source will be releasedat some point, as we are actively promoting
the benefits of Open Source with the parties involved.

As an alternative to using the binary only driver we plan to qualify the GeForce with the
existing Open Source TnT driver. However there is a performance increase with
the binary-only nVidia driver.

It is my understanding that the drivers will be available free of charge. I don't have any
new information on the status of OpenGL.

Hope this helps to clarify exactly what is going on. If you have any further questions
please email me or Chris DiBona and we'll do our best to get answers for you.


--Kit
cosper@valinux.com

I also wish there had been more push for make Linux x86 a better database server platform. Limitations that get in the way are:

• 15 partition limit should be raised to a 31 partition limit
• Support in the offical kernel for accessing raw partitions such as rawfs or char partition devices
• Support in the offical x86 kernel for file over 2 gigs

Another item is the ability to have multiple default routes and routing to the default route based on source ip address. Multi-homing on multiple Internet feeds just isn't any fun when all your outbound traffic goes through the same pipe regardless of where the request comes from.

Anyways, I look forward to the 2.5 developments. The 2.3 kernel series has been fun. :)

VA Linux offers free space for open source projects at The SourceForge. This should help a lot of open source projects to get better code, more developers, more recognoition and less hazzle. -- Dipl. Inf. (FH) Aaron "Optimizer" Digulla "(to) optimize: Make a program faster by improving the algorithms rather than by buying a faster machine."

Jon "Maddog" Hall != John T. Hall.

The fact that (maddog != JohnTHall) does not mean that (maddog.employer != VALinux). Jon Hall is "Director of Linux Evangelism" at VA Linux Systems; you can email him there at maddog@valinux.com.

A little background. I currently work for Intel/Linux.com (sponsord by VA), but I am giving my honest opinon. My views don't necessarily represent the views of Linux.com or Intel. =p This information is from experience at UCLA Medical with image reconstruction machines, which I hope closely resemble what you plan to do with your machines. I do recommend PIII-733s because they support SMPs. Athlons, though a great chip, don't run in SMP mode yet. Having two PIIIs in a box will make your data processing twice as fast if they have multiple data sets. We tested similar machines (in terms of cost) on a dataset that required both floating point and integer preformance, and found the Intel machine to be faster than Sun's offerings. Since they are only processing datasets, there is no need for "Enterprise Reliability." If something breaks, load the dataset again, and run it on a different machine. No harm done. I would recommend getting 2gB of RAM. Nothing like keeping the CPU fed with data to keep it happy. Having enough memory for the job comes in second, right after cpu speed in these situations. The RIMMs however, should be avoided at the moment because they haven't been throughly testing in production environments yet, and neither are the 840 chipsets, but if you're feeling lucky, by all means do it, and post back to /. with your experiences. =) You can drop the UltraIDE, since you won't need them. It will only add cost. Stay with Ultra Wide SCSI since SCSI-160 isn't fully tested or widely available. You video card is fine, but if you're really looking to save another 100 bux, turn it into a S3 (w/ 8mB of RAM to handle the resolution of a 21"). You can likewise drop the DVD/PCI Soundcard. There is no need for them in this type of machine. Forget the powered speakers. You can drop your LS120 disks too. Also, the 3com905b network card performs poorly under linux, and is outright unsupported in most cases. Other 3com PCI 100/10bt network cards are preferred, or the Intel Ethernet Express Pro 100/10 series network cards. If you need to transfer data sets, use the network. If you're looking for full service w/o the hassle, I've had great experiences with Penguin Computing and VA Linux.

• Penguin Computing
• VA Linux Systems
• ASL Workstations
• IBM

The first three companies are pure Linux. The fourth is getting good advice on Linux systems from people in the community.

You absolutely want as little variation on your hardware as possible with these machines. This will up the price of each machine. However, it will also make them easier to maintain, repair, upgrade and find drivers for. The additional expense pays off in the long run, if you are going to deploy thousands of these things. Make this a condition of your contract.

Personally, I say go with ASL, if only because they're nice guys.

NB- I don't work for any of these companies, even (as far as I know) indirectly.

Shares will officially in your the account on tuesday, the settlement date.

You can sell now if you like. Settlement date doesn't change that. To sell, you call the number in your packet, ask to talk to a broker, get the broker's name, tell them your sell order. They will probably hang up on you at this point and will call you back with a confirmation. This is how brokers are. This may seem rude, but it's how thier line of work works.

At the end of the day (After 5 pst probably) everyone will get an email confirming the deposit of the shares in the account. If you do not geta confirmation email by say 10pm pst, you have my permission to flip out and email me spaztically :-)

Please read your Q&A again, the bulk of the people calling are asking questions already asked in thier forms. Please RTM, you'll make this so much easier if you do.

Again, if you have questions , etc, email me chris@valinux.com. I will forward these on to the underwriter.

You are wasting peoples time if you send mail to me and the broker mulitple times. We are receiving the email, I assure you. Everyone that comes in must be checked against the lists we have and that takes a little while.

Happy holidays.

Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG

As you can expect, the underwriters are very busy taking and making confirmation calls. Don't worry about it, everyone will be contacted and every voice mail will be returned. we have 40 people on the phones at DBAB and they are all working as fast as they can.

If you are -hyper- paranoid about not getting through with your confirmation, feel free to email me at chris@valinux.com and I'll forward on your confirmation (if you are in the program only, of course) and answer any questions you might have.

Thanks!

Chris DiBona

--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG

Please note that they are -very- busy just answering confirmation phone calls and emails that are coming in preemptively. You won't be left in the cold. Most likely they are waiting to send out a batch of email verifying your confirmation.

Chris

--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG

The 32-bit Pentium seems to be at the end of its useful life and the Itanium is still years away.

Actually, Intel's Itanium processor is scheduled for mid-2000. You can snag some product information and datasheets here. I believe Intel plans on releasing and/or supporting 32-bit products into as late as 2002 if not longer, but I haven't checked their CPU roadmap in a while. However, IMHO, 64-bit is a safe investment considering it will soon be the de facto standard. This is definitely something to put into serious consideration, and you should definitely consult your coworkers and review your organization's future plans and needs.

Unfortunately, every single vendor and VAR I talk to actually laughs at me and asks me questions like "Can I ask you why you are not considering an industry standard NT/Intel-based solution?" and "Can you really count on Linux to survive the next few years? Those socialist coders are going to get bored and figure out they can make more money in the real world eventually." (actual conversations) :-(

If you're looking for some places which support Linux, I've found VA Linux Systems to have excellent customer support and very reasonable pricing. I hear that Penguin Computing is excellent as well. And also from my experience, I've found Firstsource.com to be very helpful and resourceful as well. Though I haven't tapped them for any Linux solutions yet, CDW has a rock-solid reputation, and superb customer support.

In addition, Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Compaq all offer their own solutions, but some of their flagship products contain propietary hardware which increases the price dramatically for everything. However I do not say to avoid them, as they offer excellent products and support (varies), but keep that in consideration.

And I don't know about you, but I, personally, would never purchase ANYTHING from an organization that mocks my evaluated decision. I would be appalled at said treatment.

You've made a wise decision to tap the Slashdot community for assistance. I hope I was of help, if not, I'm positive that my peers will be.
--

Theoretically, the ID gives a clandestine third party a way to index this data and combine the the stuff you did "anonymously" with the stuff that you did that disclosed some or all of your identity. Given enough college students and free time, all theoretical vulnerabilities become exploits.

The combination of strong encryption in the protocol layer and truly anonymous currency would make this almost moot, as discussed in this slashdot article, which is why it scares law enforcement, dig?

It's interesting to consider the various compromises you can achieve with, say, strong encryption in the protocol layer but necessarily traceable currency, and so on.

Here is a simple list:

Please, Do not buy me:
1. clothing and undergarments. I wear one pair of pants and one /. shirt and buying me crap from the GAP is appreciated but far from needed.
2. the newest Pop music CD the man said at the record store I'de love. I'm sure the Backstreet boys are fine singers, but that'll just be one more coaster in my bin of AOL cds.
3. any food or drink without either: caffeine or alcohol. Let's be realistic. It's either highly caffinated pop/cola or beer going down my throat.

But I would love:
I can get clothes on my own: Buy me toys. Suggestions:
1. Nakamichi's® SoundSpace 8. I like tunes. Anything from The Sharper Image will be most adored.
2. Legos. Any amount, kind or style will be enjoyed on many dull saturday mornings.
3. Now, if you simply can't resist the urge to buy me apparel, then shop at Copyleft or Chaser.
4. Buy me any computer from VA Linux and I'll be a happy man.
5. I need fuel. An espresso/capiccino machine would be really nice. There are some decently priced ones and if you a some money to spend, I would love a pretty nice one.
6. Finally, a nice 62" wide screen tv that fits in my pocket would be nice, and its only $899.

Exqueeze me?

What would your preferred OS for quad-Intel hardware be? Or, more to the point, if you need quad-Intel performance, what would your preferred OS/hardware platform be (other options include Alpha, SPARC, etc.).

IMHO, a quad-processor Intel box running Linux is a serious alternative to SPARC for a lot of purposes. My company just bought some dual-CPU Intel/Linux machines (expandable to 4 CPU) as Oracle servers, where we would normally buy a Sun server for the job.

Go to VA Linux, where we bought these machines. They are turning a profit (what a concept!) selling multiprocessor Linux/Intel boxes, going head to head with Solaris/SPARC.

Whether Linux qualifies as a "heavy duty OS" depends on what your definition of a "heavy duty OS" is. Remember, to some people, all Unix is light duty, and mainframes are heavy duty. If, however, Unix is considered heavy duty, Linux competes well in that workstation/server range. There are some places where a commercial Unix does better (posts better numbers, has better features, etc.), and other places with Linux can beat a commercial Unix on the same grounds.

If you are looking at quad Intel machines, you are talking about the five-digit price range--somewhere from $10,000 to $100,000. There are a lot of serious contenders in this space--and most of them are running Unix. There may be some heavier duty contenders, but I don't see anything that is far and away better than Intel/Linux for general purpose computing. Neither is Intel/Linux far and away better than everybody else: Linux is running in that pack with the big Unix dogs.

Linux is not a Piper cub. If you want to use the warplane analogy, I would think of it more as an F-18. It isn't a heavily specialized craft (like the Stealth Fighter), it isn't very heavy duty (like those IBM B-52s out there); it is a small, tight unit that flies with the best of them, and has advantages and disadvantages compared to its class (top-caliber fighter craft).

And NT? The F-4 Phantom. The gun used to ship separately, and it is living proof that, with a big enough engine, even a rock can fly.

First I must warn all that I have long since dropped out of my business analysis train of thought as I steadily receded back into loving electronics and OS's - *NIX being my favorite.

Businesses and managers are very impressionable folks. In that I mean they truly believe in commercialism. I have worked with government and commercial sector and I have seen the way salesmen can appeal to these goons. With the government it is - well kinda perverse in a way but it works, with business it's easy -- we offer you this and get that.

So let's break off and follow that last statement for a second, we offer this and we are saying you get that.

Now let's apply the late 80's early 90's MS edition of that very same statement:

If you want that you must buy this in order to survive and have that, oh yeah we forgot to mention you have to also buy this other pile of sh*t as well but we can get inot that later . . .

Now come back to the present.

Joe Blow IT Manager, the very same schmuck whose light up when the dancing paperclip "finally does voice recognition" (f*n idiot) sees this. He now says - sh*t, maybe sinking all of that $$$$ into M$ could kick back - - QUICK, what do the other InfoWorld Ad say? Who should I turn to?

Yes this will happen. Even some delusional idiots will actually turn to Apple to solve their "hi end needs". This will be the first fallout.

But hey, all society advancement comes at great pains and cost, this will be one of them. By the same token just as many smart IT Managers will sit back and "see where things are going" and probably apt for a conservative UNIX Company or quite possibly FreeBSD or Slakware (despite it's "freeness" Slakware still boasts the best uptime and stability in distro - not neccessarily kernel).

IT Managers, believe it or not, think very short term as within 2-3 years or so. They are not forward thinkers (well not most of them I am sure the gang at Red Hat might take me up on that) so many saw NT as a good thing for the next year or maybe 2 years. This makes sense when the byline of your job is "keep from gettin' fired".

So, first, businesses will begin to lose confidence in MS, some will stick with them but many (as is already happening) will turn to companies like VALINUX and Sun.

The home computing market gradually lags anyway due to out of pocket expense limits so breaching the MS infiltration will take several years, but I believe as more becomes available and usable, more home users will seek alternatives. They may or may not turn to Linux, that is hard to tell (but I can say, the time is ripe for FreeBSD to make it's move).

Ultimately home users will not change their hbits for a long long time, I think everyone already sees this. I expect a shift to take place in 2-3 years (given the current buying trends).

I mention them in the same context here because I mean the same thing - both GNU / Linux and OSI now will see something that has been slowly and quietly happening for a long time.

Converts

Developers and geeks alike will also lose confidence in the almighty M$. We now will be given an opportunity to bring in and cultivate untapped talent that simply "didn't know any better" but have now awoken. This will most likely happen (in large numbers) after a ruling which is pretty sure to go against M$. It is already happening, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Linuxnewbie.org's mailing list jumps a little next week.

This isn't much different from other breakups as far as business is concerned. Geeks, however, will reap great reward which as all /. readers know is what matters.

Besides being so old school, why not spend the time and energy everyone else seems to think would be so well spent on patent applications, non-disclosure agreements and related shenanigans (and the related fees for attorney time) on developing the idea?

I would like to recommend that your friend spend his (or her) time locating someone (be it a VC, senior accountant, regular business or ?) who can join with him and develop and bring to market the concept involved.

Even better, as the tool runs on Linux, why not make it open source and pursue compensation by achievement instead of flogging the sick horse of reward by scarcity of closed source knowledge, secondly reducing the value of your friends device to business by creating it as a proprietary item? Your friend is already out front by thinking up the concept and if he is good enough to think up this idea, he is probably the best person to develop the idea even if, through disclosure, the whole world knows about it.

VA Linux Systems sells machines and will make money because they take the same parts that other companies have available, but people people (and more often businesses) buy their Linux computers because of the value add they provide by knowing more about what works and what doesn't than anyone else and provide better linux support than other computer producers who now install Linux on their computers, not because they have a patent on ways to implement Linux on PCs.

The concept is the same regardless of whether of the idea in question is hardware or software.

Reading ESR's The Magic Cauldron should get him started on the right road.

Quote from the VA Linux web site...
" There were no matches for patent found on www.valinux.com."

oops... I just read the post more carefully... well, I have no experience with diskless nodes; that certainly would make a lot of sense for a number of reasons...

Video cards: if you want to use a KVM switch for administration, you'll need them: in that case, go for cheapo cards for the computing nodes, and get a top-of-the-line one for the front node.

I recently saw VA Linux's set-up for a linux cluster: their kick-ass feature is administration thru a serial console (no need for more expensive KVM switching) and direct manipulation of each node's BIOS from the front-node (no cpu cycles spent on that). OTOH, I wasnot impressed by their top specs on their 2U systems (2 PIIIs, 1 GB RAM total): some of the code I am porting needs ~1GB/CPU, and that's not a top-of-the-line code either. Plus, 2-CPU systems mean more rack space (as opposed to quads); however, SMP performance under Linux still has a long way to go, so YMMV...

A final note: be careful about disk I/O: the common solution on MPP machines is to have each process write to disk; in linux clusters, this usually means writing to some NFS-mounted partition. Well, the NFS implementation (and I am not sure here if it's NFS in general or linux's version) cannot keep up with a lot of reads/writes to the same space... Change the way you do I/O (one process handles everything) or clone the filesystems and use local space (a bitch to maintain, though)...

Beowulfs are cool, but we are not nearly commercial-level usability here... what did the old maps say, "monsters here"? ;-)...

THE GOOD

• LinuxCare's little bootable Linux recovery CD kicks ass. No bigger than a business card, it fits in the 3" diameter groove in CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive trays and has the potential to save your butt when lilo eats itself. They also had some Linux stickers that now adorn the case of my 386... (Yes, it runs Linux.)
• IBM had a presence. Although certainly not the largest or flashiest booth in the show, Quake 3 on a rather large plasma display attracted lots of attention. Dual PII-400 Intellistation + Voodoo 3 3000 + large plasma display. Mmmmmm. Thanks to the guys there for letting me get some game time on that mammoth thang...
• O'Reilly also had a presence, and their trade show pricing kicks much booty. Picked up a few books for 20% off list and got a shirt to boot...
• Mad props to VA Linux Systems for not only having a cool booth and giving away lots of stuff but for supplying the machines used for public Internet access. Their Debian boxed set is pretty cool and sports Learning Debian GNU/Linux from O'Reilly. (Yes, I was one of the people who stood around in line for ten or fifteen minutes to win this...)
• Thanks to the Sun and Rave Systems folks for all the free stuff. Learn to play Quake 2 without cheating before next year's show... :-) (Now where's my complimentary Sparc 5?)

THE BAD

• None of the shirts I got fit. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I'm 6-foot-3-inches tall and weigh 295 pounds. Show me the big-assed shirts!
• The IBM guys told me that the Showcase had a T-1 connection to the 'Net. I couldn't verify -- the packet loss and latency was horrible on the connection. I'm hoping this is only because lots of geeks were pounding on the connection like a pack of wild monkeys...
• Food choices were few, and lines were long. Within the Galleria, your choices were Subway, some cafe whose name I don't remember, Ruby Tuesday's, and Chick-Fil-A. If you were bold, you could go to the movie theater downstairs and buy a big tub of popcorn. The group I was with walked across the street to another mall and ate at Arby's. Yum... I think.

THE UGLY

• Where the hell were the Slackware people? I wanted Slackware apparel... Hmmph.
• Linux merchandise places came out of the woodworks to hock their goods. Yay capitalism...
• Don't eat at Shoney's. Our group waited over an hour for food before giving up and leaving.

THE REST

• The andover.net/freshmeat.net/slashdot.org booth was smack dab next to the linux.com booth. Taken together, it looked like one big congregation of slackers with laptops. All things considered, however, I wouldn't have minded flopping down on the couch for a rest after walking around for a few hours...
• I will seek revenge against the guy in the Debian shirt who shot me in the arm with a Nerf dart... muahahahaha
• The Debian folks had a Sun Ultra 5 running XaoS, Netscape, and some Tetris clone in separate windows. Just for kicks, I maximized the XaoS window. Can we say slideshow?
• I had nothing interesting enough to trade with the lady at the VA Linux booth, so I didn't get one of those nifty enlightenment shirts. Dammit.
• NetBSD was there. Go figure.

Overall, it was a pretty cool show, but I wish I didn't have the 2-1/2 hour drive. It was put on very professionally and appeared to be very well organized. I was only slightly disappointed that the show wasn't any bigger... The nifty canvas bag attendees got and the included CD made up for that, though.

1. It is very difficult to retrofit non-debugger functionality into a debugger and come up with an IDE that is intuitive and extensible. Our team has tried it before and lived with code that has had that happen to it. Not a pretty sight.
   
2. We wanted this to be truly cross-platform, including NT and non-*nix platforms. Qt vs. Gtk wars were raging then and they are raging still, albeit with more civility. I personally evaluated Gtk and found it to be quite reasonable. Qt was dismissed because of its licensing issues at the time. Java and Swing provided a very rich and consistent GUI toolkit.
   
3. We have spent literally years designing the infrastructure to create a powerful, intuitive, and extensible environment. It isn't fully filled out yet, but the missing parts will come.
   
4. Scaling was of the utmost importance to us. Like trying to retrofit IDE stuff onto a debugger,
   retrofitting scalability is just as bad. Ask any debugger folks that have added things like thread support and other SMP constructs.
   
5. We wanted to build an infrastructure that was usable for other complex tools. Look at VA Linux's VACM product and think of what it would be like using the Jessie infrastructure.
   

I invite anyone who cares to to email me thier suggestions on the best way to do it. Or just post here on slashdot.

Again, I'm not confirming anything but our intentions to do this right, in case some VA IPO style event should happen. I have some great ideas, but I'm wary of sharing them until I get more legal feedback.

Chris DiBona
mail me here.
VA Linux Systems.
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG

The Linux hardware vendors are some of the best corporate citizens I've seen in any industry. They wholeheartedly support the Linux community, because they realise that without it they wouldn't exist in the first place. I like the fact that Penguin Computing is providing servers for sites such as Linux Online, 32 Bits Online, and LinuxToday. Then you've got VA Linux Systems taking the time to ensure Linux.com doesn't get run over by corporate interests, but instead makes it a community interest site. Not to mention hosting Debian, GNU, and Themes.org. You've got to hand it to the Linux Store for pushing the envelope for low-cost systems.

The Linux hardware vendors have shown a dedication to the community and customers that is rarely seen in this generally cruel marketplace. I sincerely hope they keep it up.

In the short term, we are trying to payback the community from whence we came in the following ways

Hosting projects

Hardware donations (debian/fsf/others)

Outright hiring people to work on free projects (those that have somethign to do with va nad those that have little to do with VA)

Joining organizations that we feel are important to OSS (li,x/open)

Donating to FSF

Running linux.com in a very community way

Of course open sourcing whatever we do.

Helping new proejcts get off the ground

Helping out lugs (somethign near to my heart)

Helping prominant developers with travel/hotel for tradeshows and such.

But we are not really satisified with just this. I'd actually like to solicit help, if you have a good idea, email me at chris@valinux.com with your suggestion.

Post IPO, look for us to

Expand the above

Endow open source chairs at universities.

Offer Scholarships.

Expand how we can help out in the lugs and such.

Offering financial/hardware support to those projects that we have not been able to help yet.

and more, hopefully.

This is obviously only the beginning, so there you go. Email me :-)

Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems

--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG

chris@valinux.com Chris DiBona

VA Linux Systems

--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG