From The Australian LinuxExpo

So I'm at Linux Expo Australia, enjoying the conference. You can hit the link below to read assorted random relevant (and irrelevant) notes from the show floor. No, I haven't seen a kangaroo.

After more than 24 hours of airport/airplane limbo and uncountable time-zone changes, we arrived in Sydney. After 20 hours of sleep, I was almost ready to face the world outside of my hotel room.

The Australian LinuxExpo is held in Darling Harbor in Sydney, which is apparently the epicenter of all Australian tourist activity. The exchange rate is nice tho, so if I wanted to to buy boomerangs or didgeridoos or something, it'd be easy. You can't walk 20 feet without stumbling into a tourist-trap store.

The show itself is fairly typical for a Linux conference. Of course, without a Slashdot booth to hide out in, I'm spending time at either the Debian Booth (hooray! Debian is international!) or at the LinuxCare booth: this sucker is two stories. The ground floor is a little stage where Tridge and others preach their word, and upstairs is a PC graveyard with boxes ranging from iBooks, G4s and Ultra 5s to various laptops, all plugged in to the Net. This is of course where I write this.

Many of the usual suspects are here: SGI, Red Hat, Corel, LinuxCare, Pick, Debian. Absent are VA and Andover (both are represented, although in much smaller numbers than other shows and without the overhead of a booth).

The advantage of not having a booth is that I'm not obligated to spend the whole show trapped in a 20x20 square answering FAQs all day ... instead I get to see talks. Raster did his usual show on Enlightenment, and Rusty did a great job on Netfilter (including revealing that I could use perl to write my own packet filters if I was either clinically insane, or just bored).

I also sat on a panel along with several other much more interesting folks (Tridge, Raster, Terpestra, and hosted by Chris DiBona) on 'Preserving the Linux Community.' Spent a lot of time discussing who is the Linux community (answers ranging from "Anyone who boots Linux" to "Anyone who cares about their operating system and runs Linux.") Eventually the discussion turned to the future of Linux, DeCSS, the MPAA, and what the new corporate influences can do to help. Not a bad panel, although not exactly the busiest of auditoriums.

Maddog gave a good speech last night on his predictions for Linux. Lots of good stuff there, too ... he had some interesting comments about Linux's growth and third world countries. People who are waiting for "Permission" that obviously will never arrive to extend Linux to do what they want it and need it to do. Not so sure about all his talk of "Linux Camps." The average hacker don't look so hot in Swim Trunks ;)

So with the conference portion of the show wrapping up, Raster, Hormes, Rusty and other Aussies are gonna take us to an "Authentic Australian Pub" this evening. I suspect that I won't have a solid memory of the evening: if there is one thing I know for sure it's that these Australians like their lager in great quantities ... I'm not sure if my liver can keep up.

I'll be back in the States next week, after what amounts to my first real vacation since starting Slashdot 2.5 years ago. See ya then.

Comments

Re:When Will there be a Westralian Linuxcon?

[torpor]

No kidding. I'm originally from Perth (live in Los Angeles now) and when I went back to Australia a few years ago (96), I stopped by Sydney to recover from jet lag before heading home to see the folks. I'd lived in Sydney for a year before I came to the US, and was horrified to find out just *how* American Sydney had become.

It could practically be excused for a typical US city - in fact, its annexation into America, while certainly not officially sanctioned by the US/Australian governments, has effectively taken place on an economic/corporate scale.

Subway Sandwich shops everywhere, Starbucks, all the standard US pickin's for a commercial franchises.

And, horror of horrors, it would appear that Sydney-ites have permitted the development of that depraved icon of American commercial culture, the strip mall!

So, if you're an American looking for an Australian vacation, don't go to Sydney expecting to see much in the way of Australian culture. Go to Darwin or Perth - no, better yet. Stay the hell away from Perth, go to Brisbane. You'll love it so much, you'll want to stay there - which is why you shouldn't go to Perth!

Statistics and information for the caring!

[cybermike]

Just thought I'd throw some stats about the show as people were asking above - great to see guys like Rob coming over to Sydney (even if it is a holiday) to support us. (Maybe I'll even grab him when he walks past next time 'n say "G'day").

Last year at IT2000 (the parent show of LinuxExpo) there were 36m^2 (from 3 stands) for Linux, this year there is an entire sub-show (sp?) called LinuxExpo that has over 800m^2 (from 30 stands). That's not a bad increase in one year IMHO.

The unfortunate thing is noone seems to be selling anything? (Apart from Everything Linux) We've had lots of frustrated customers trying to BUY our sample CD's from LinuxCentral because Mandrake / Corel etc. stalls aren't actually selling product - just large fake boxes? What gives distributors?

Saw Raster talking on Enlightenment (great to see UNSW alumni doing so well), Rasmus on PHP and more - all good! Would have loved to have seen Rob give a talk on building web communities or somesuch. But probably not under the guise of the 'Linux' show - next time.

Other interesting things of note

• Quake 3 running on stinking big SGI machines (always fun to watch - but get a network boys!)
  
• Intel stand - big signs saying "Intel supports RedHat, Mandrake, Corel Linux, etc etc" - shouldn't that be the OTHER way around AndyG?!
  
• TurboLinux ice creams and tattoo's - a perpetual supply throughout the day to exhibitors, mucho gratias
  
• The plethora of American accents - maybe not interesting, or even different - a taste of things to come during the Olympics?
  
• IBM? Hello Lou Gerstner?! IBM have a small (3x3 metre) stand in the far corner, not their usual huge whopping glowing bright red 'e-everywhere' - and IBM is fully behind Linux now?
  
• The great guys at the australia.internet.com stand - ok, slightly biased.

Did I miss anything?

If you're wanting to come along but are to cheap to pay $20 to get in, give me a call 0413 310 107 tomorrow or Friday and we'll scoot out with a free pass for ya (if you don't already have one). Only catch being you have to come visit our booth - australia.internet.com - right in front of the door - below the LinuxCare guru lounge - can't miss it.

Any other show reports from attendees? Exhibitors?