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Donnie Barnes On LinuxExpo
pjones writes "Donnie Barnes has posted a longish explanation about the fate of LinuxExpo on the 'real' LinuxExpo site. This helps clarify the situation quite a bit." Read more below.
Turns out that there's really an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Linux conferences, and Donnie Barnes has decided that making them better is more important than making them more numerous, so the LinuxExpo folks are joining forces with the Atlanta Linux Showcase, and the future looks bright.
Donnie's explanation also sheds some interesting light on the growth of Linux as reflected in the attendance at shows like these. Says Donnie: "I still remember the line of almost 100 people at 9 a.m. when the doors were to open on the first event." Times change.
okay i was wondrering why not this year.
its cool, he talked about the TRiangle Linux UsersGroup in the artcile. and how they are gonna start a more grassroots expo. kudoes man!
some big RHAT investor doesn't want the expo to happen. But WHY? You seem to have ommited that from your post.
This investor, the one located in Redmond Washington (since you're too slow to parse it without more help) has everything to gain by ensuring that the Free Software community is disorganized and suspicious of its own members. LinuxExpo strengthened the community. Therefore they killed it. Red Hat has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of their investors. In the case of Microsoft (who own 52.1% of Red Hat), the investor's "best interests" require that Red Hat do everything in its power to destroy Linux and Free Software in general.
Nope, but joining the dark side will solve everyones problems.
Come join us in the dark side, you too can rule the world....
You should have asked that smart someone where THEY heard it.
HE RAN ME OVER WITH HIS KIA, AND THEN SNATCHED MY WALLET OUT OF MY BACK POCKET! HE WAS SALIVATING LIKE MAD! GUESS DIETS DON'T WORK FOR EVERYONE!
Expos about Linux, you can find one very successful at: www.linux-expo.com At the same time, it is celebrating more expos and conference about Linux and free software arround the world. Why the expo organized for LinuxWord was the only one that received publicity on slashdot and linux.com?
The only conclusion I can come up with is that ALS wishes to obtain a monopoly on Linux shows. Next thing you know, they'll want money to go to it. To combat this, we shall put together a truly open source show. To enter, you must present some source code to the bouncers. No two attendees may submit the same code for approval. If your code compiles on the bouncer's laptop, is up to snuff (no obfuscation), you may be let in. All decisions by bouncers are final. Those who enter must share said code with all attendees. Those who do not will be roughed up a bit then tossed by said bouncers.
Good day.
It was probably my dog. She has tendencies to say these sort of things. Ever since their IPO she hasn't been the same. I think she may have bought some stock short and lost a good deal of doggie biscuits in the matter. I have no proof, but my neighbor's cat is still investigating the matter. I will keep you posted as news come in.
I wonder why I got to see that message, anyway...
In any event. I guess the phrase 'loss of innocence' is starting to grate a little bit. Not because it's tiresome... but because it's _accurate_.
Even with all our recent successes, I still wonder whether Open Source will reach critical mass soon enough to save the world from Public Companies.
Cheers,
-- jra
-----
These guys doesn't want to duplicate thier efforts when there are other people out there doing the same thing. Almost like code reuse. This make total sense to me
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
The problem appears to be that you need companies to buy in to keep costs low, and because Linux is blowing up so quickly, more companies are making more demands, thus it is getting cutthroat. I can see the attraction to an all geeks fest, but would the geeks show up if they had to foot the whole cost of conference rooms? I have never been to one, but I bet the old conferences' companies' presentations were low key, because there was no money in Linux, but now, the types of companies that use showgirls and pyrotechnics at shows are getting involved, and that requires lots of floor space (for the monster truck showdowns).
matt
Yes but when you live in New Zealand like me, it doesnt really matter which bit of USA they are in. Although it was good to see something happening in Australia recently, we get nothing in NZ.
Although RMS did talk at my uni last year, I had to miss it because of lectures. (Yes, some papers in Stage 3 Engineering are more important than GNU/Linux GNU/Linux GNU/Linux ...)
Hopefully we will start to see things more spread out though, as people realise that USA is not the only place Linux zealots live. After all, Redhat 6.1 is pretty much all I, and most of my fellow EEE engineers use at my uni
"Oh, I got me a helmet - I got a beauty!"
"Oh, I got me a helmet - I got a beauty!"
Jack Nicholson, Easy Rider
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
please add to my comment - I heard first hand from someone a lot smarter and more informed than myself that Red Hat was somehow getting some bad press over this expo, and that's why they cut and run. Anyone else hear this?
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
the link for the Atlanta Linux Showcase should be www.linuxshowcase.com
A sphincter says what?
OK, so some big RHAT investor doesn't want the expo to happen. But WHY? You seem to have ommited that from your post.
Trade shows have a few nice qualitys:
They are fun. They are useful. If my company didn't pay, I would probbably pay to send myself to Usenix. At least if I could find a way to keep my wife from killing me. Damm, allways a catch.
If you have never been, try to get to one. Try to find one that is technical enough for you (Usenix's genneral confrence is quite technical; Comdex isn't very technical at all). You might want to avoid ones that are more technical then you want -- you don't want to be bored, and you don't want to be afarid to ask questions at the Q and A. Your best bet is to try to get the procedings from the previous year and see if the papers are intresting. Also look at the tutorials (if you can afford them) and see which shows have ones that intrest you (or your employer if they will pay). In my opnion deciding on which confrence to go to because of who the keynote speaker is, is, well, lame. After all the keynote is only 30 to 90 minutes of a several day event. On the other hand the keynote speaker makes a great tiebreaker. Then again, so does location.
I have never been to one, so I'm a bit curious...
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?
Can your IM do this?
I had a chance to go to the ALS in 1998 - it's a good, well-run event. If Donnie thinks joining up with them is the best way to handle things, that's fine by me. Unfortunately, I can't go - the reason I was able to go to ALS '98 was because they had it coincide with Interop that year, and I can't realistically get my company to send me to Atlanta twice in a month. Like it or not, if I have to pick one, it's got to be Interop.
I understand why Linux Expo is going away, though. I was the president for several years of a large user group (BNUG, a networking user group in Boston), and we used to regularly plan trade shows in order to raise our operating funds for the year. It also filled a gap for a while after the original NetWorld pulled out of Boston and combined with Interop. The trade show was incredibly difficult to manage and coordinate, since all the planners were volunteers with full-time jobs in addition to their duties with the group. A lot of details would get dropped through the cracks, nobody had time to make sure the cash flow was there, and promoting it in the days before everybody was on the Internet was a mess.
Our largest event was a summertime trade show/dinner cruise we called "LAN Ahoy". We'd use a big harbor cruise ship and hold an all-day trade show on board, followed by a keynote in an adjacent hotel (while that happened, we'd frantically clear out the trade show gear and load the dinner tables), and then we'd do a 4-hour dinner cruise with about 250 people. The trade show was free, the cruise we charged a little below our cost for.
It was a lot of fun, but the logistics of coordinating a trade show are incredibly difficult. The last time we did it we nearly lost our shirts, even though we filled most of the booth space and sold the dinner tickets, because of the cash flow problems. We had to threaten several vendors with a public shaming in the end to get our last checks (I won't say who they were, but they're _very_ big companies). LAN Ahoy was a nightmare to plan, and it was puny compared to the Expo. I'm amazed and impressed that they kept it going so long and so well.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm all for the Linux community being expanded and supported by businesses, but I think it's good to have a conference that is just for the geeks and techies. A place where we can discuss what's on our mind and really connect with eachother instead of concentrating on the business aspects. If ALS attracts more geeks from the south east area by merging with Linux Expo (and uses Atlanta's more ample convention space) then I'm all for it. But if ALS is just going to become LinuxWorld, (and therefore be on the road to another Comdex) then I'd rather just call the whole thing off. The geeks still need a place of their own.
Prop me up beside the jukebox if I die.