Linux Advocacy At PC Expo

Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York - Despite the overwhelming Windows orientation of PC Expo (Apple didn't show up at all), there have been a few signs of Linux life. Today's 11:30 a.m. keynote speech was given jointly by Mark Bolzern of LinuxMall.com and John "Maddog" Hall of Linux International. This was not a well-attended keynote. About ten minutes after it started I counted 144 seated attendees. The previous presentation (which ran close to half an hour longer than scheduled), by scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, had at least twice as large an audience, and the room could easily have held close to 1000 people -- if that many had been willing to tear themselves away from the New! Exciting! Revolutionary! Windows and Palm-oriented product display on the main exhibit floor.

The important thing about the PC Expo Linux presentation, though, wasn't audience size, but that it wasn't the typical "preaching to the converted" situation we see at Linux and Open Source conferences. This was an audience that had to be told what Linux was, and what it could do, almost from scratch. The whispers I heard as I sat at the back of the room, taking notes, indicated that most of the people seated near me knew that Linux was an operating system for computers, but little more than that. They paid attention -- and many of them took notes.

Indeed, some of the people listening to Mark and Maddog took more notes than I did, because to them the idea of a Beowulf system was brand-new, as was Mark's claim that 99% of Fortune 2000 companies -- including Microsoft -- use Linux in one way or another. Most of the material in Mark and Maddog's presentations was pretty old hat to long-time Slashdot readers. But to the people in that room, almost all of them Windows users, it was all worth hearing.

The LinuxMall.com "Linux Summit" held Monday was even smaller than today's Linux keynote -- Mark estimated attendance as "about forty" --but both events had good crowds, in the sense that most of the people sitting there, finding out about Linux for the first time, had paid between $200 and $1300 to attend PC Expo, and felt that learning about Linux was a worthwhile use of their limited time at the show.

Comments

Re:preaching to the converted...

[Yarn]

Part of this is true. A non-technical friend of mine said to me last week "You know that weird linux thing you use, I think its getting mainstream." and I think he may be right.

and that can only be a good thing for us.

Oh yes? I can see it giving more device drivers (probably closed, as the new intake will not be as philosophically hidebound as some), but other than that, there is the risk that they use it, go "BUH?" then go back to windows/macos/typewriter saying "linux sucks, it doesn't do X". I know quite a few people who have had this reaction. Always with Redhat, because it has the greatest exposure, shows fame is a two-edged sword... (not a broadsword then :)

BeOS presence

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

There was also a BeOS/BeIA presence, as noted in this article about PC Expo. He also mentions in the article that

IBM was showing its new ThinkPad lines, including those that offer pre-loaded Caldera Linux.

Promising, isn't it?

Well, not to name names...

[MenTaLguY]

...but I work for one of them. And even we have a couple Linux boxen sitting around that I know about (although they're just there in an evaluation capacity, not actually being used for anything).

Re:preaching to the converted...

[bmetzler]

"linux sucks, it doesn't do X".

Linux does X. I know. I use it.

-Brent

Re:What happens if Linux eventually takes over?

[Black Parrot]

> what if linux takes over 100% completely.

This almost certainly won't happen. Things that go out of style in IT seem to suffer geometric decay, with the result that they're still around in niches even 3-4 IT generations after their heyday. (You can still get hired as a COBOL programmer, though few of us remember when it was actually popular.)

Also, Linux fan though I be, I don't think Linux is the endpoint of IT evolution. Something better will come along and start making inroads on Linux's turf, even before Linux has put the last MCSE out on the street.

> It seems like it might force a lot of people out of comp. sci. I mean, how many of us started learning about computers on Windows before we ever knew about Linux?

IMO, folk who can't learn to use/support a new OS, language, protocol, whatever, don't belong in CS to start with. (Nor IT either, if that's what you meant.)

--

But HOW did they hear about Linux there?

[WillAffleck]

I mean, was it, only cool people use Linux?

Or was it more of a We Are Linux, We Will Absorb You?

This is marketing - did people hear that Linux can do everything W2K can do and better or did they hear you need to be a technogeek to use this stuff?

Corporate Beowulf?

[kaphka]

to them the idea of a Beowulf system was brand-new

Is anybody actually using Beowulf in a non-academic, non-experimental system?

Sorry, I'm sure it would be easy to look up the answer to this question, but I'm in a lazy mood.

Its a start...

[davebooth]

Seriously.. The battle for "recognition" of linux or BSD or whatever flavour of unix you like isnt about winning over the geeks.. we all know what its good for and when we want those functions we use it. We also use other OSes when we need their functions too. The recognition that alternative OSes to the win* family need will come when the guys that need telling what linux is and why its different start paying attention. 140 or 40, it doesnt matter. These are the guys in suits who can either block, ignore or help deployment of these other OSes in business.
# human firmware exploit
# Word will insert into your optic buffer
# without bounds checking

preaching to the converted...

[Bad_CRC]

well, my personal experience working in a microsoft only shop mirrors this.

Most people here either have no idea what linux is, or just don't care.

I'd guess the numbers of these people are much larger than any visit to slashdot could typically indicate.

the more important side of this, however, is that the numbers of these people are shrinking at an astounding rate. I'd guess the number of people who have even HEARD of linux has more than doubled in the past year.

and that can only be a good thing for us.

________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"

The mindset of high level decision makers.....

[Picass0]

Working in a Micro$oft-only shop I have found the reason MS dominates boils down to this: the people at the top who write the big checks have heard of Micro$oft. They go with what they know. Most people can name a better web development tool than Frontpage, but it's the standard because it's a MS product. Everyone know what a liabilty Outlook has become, but it's MS so CEOs know it. Ditto for Office, IIS, IE, Access, and so on.

But...

CEOs of organizations often times are not hands-on with computers. A switchover to another OS is relatively painless for them on a personal level and has more to do with cost. How many hours will it take to switch processes to a different platform?
It's a matter of raising the awareness CEOs have of Linux that will get more enterprises to adopt it over MS. MS has made some very negative headlines in the past year and that doesn't hurt our cause either.

In the real world, they're saying something else

[uebernewby]

Yesterday and today people have been going on and on about how PC Expo is "so Windows oriented".

Funny..a Dutch newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) today ran a fairly large article that stated the exact opposite: how PC Expo was a complete Linux/Transmeta affair. And no, the people who write for this newspaper are not Linux zealots at all...in the same article they stated that Linus Torvalds is one of the founders of Transmeta.

I guess this article shows that Linux is becoming more prominent and mainstream..there wasn't a word about the huge Microsoft presence.

How about /. stop whining about the size of the Microsoft booth compared to that of Red Hat and how there's still people on this planet who don't use this vastly superior operating system?

Re:Some oil company ...

[Black Parrot]

> Dell never throws anything away. (They *sell* their trash;) )

Quick! Someone let Larry Ellison know!

--

John's a good speaker, too...

[Greyfox]

I got to hear John speak at the last Colorado Linux Info Quest. Had to go up and ask him after the presentation exactly what it was that he was using to do the presentation on his laptop. It had a very Microsoft Powerpoint feel to it. Turns out it was one of the commercial software suites for Linux that I hadn't looked at. Handy to know there's stuff out there, if I ever have to do a presentation, since I don't do Windows.

Back when I was younger, I did some OS/2 Advocacy in the face of overwhelming Windows opposition. Particularly fun was one COMDEX in Atlanta which Team OS/2 descended upon. With some support from IBM (Basically they got us Exhibitor's passes so we could get in before the show) we ran about and offered to install OS/2 on all the hardware we could get it on. It was rather surprising how many hardware vendors were willing to install it -- they wanted to show off their hardware as much as possible. It was kind of fun setting up the brand new Compaq Pentium 166 (With an UNGODLY 32 MB of RAM) to display 4 video streams at the same time through the media player. The NT box next to it (Same hardware) sat there the whole time running its polygon screensaver. Ah, those were the days...