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LinuxWorld San Francisco Convention Report
doom writes: "Marc Merlin has written a pretty good convention report for
the LinuxWorld Convention & Expo Summer 2001." A nice long, juicy wrap-up for the convention.
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...are just for lucky guys like this Linux developer.
I was disapointed to see less software venders there. Last year there were pleanty of new ideas and projects started. You really noticed how the down economy has weeded out a majority of them. It was a great expo over all (a lot of hardware). To bad some of the newer up and comming software and development projects could not get a presence there. Maybe someone can start a non profit drive to sponser smaller up and comming groups?
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
Checkout this wrapup if you're interested in the events that took place at the KDE booth. Comes with many pictures.
You underestimate the power of "Me Too!"
I would love to be able to attend one of these, and the wrap up that he wrote makes me hope the same thing does come to my town. When I hear that the next convention is planned and my friends say "I'm gonna go" I want to tell "Me Too!", but I never get to leave this hole.
YES YES! the NERDS win again!
i finally have my very own golden penguin!
take that Michael Tiemann!
some other show highlights:
IBM had a good showing with lots to exhibit. i wasn't sure if it was IBM or a partner, but they had a great display of a java app that checks to see if your eyes are open or closed. this would be great to incorporate it into a car.
also, check out alicebot for a good AI example of a psycho-analysis program.
The price was fine....FREE if you just went to the exhibits. $25 if you registered late. But heck even at $25 that is well worht it. I do agree the cost for the keynotes, and other stuff could come down a little. But the expo needs to make money too. over all it is all worth it.
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
If you registered early enough, it was free (as well as the exhibits). Later (a week before?), it was $25. Hardly a price only the "rich elite" could pay...
When I lived out in Montana, it was $500 minimum for a ticket that left the state. At least that much just to get to Minneapolis, or Chicago, which are hubs. Only could ever afford to fly twice when I lived there.
As for conferences, I've never seriously considered one. Waaay too expensive. Someone mentions going to a conference, and my reaction is, "No thanks, I'd like to pay my rent this month." Plus the major speakers are frequently people that I don't want to hear speak.
CIO isn't an acronym for "Compellingly Interesting Orator."
And if you work for BigCorp, they not only pay your way but write it off their taxes. But the tech slump has cut into that gravy train big time.
Certe, Toto, sentio nos in Kansate non iam adesse.
I posted a brief note about Linuxworld on my own site a couple of days ago. The things that caught my eye?
Great presenters, interesting products, and a great looking booth. Impressed me enough that I built a new system just to play around with the Ximian desktop. The Linux desktop lives!
The folks from LNX-BBC.org put on a great session about bootable Linux CDs in general and their impressive LNX-BBC in particular.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
One thing that was great was that SAIR was giving away free tests for certs. I got my LCP for free. Pretty nice, but does it even matter?
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Don't want content downloaded and stored? Then don't make it publicly available on the Internet. If you'd like a closed network for timed viewing of your precious content, get out your checkbook and build your own.
i'm tired of the fundamentalist linux/microsoft is "GOD" freaks...
i'm a user of both linux and microsoft operating systems and honestly, i'm not very happy with either of them. linux makes a wonderful server system that never crashes, however, when i try to use it as a functional desktop workstation - it blows. there's nothing that i find useful for linux. there's no professional quality audio editing software, there's no excellent selection of games, there's no easily-compatible way to network it to an NT lan without having to learn samba (this kind of thing should be natively supported by now damnit.)
but at least linux is stable as a rock.
hoo-f-ing ray... i can stare at linux all day and it'll never crash no matter what i do! shame i have nothing i want to do on it!
then we turn the page to microsoft...
who has lost compatibility, increased required resources, and generally pissed off a lot of people most of the time. i'm still using windows 98... i won't use ME because it crashes -really- often for me... i won't use windows 2k because it can't run old dos software (although 2k is a very nice set of server software, not quite linux, but nice) and i'm avoiding XP like the plague. windows crashes and is really buggy (so is a lot of linux stuff, most of it in fact - it's all beta!)...
but at least i can attempt to use a bunch of different software on windows! *crash*
there's no right choice...
*(BIG IMPORTANT PART)*
i see the linux community... and it's beginning to make me somewhat sick...
there's a ton of amazingly brilliant resource in the linux community, but it's so divided and disconnected and unorganized that it's almost worthless. each distribution team has their heads up their asses and decides not to look at what needs to be done to actually make an operating system worth looking at.
dear linux developers... write something worth writing... what we need is something that outdates microsoft's plans five years from now to be released -now-...
we need stability, speed, functionality, software to go with it - something useful for everybody, compatibility with the rest of the world, ease of use for the stupid people who work in the offices... all in a small tight clean package that can be manipulated, upgraded, undone, and transformed with ease...
if that doesn't get created by linux developers working together (as they should be in the first place but seem to fail to do) then there will be no viable future for linux as -the- operating system.
it's sad to see such potential being wasted... apple took freebsd and made ultra-eyecandy out of it... why is it taking the linux developers to come anywhere near that for the gui? on top of that, linux, even for an experienced computer user, is -damned- frustrating to use when you haven't used it before... wheras windows is easy enough for a child to figure out in a day...
so what can the linux community do? unless they regroup and rethink their strategy, they're not going anywhere.
'nuff said.
[)(]subliminal labs[)(]
Now you repeat after me: All registration packages include the exhibits, Keynotes, Feature Presentations, Birds of-a Feather Sessions and a complimentary subscription to Dr. Dobb?s Journal (a $34.95 value).
Is it really that hard to read?