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Linuxworld Fun
The Linuxworld Expo is now in full swing, and there's a variety of news. The BBC has an overview. Microsoft has a booth at the Expo in the section intended for "new, up-and-coming companies". Sun is rolling out servers running Linux. And VA Software - Slashdot's owner - is moving Sourceforge.net to IBM's database software.
I'm just waiting for someone to start defacing the Microsoft booth. This will make us look REALLLY good to the corporate world.
Damn, I never thought I'd see this graph go upwards again!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
At some point... every single linux geek in the entire place is going to collectively turn to and point at the Microsoft booth, and then in unison, laugh their asses off, when one of the machines bsod's.
"Just please don't ignore us."
For how many years did they pretend like they ignored us while plotting certain death?
Until that booth has "MS Office TUX" I have no desire to see them at the Expo.
when all the people at the show know about Microsoft software, and that's why they're running Linux?
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Houston said.
"Just please don't ignore us."
I didn't know Microsoft was in that bad a way.
Doesnt Linux-world bring images of children going on rides with huge fluffy penguins.
And wearing penguin ears? hmm maybe not penguin ears.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
I can understand that MySQL and Portgres don't cut it for your particular need but, damn, what about SAP. Surely a repository for Free as in beer and Free as in speech software deserves to remain free.
From a purely business standpoint I don't get it either. Source Forge isn't making a whole lot of money, if any, as it is. Can VA really afford to spend the money on DB2, or are they simply aligning themselves for the future? I can tell you now, if VA has any fantasy of turning Source Forge into a paid service, they'll be more than a bit suprised by the backlash/bitch slapping that they will receive from the community that they claim to hold so dearly.
They couldn't really be stupid enough to think that? Could they?
While some may scoff at such a question, even the most basic DB2 documentation stresses the importance of keeping transactions short, due to limited resources for row-level locking and the dire effects of lock promotion on concurrency.
Conversely, Tom Kyte in his first book stresses that Oracle provides an unlimited number of row-level locks (by storing the locks on disk), and never promotes a lock.
Now, obviously, people have gotten DB2 to scale, since it powers some very large databases. I have an interest (and certifications) in both systems, but I can't help but wonder what sort of tricks must be played with the database to overcome concurrency issues with memory-based lock structures - does this require a 64-bit address space even for a moderately-sized db?
"Tell us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong"
Well.. this is going to take a while.
~ kjrose
Now, I'm no real Microsoft Affectionado, but this is probably the single most insightful thing I ever heard from a Microsoft representative. People don't want to fiddle with anything on their computers, just use the standard apps. Heck, most users don't even change their background nor their colours (God help them, the day they get XP!).
I know this is going straight against the mantra on slashdot "choice-is-good", but normal users have no base on what to make a "choice", and there inflexibility is good: it makes the normal user feel "good" about his (non)choice. How many times have I told people to switch from Lookout Express to a better email client (especially when they just got infected by the virus/worm of the day), but it doesn't help: they are familiar with it, it comes with the computer and everyone uses it. That's infexibility, and the users are inflexible, hence they need inflexible software. Sad but true.
From the linked BBC article:
>Linux is gaining corporate fans is because it is
>cheap, easy to maintain and much more secure than
>Microsoft software.
You can't buy advertising like that.
Anyone remember that scene from the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where there was an Apple booth and the company MS worked with at the expo. Everyone ignored the other booth and went over to the Apple booth. When Bill tried to talk with any of the Apple reps, he was ignored.
:-)
wouldn't that be great if that happened here. The entire MS booth is barren while everyone is busy doing what they came to a _Linux_ expo for. To look at _Linux_ products, not Windows products.
just a thought.
~ kjrose
You move from free to expensive software "VA Software, whose roots lie in the open-source world of Linux, is trying to move more toward proprietary software in an effort to boost its revenue", and your share price doubles? "VA Software's shares surged by more than 50 percent on the news, rising 42 cents to $1.24 in early trading"
What gives?
Get your own free personal location tracker
Ok, I think this is the straw that broke the camel's back for me. First it was the poor site interface, then it was the auto-download system, and now this converting to DB2. Sourceforge offically now sucks in my book. I wish everyone would start moving their projects off sourceforge.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
since the representative said that he thinks all users want is ease of use "out of the box" and not flexibility, then porting, say, microsoft office to linux would make some people happy, and at the same time not harm microsoft, because linux is supposedly NOT easy to use out of the box.
obviously, i disagree. i have had enough fun with windows video drivers that don't work causing the screen to be black, but since EVERYTHING is gui, i can't do anything about it, which means i need to reinstall. can i switch back to vga? NO. but that is besides the point. frankly, linux comes with far more out of the box than windows ever will. but that is besides the point.
if microsoft is bold enough to say that their operating system is easier to use, and then appear at linuxworld, i think they should at least be bold enough to port some software (as a software vendor not, operating system creator) to prove their point. it seems they are kissing up to linux geeks to pull some PR move or some other unpredictable stunt.
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
From Netcraft:
The site www.linuxworldexpo.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98.
What are they giving out? I like to give any Microsoft T-shirts i get to homeless people. Puts them to a good cause :)
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Hopefully everyone will react with nothing but class.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
For those of you that use sourceforge for their free software projects, it looks like it's time to move to savannah.gnu.org.
In case you're wondering, the gnu.org in there does not imply that your project needs to be under the GPL/LGPL --- any Free Software projects are welcome.
Why would you want to move? Well, from what I hear, extracting some of your meta-data is already hard/imposible from Sourceforge --- this seems like a trend that is likely to continue, so perhaps you should get out while you still can.
At least you can be sure that the Free Software Foundation won't pull any similar tricks.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Despite the immediate speed increase which could come from migrating to a real database which supports grown-up DB features like subselects, etc, I don't see it happening on Slashdot anytime soon.
Not to flamebait here, but if you've gone through Slashcode source, you know that it's a pile of spaghetti. It doesn't lend itself to a redesign of the database access methods to take advantage of an industry-quality DB's featureset, at least not without redesigning much of Slashcode itself.
The resulting weblog software could be really badass, but seeing as this site's gone since 1998 without a significant redesign (Slash 2 is Slash 1 with lipstick on), I don't see it suddenly happening now.
Linux torvalds? Is he going to fight windows gates?
That the irrational exuberance or the dot com era is indeed, not dead. Like a dormant virus it occasionally rares its ugly head.
It also proves, yet again, that investment analysts are complete morons. No wonder the economy is in such a shambles.
quite simply, VA is preparing to be bought out by IBM.
four-oh-four
Houston would like to make it perfectly clear that the company comes in peace.
How poor a memory does a cancer have?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
The big advantage I see for IBM is showing how well Linux scales on their hardware. Sourceforge.net has a lot of simultaneous users (to say the least).
:)
By hosting one of the largest open source repositories on it's hardware and using it's database system, they get a nice showcase.
Jslash? Lets hope that isn't any time soon.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
The bottom line is that VA has to take a life preserver from anyone who will throw one. They are a public company, so the bottom line is the only line.
It used to be free for the exhibition floor, and you only had to pay for the seminars. It's no longer, the exhibition is now $30.
Gee, I guess that will be the first year I'm not attending, even though I'm local. It's kinda hard to justify to pay just to get exposed to ads, isn't it?
For those with nothing better to do this afternoon... you can watch Sun's presentation via a webcast at 1pm EST here
keep in mind this is a microsoft booth babe.
(it was either him or the goatse pic, just be glad I chose what I did!)
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
Most uses aren't aware that there is choice, give them something and they'll use it, even if it breaks all the time and is crap.
:
In my experience
10% of people who buy something from a shop that doesn't work that well just bin it.
40% will use it even though it isn't fully functional
40% will take it back and get a replacement (or alternative if they know there is one)
5% will moan like hell and take the shop to court.
and the other 5% will fix it and have a fully functionally product.
If the user doesn't know that something is broken, or doesn't understand what they have there far less lightly to take it back.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You mean like HAL's(IBM) Xseries?
Sun used to be the cheap workstation people, looks like they've returned to their roots.
Speaking as someone who's worked with another RDBMS which uses memory based locking (Ingres) for over 10 years, I can say that this can scale and scale very well.
Your application designers need to have concurrency issues in mind - but then that tends to make for better applications anyway. There's more to concurrency than simply the number of locks available in the system.
Ingres has always used memory-based locking and has only been extended to 64-bit addressing in the last couple of years. There are people using Ingres with databases in the hundreds of Gb or higher and with thousands of concurrent sessions.
I guarantee that any system of that size Ingres, Oracle, DB2 or Bob's own DBMS would need to consider concurrency pretty carefully regardless of how locking is implemented.
And VA Software - Slashdot's owner - is moving Sourceforge.net to IBM's database software.
I think this is a much bigger story then linux kernel 2.34.56 is released, yet its a one liner? Next time you wanna bury a story throw it into a slashback or a jon katz story.
four-oh-four
Well duh! It's a Sun box because it costs a hell of a lot more than you would normally pay for home brewed box with the same hardware.
Who is John Galt?
what's wrong with MySQL again?
Perhaps this is fixed in a version later than the one I'm using at work (although their website would seem to indicate otherwise), but the MySQL I'm using can't even handle a simple sub-select. It also lacks triggers and the like.
MySQL is a nice, fast database for doing simple queries, but if you want to do anything remotely complicated in pure SQL, you need to use something a bit more robust, feature-wise.
Lendrick
No, I do not believe Microsoft has any good intentions toward Linux. They have not been a trustworthy company for years (antitrust for nearly a decade).
I see their "Services for Unix" software to be part of a familliar Microsoft trick: interoperability for a few years, then a quick format switch. They are trying to entice users away from Unix. Don't believe anything else. It is an attempt to subvert the growing Linux phenomenon.
They are trying to win Linux developers over to Windows. Maybe we should try to win them over to Linux. Instead of vandalism or name calling, give them some Linux CDs when you pass their booth. Don't take their free stuff. They'll get the idea.
The memory will cost a fortune, that's the difference.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
microsoft announces they'll have a booth at linuxworld.
sales of nerf weapons and super soaker water pistols rise to all-time highs.
Karma
victim of collision on the open sea
nobody ever said that life was free
sink swim go down with the ship
but use your freedom of choice
i'll say it again in the land of the free
use your freedom of choice
in ancient rome there was a poem
about a dog who found two bones
he picked at one he licked the other
he went in circles till he dropped dead
freedom of choice is what you got
then if you got it you don't want it
seems to be the rule of thumb
don't be tricked by what you see
you got two ways to go
freedom from choice is what you want
Appart from SELECTing data to generate the pages, the next most common action Slashdot does is INSERT. Since MySQL contains an "AUTOINCREMENT" metatype, the ID fields need not be calculated as a transation - MySQL will ensure that an appropriate key is generated when the INSERT is run.
There are several sections of Slashcode that do updates - but for the most part, they don't need transactions or anything too fancy. Multiple requests to change a single user's parameters are rather unlikely, and for the most part, editors are unlikely to update the same story at the same time.
Bottom line is that MySQL is more that sufficient for Slashcode. (Just like MySQL is fine for the above mentioned application, even though it uses Oracle in the "production" environment. Poorly.) There's no need to use a more robust database - Slashcode simply isn't really that intensive a DB application. In fact, it could probably be rewritten to use text storage files instead of a database. I'll bet it would be possible to store Slashcode information in a miriade of XML files. I wouldn't suggest it, but it might be possible...
With Slashcode 2, much of the database code was moved out into a module (which should speak to the speghettiness of the original design), helping to solve move most of the MySQL dependencies (most notably, AUTOINCREMENT everywhere and TEXT blocks as opposed to LONG VARCHAR which is the ANSI SQL standard) into a modular section that can be replaced.
With the Postgres Slashcode module, it should be possible to move Slashdot onto other databases. But for the most part, there's little need to move Slashdot to another database - MySQL is sufficient for it's needs.
A complete code rewrite, on the other hand... :)
(I think they should reimplement it in a Java servlet environment. Because Java is my hammer. Ow, my thumb!)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Peaceful coexistence appears to be Microsoft's new mantra.
Does this remind anyone else of that really bad ST:TNG episode with the parasites that looked like trilobytes? You know, the "Vitamins do wonders for the body" one where the trilobytes try to take over starfleet? "We seek peaceful coexistance"
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
No, they want to have the corporate version of sourceforge run on DB2 and WebSphere. My guess is that VA Software won't be migrating sourceforge.net. Like you said early sourceforge.net handles a ton of activity, and it does it with PostgreSQL and PHP. Migrating to a totally new technology would almost certainly cause problems, and the last thing that IBM wants is for VA Software to switch sourceforge.net from Free Software to their expensive commercial software and have the new setup be buggy or have performance problems.
The corporate accounts paying for the commercial version of sourceforge are undoubtedly dumber than a box of rocks. They would rather purchase a reimplementation of sourceforge.net on a different technology base than download the software that is good enough for sourceforge.net for free and learn to set it up themselves. Heck, they could even pay someone else to set it up for them (the folks at savannah.gnu.org have some experience in setting up sourceforge). In my opinion these are precisely the type of customers to target. It is almost trivially easy to make money from people who have more money than sense.
I'll get flamed for this, but...
Microsoft would get a much better reception if they went to the expo with actual Linux products.
Think about it. They have (or have had) a copy of IE for linux kicking around internally. IE exists for other unixes (too lazy to go check which at the moment tho). They have a media player for unixes (or they did). Wouldn't it be nice if they went to the show and released those, or annouced something about them, rather than hawking Visual Studio
Just my
Their claims are pretty simple, really: we want to hang out with Linux folks so we can figure out how we can build as active and fervent a development community around Microsoft products in order to lock even more people into being our revenue drones.
Well, okay, the bit about "revenue drones" wasn't really stated. I threw that in for good measure.
Microsoft has come to the realization that people like to code. So, the next step for them is, "How do we get people to stop coding for competitor platforms and start coding for ours?" Understand your enemy and all that. So they set up a booth at LinuxWorld in order to better understand what motivates Joe Coder and the companies that have rallied around Linux to make the choices they do.
Once they have that figured out, they can then go back to Redmond HQ and have a discussion about what it would take, short of opening up source code, to get all these energetic coders on their side.
Free development tools? The fostering of an open code community (that is, open source code for individual 3rd party projects, not for Windows itself)? Releasing more information about Windows interfaces/methods/protocols so people can tie directly into Windows APIs for their projects (because using existing code in the OS will be easier than adapting other open source libraries, which means your task as a coder will be simplified - or so the spin will go)?
So, back to the original question, I think Microsoft's intent is as good as it claims. I just don't think they're claiming everything they have in mind. For Microsoft, the only final solution is to have no competition. In this case, they want to make Linux irrelevant by shifting open source developers to Windows.
There's no reason why this wouldn't work. There are already plenty of Win32 based GPL projects at SourceForge, few of which required any source from the Linux kernel. I think that's what Microsoft wants - they want to snag those types of developers who don't explicitly need access to the source of the operating system. They want to build a fervent, active, enthusiastic community of coders in order to make Windows looks as lively as Linux does right now.
Apologies for using "active" and "fervent" twice. I was typing around meetings. :)
Singing beer vendor?
from the article:
"This isn't about trying to get people to move from Unix to Microsoft products, it's about offering ways for both systems to peacefully coexist," Houston stressed.
Then why aren't the office formats open?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
And thank you!
Infuriate left and right
Good to see that Sun believes in Linux enough to put some hardware effort behind it. I wasn't so sure, when I read this Sun article a ways back.
Linux on the Mainframe--Not a Good Idea
> "What you will see from Sun is a lot more attention paid to
> Linux on the desktop, because there is a lot more growth there
> than anyone is willing to suggest," said Jonathan Schwartz,
> executive vice president for Sun's software group.
This is in direct contrast to IBM's approach, and IMO it makes
sense for Sun, because it hurts a certain competitor with a very
large market share more than it hurts Sun. Think about it: Sun
doesn't want to commoditise the server market if they have any
brains, because that's where they make their money. But they
*do* want to commoditise the desktop market, because that will
prevent anyone from leveraging control of the desktop market
(since no one entity can control a commoditised market) to push
Sun (along with other competitors) out of the server market.
This is Sun being smart. *And* it's something the Linux
community really needs badly: a major desktop OEM.
Now, granted, this is highly speculative, since the product
they're unveiling right now is a low-end server. But I would
very much like to see Sun (or any major OEM -- sorry, WallMart
doesn't count as a major OEM) unveil an affordable Linux-based
desktop system.
It's different for IBM, because they make a lot of money on
the consulting and support end of the business, so that if
the server becomes a commodity, it doesn't hurt them really.
Sun has a bottom line in the server market to worry about,
but they can better afford to commoditise the desktop, since
that's a natural complement of the server.
Am I making any sense?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
> quite simply, VA is preparing to be bought out by IBM.
And at 2:42 EDT, LNUX was up 42% to $1.17
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
Tell that to RedHat, IBM, but no need to tell M$ or even yourself, since you and M$ already know so much.
Infuriate left and right
You are right-- users don't want flexibility (they don't want to read docs either), but administrators, developers, OEM's etc. do. That way, they can taylor the product to their customers. The end users then just end up with a moron-friendly interface, and that is what matters to them. The OEM's then have the incentive to reduce support costs trying all sorts of things. Read the Findings of Fact from the current Antitrust case against Microsoft for more in this.
So flexibility is always a virtue-- it is just that some people don't have to see it.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Don't people still remember This ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Which you don't seem to know much about either, as you can't even spell it right.. :)
*hint* PostgreSQL *hint*
Well, postgresql is what sourceforge.net is currently running. I doubt they'll change either, I think this announcement was about sourceforge enterprise edition, which is the thingy va software tries to sell to companies.
Consider this quote:
"When governments base their choice on a preference that takes merit out of the situation, that's a concern to us," said Mike Wendy, public relations and policy counsel for CompTIA. "More options are always better."
What a load of worm-infested road apples. If more options are better, why isn't M$ doing what's necessary make more options available? Put up or shut up - publish the MS document specs (ALL of them).
It's clear that what he meant to say was "More options are always better...as long as they're in our favor."
First of all Sourceforge is shifting to DB2, not Oracle, so you are still SOL. I certainly understand your point. If you have a large investment in Oracle, it makes sense to use Oracle software. I agree that sometimes Oracle on big iron is the correct solution to the problem. Sometimes you simply pay your money and get the best. You just assumed that I was slamming commercial software because this is /.
That being said, sourceforge has been remarkably stable, certainly stable enough for the development efforts of any enterprise I can think of. After all, if you can't get to your corporate sourceforge portal because its down you probably don't lose "millions of dollars." And even if you did lose millions of dollars everytime your sourceforge portal went offline there still isn't any evidence that the as yet to be written version that uses Websphere and DB2 is going to be more stable than the version that sourceforge is using to support thousands of developers on sourceforge.net. Websphere and DB2 are both good products, but the new sourceforge could be awful.
Both of us know that commercial software does not mean software that is completely bug free. In fact, I would rather trust something that comes with source and has a large user base over a brand new commercial product any day of the week. Time tested mature products like Oracle, however, are a different beast altogether. Clearly Oracle has a well-deserved reputation for stability.
Where most are happily running Internet Explorer on Windows. Check the user agents that appear in the logs of anyone who's been Slashdotted.
well i guess if IBM doesnt pick up on this blatant move to get them to buy VA rea^H^H^H lin^H^H^H soft^H^H^H^H BM, they can always reimplement SourceForge in .asp and SQLServer and try the only other company with cash...
four-oh-four
I want to move off of sourceforge because it's in the US, because my project involves reverse engineering and Im just about to do some decription code(just an XOR) but there's potential problems with DMCA FBI and all that.
So i would like to know where are the Savannah servers based.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
They just dimmed the lights, telling people to leave as the first day of the exhibition floor draws to a close.
McNealy's keynote focused on establishing the image of Sun as a significant supporter of the open-source community through efforts like OpenOffice.org. He also said they are committed to LSB support for their Linux distro, and they have no intention of establishing incompatibility. I thought the most surprising announcement he made is that Sun is introducing the LX50, an **X86** server! He said they will ship with both Linux (Sun Linux I assume) and Solaris, leaving the user to choose. He didn't say much of anything about Sun ONE.
He said one of Sun's strategies will be to make their products "Integratable," as opposed to "Integrated." The idea being that you have the ability to swap out any part of their software and use a different product -- free or proprietary -- in its place. He contrasted this with Microsoft (whom he mocked throughout) who "swore under oath that if you remove this one little program (the web browser) the whole thing will break and they'll have to take it off the market."
I saw the Google guy's (can't remember his name) keynote also. Can't think of anything to say about it, a lot of it was just "we have tons of computers, here are the problems we face."
The Microsoft booth is plugging a new product of theirs called Services for Unix. Win32 works as a subsystem of the NT kernel through an undocumented interface. Services for Unix is an implentation of POSIX (with SysV IPC, shm, pipes, mmap, signals, etc) that works at the same level as Win32, as opposed to Cygwin that runs on top of Win32. Pricing is $99, $39 academic. The current version doesn't support pthreads, but the next one will.
The Microsoft booth reads "Community. Interoperabilty. Flexibility."
I tried to register for the show using Konq. The site has some browser checking to allow Netscape & IE only. Is the site being run by the GNOME fans :>) (just kidding)
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldexpo/v31/i ndex.cvn?ID=10002&p_navid=1
First M$ is really invading... I pull up a page covering LW and get an add for .net. Ok on with what I saw.
.org land. Caldera has a corner of one of the majors displays. I couldn't find Mandrake although they are supposed to be in a corner somewhere as well. Although Ximain isn't a distro it's worth noting that they too are lacking in presence.
1. One this is missing... Distros. Red hat and SuSe are there with full (but smaller) booths and that's pretty much it. Debian has a table in
2. The most sought out booth is the Zaurus Booth with Sharp. They are selling like mad. Expecially since the price is heavily discounted from retail. Neat new toys as well, Like a roll up keyboard being demo'd in Beta form.
3. The jugglers and magicians of old are gone. This year it's about business. The number of visibly Geek individuals has dropped. Although ties aren't being worn except by the security team,the dresscode is definitly turning yuppy in it's look and feel. Whereas in 99 in San Jose it was somewhat of a party atmosphere this year it's much more business like. As a result the feel is that Linux is operating from strength not from the hip. Over all, the feeling is much richer and Linux feels solid and real. Gone is M$ bashing to get attention. (Although M$ is heavy into Linux bashing.) Linux is playing from strength not from attitude. In fact the fact that M$ is in the rookery really does add to the impression that they are a minor player and Linux is the dominate life form.
5. They had in the past rest areas where you could plug in your laptop and geek out. This year the rest area is designed for getting together with companies and talking business. The floor is crowded with people unlike the graveyard feel it had last year.
6. The show is smaller than last year. Less hype. One major player is now combined with another. (HP and Compaq) Companies are less intrested in being the biggest and more intrested in delivering hard numbers, and proven technology. If you are looking to get your geek on by checking out cool new hardware and software of the never to come future. This is not the show for you. IF however you are intrested in how to deploy Linux to best serve the needs of your company or organization. Come and bring lot's of room to take notes.
7. Swag --- We don't need no stinkin' Swag In the past my kid loved it when Daddy came back from LW because he got all kinds of neat things to play with. This year, the swag is limited as heck . Mostly product brochures and data sheets. A geek coming to LW with one T-Shirt will most likely leave with just one, unless he buys it. No dancing penguins, no daemon girls, no booth fluff. The people in the booths actually know the product and are willing to discuss it. This definitly isn't a Comdex clone.
8. OSDN is to be commended on one thing. They have brought the speeches and discussions out of the back halls and into the main halls. An exciting and informative list of people from all over the Linux map are deliverying seminars on the Main floor. Every one of them is well attended and very informative. Kudos to OSDN on this move.
9. No Dust Puppy *sniff*
10. All in all I must say this IBM + Linux has created a culture in Linux that is less Silicon Valley hype than normal and Less stuffed shirt than the IBM of old, Picked up and carried forward by HP Sun and others to the point that DESPITE Washington DC and the Bush league players a solid well organized movement has really just begun.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.