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Ask a LinuxWorld Exhibitor
Most Slashdot readers aren't coming to the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York this week. If you're not coming, but you have a question you'd like to ask one of the exhibitors, please post it here. I promise to ask 10 of the highest-moderated exhibitor questions on your behalf, and I'll do my best to ask more than 10, time permitting. If you have a question for anyone who is holding a conference session or tutorial Thursday or Friday, please feel free to post it, too. I will try to ask speakers at least a few questions, but that's chancier than getting hold of exhibitors (who are in booths where they're easy to find), so no promises. One question per post, please. Hopefully, I'll have time to type up the answers over the weekend and post them Monday or Tuesday.
For Hardware Vendors:
What basic strategies are you employing to better penetrate the server/appliance market with Linux systems?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
What is your response to the vulterant claims that your Gnome/KDE setup is breaking QT apps and causing havoc for developers who make use of QT?
Considering that this is called "LinuxWorld", what product will you release next for Linux?
What is your impression of Microsoft a) at your convention and b) Microsoft's efforts to lure Unix customers into their fold, away from Linux? Do they appear successful?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Do you plan on producing Open Source components to any of your products? This primarily refers to server components, such as HTTP, DNS, IMAP, etc. which could function externally to the base programs (Exchange, ISA, etc.) and offer simpler and more granular control over active services.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Conversely, what was the lamest giveaway item you were ever saddled with? Where you had to throw it at passersby, and even then they recoiled in dismay?
...run Windows 2000? :-)
I know it's been the dream of GNU/Linux enthusiasts for years: to replace Windows on client PCs. Thus far, Microsoft's hold on OEMs hasn't been broken in the desktop PC market, though there are some encouraging signs like Walmart's $199 Microtel GNU/Linux PCs and LTSP spreading in schools. My question is this: do you think GNU/Linux will really succeed in spreading out from the server room to win a significant share of the desktop client market? If so, when and how do you think this will happen? (Such as HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway, IBM, etc all pushing GNU/Linux PCs with Open Office to businesses, or thin client computing like LTSP gaining popularity, etc.)
"As flies to the wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for sport." - William Shakespeare, King Lear
Which will come first, Duke Nukem Forever or KDE 3.1?
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Dear Linux Administrator,
I'm a divorced mother of seven trying to put my life put back together after the death of my fourth husband. My kids still blame me for his death (it wasn't my fault, honest!), and I'm having a tough time meeting new people. What should I do?
--Sleepless in Sarasota
Vi or Emacs?
To icculus.org (booth #9): What is it like to be a small organization at a big convention with people like HP, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc? Do people give you any credit for what you are doing?
Do they read Slashdot? If so, why do they think there is such a strong anti-microsoft sentiment on Slashdot? What do they think Microsoft can do to change that sentiment?
:)
You know, a nice easy question for them to handle
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Is Mac OS X a big enough competitor (for want of a better word) to the Linux server/desktop market to warrent porting products over to either OS X or to Darwin?
This is with focus on the server side.
If you read a speed reading book, does it take you less time to read the second half?
(people on irc / you have never met do NOT count) Hey, fuck you!!
Feel that power? That's mah MOUSING FINGER
The Dell's online computer purchases, in the "educational" section, only offer Windows as the O.S. [Last verified - about a month ago, when my friend from an American university whose IT dept prefers Dell computers to purchase from the scientific research grants money asked me to help him select his future computer config.]
Neither the "no-OS-gimme-refund" or a prepackaged Linux option is available. How does this coincide with the present Dell attempts to position itself as a friend of Linux?
VKh
Are there any plans to offer software specifically targetted towards grade school age children? Seems like there may be an untapped market here.
To IBM:
Currently there are lots of IBM commercials regarding Linux. At home all I use is Linux and am far more productive, yet at work(IBM) am forced to use winblows. When are you going to start embracing using technologies that your costomers and workers can use. Instead of having web broadcase in Windows median, switch to another format. This goes to all of the documents and programs being used. Why have a coorprate license for Office XP when we can use OpenOffice.org?
Currently this aspect is forcing your customers to use windows. With this attitude you will never gain any ground in the Desktop world. There is plenty to gain and somebody in bigblue needs to wake up.
To Macrovision Corp. (booth R10)
As I understand, your main stakes are in the encoding of ntsc and pal video signals as to make them uncopyable in receiving hardware (correct me if I'm incorrect).
As that stated, why are you involved with Linux?
Are you contributing to the video section (V4L) of the Linux kernel or making user-land utilities?
In general, what are your open business plans with Linux?
Microsoft has adjusted their rehtoric against Linux, again, and says they will now be pushing the integration advantages of Windows over Linux. This, in my opinion, does have some merit as, management of a Microsoft network is highly integrate from groupware and databases to desktop workstations. The Linux environment however, is composed of individual projects with little or no integration which forces Linux management to be performed through kludges and custom scripts.
Indeed, the most popular and perhaps best, integrated management system for the Linux environment appears to be Webmin which, though very good, is forced to be a kludge and still falls short of a truely integrated enterprise Linux management system. While Red Hat offers RHN and SCO offers Volution Manager neither one truely integrates the overall management of a Linux shop.
Are you, the leading commercial Linux vendors targeting the enterprise market, planning on making any efforts to integrate Linux management on an enterprise level such as Microsoft and Novell already do? If so, what are these efforts and how will they be licensed?
You are either:
a) Trolling,
b) Have never been to LinuxWorld,
c) And if I'm wrong on that, you've certainly never been within 50 feet of the FreeBSD booth at LinuxWorld.
I mean, getting card-swiped in exchange for a keychain/neckchain photo of themselves, wearing pointy-red-horns with LEDs in 'em, surrounded by pointy-red-horned, red-pantsuited and/or red-latexed FreeBSD succubi with the big FreeBSD daemon in the background? Could there be anything more quintessentially geeky?
(And do I still have mine from LinuxWorld 1999? You bet your ass I do! I also have pictures of myself standing between a life-sized incarnation of Tux the Penguin, and UserFriendly's Dust Puppy. What any of this means about geek sexuality is a mystery left for future forensic anthropologists to determine.)
I got shot with a taser at CES this month to get a t-shirt. That's right, 50k volts. Hurt like hell. Was it worth a t-shirt? No. Was it worth saying I got shot with a taser? Definitely.
Okay, we've got Rob promising to ask the ten highest-moderated questions. Why don't we have him look for booth babes and ask if he can get the source to their hearts or maybe even walk up to various vendors and ask if his butt would look good in pleather?
be sure to take a camera.
Just look that marketer in the eye, give them a little wink and ask, "So, do you want to go back to my room and get a litle...frisky?" (Try to roll the 'r' in frisky when you say it.) Ideally you would ask this question to several marketers under different conditions: wearing nice clothes, looking kind of dumpy, wearing cologne, wearing overpowering cologne, etc.
Try to get a good sample of linux marketers.
Kudos will be awarded for propositioning Linus.
"What operating system do you use on your home computer?"
1000 SlashDot sigs
No, I don't want the crappy "relaxing ball". I want the t-shirts that i KNOW you have under the counter. No, I don't want to have a discussion with you about my enterprise needs. I just need a t-shirt. Don't make me come back there and get it.
I've found that if you can get people to answer honestly, you get some very interesting replies to this one from Linux hardware and software vendors.