Linuxworld Expo Wrapup

Robin Miller has posted his third Linuxworld story. Theevilbalrog sent in a link to some LWCE photos. Some other Linuxworld-related stories include this one about open source in government and this one covering some of the many Linux business stories at the expo.

I was at the Expo on Thursday and Friday. Some of my impressions of the conference:

It's getting more business-y and less geeky every year. There are a lot of reasons for that, and it isn't all bad, but it's still vaguely sad to see.

HP and IBM accounted for about half the floor space - seriously. The Expo promoters must have played the two companies off against each other as far as conference participation went, and besides the large areas devoted to these companies, there were other large sections that were intended to represent an average company solving all its problems with Linux - these areas were jointly sponsored by HP, IBM and the other big companies at Linuxworld. It was - quite - as if the entire conference was owned by IBM and HP, but it was pretty close.

There was virtually no BSD presence. I think I saw some NetBSD people - that was it.

The .org pavilion is still going strong - while the rest of the conference is getting more business-oriented (fewer engineers and more salesdrones), the non-profit free and open source software area is still sizable and well-attended.

There were fewer "check out our neat new hardware gadget running Linux" booths and more "buy an expensive rack server running Linux from us" booths.

Linux.conf.au sucked a fair number of the geekiest attendees away from LWCE. Okay, the Australian conference is a lot smaller, but it's still dumb to schedule them simultaneously.

Comments

A Trend With Expos

[webdevcoder]

It is more of a trend with Expos to get commericalized rather than development. On the other hand, the conventions have remained relatively similar as places to develop ideas ...

Pictures??? LAME!!!

[skermit]

At other tradeshows you get boothbabes, at Linuxworld, you get pics of a Dance Dance Revolution gamepad and a couple shots of guys getting a massage... piss poor!

Re:Pictures??? LAME!!!

[skermit]

Thanks for the mod down guys... how's this for "overrated"?

Some pics:
http://www.thetechzone.com/display.php?i=165&p =1

Small article then lots of pics (some cute some HORRENDOUS):
http://www.graphicpower.com/showreports/boothbabes .stm

More babe lovin':
http://www.psillustrated.com/e3_2000/babes_report. html

And last, a short documentary on booth babes:
http://www.gamesfirst.com/articles/shawn/boothbabe s/boothbabes.htm

Enjoy!

Re:Pictures??? LAME!!!

[stefanlasiewski]

If a vendor is reduced to using boothbabes, it's because they have no confidence in their own product.

Re:Pictures??? LAME!!!

[MullerMn]

Holy Jesus. Some of the women on those pages are fucking ugly. I though women at Macworld would be hot, but there's some in there that probably scare their own children shitless.

Stallman in a bikini would be an improvement over some of those unshaven he-shes.

Urghughggughhhh

Re:Pictures??? LAME!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

At other tradeshows you get boothbabes...

But you got this guy!

Re:Pictures??? LAME!!!

[CakerX]

not at LWE they weren't

Re:Pictures??? LAME!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep telling yourself that as your competitor wipes the floor with you because their marketing team remembered that *SEX STILL SELLS* when setting up the booth!

http://www.osw.ca -- Open Source Weekend

[Anonymous Coward]

on the subject of open-source in government, check out http://www.osw.ca we had a fun time yesterday, although there were some people thier set on disrupting our bsd booth, apparently the guy who owns the unix trademark also owns everything that looks/operates/feels like unix, yeah right...

How dare!

[(rypto*]

The Backrub Booth! This was the BEST part of the whole show! For $15 I got an amazing backrub by a woman named Ebony

Ebony!! Fucker thats my wife!!

Re:How dare!

[ccie_sec]

mine too ;)

Recap ...

[SuperDuG]

Well lets recap the previous year of linux. Things have stopped being appealing just because they _use_ linux. The only thing I can even think to remember is actually going on more than a year old and that's the zarus. I think people are stating to find that the linux hype is over and it's time for real world examples, that happens to be with IBM. HP/Compaq/Digital/Whatever is a loose cannon. Who knows where they stand on anything (ref: iPaq and Jornada, ref: tru64 and linux).

No presence from BSD??? Well no shit, guess what, BSD isn't another linux distro, they are in fact their own operating systems, that they only thing they have in common with linux is some of the same software runs on both systems. BSD does not "sellout" and doesn't have a buncha weirdo zealots running around claiming it is going to replace windows.

As far as expo's go, they're a good thing, but they only help to get the word out, not much more. Most everything covered at the expo was already known facts that were resaid to the public.

Re:Recap ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No presence from BSD???

This is from the same guy who was taken aback by another OS company having the gall to appear at a Linux convention.

Yeah...

[Ryan Stortz]

Yeah....but how many laptops did he steal from Bruce Perens?

Zuh...

[Master Tofu]

Anyone been lynched by penguins at LinuxWorld?

Ask Slashdot Answers?

[chrisseaton]

So what about the ask slashdot answers, Roblimo?

Re:Ask Slashdot Answers?

[Roblimo]

In the Call for Questions post I said,"Hopefully, I'll have time to type up the answers over the weekend and post them Monday or Tuesday."

Today is Sunday in the U.S. It is not Monday or Tuesday. I will post those answers Monday or Tuesday.

(sigh)

- Robin

Re:Ask Slashdot Answers?

[chrisseaton]

... and you guys would never post anything without checking the facts or past posts first.

Re:Ask Slashdot Answers?

[titzandkunt]

" I'll have time to type up the answers over the weekend and post them Monday or Tuesday."

Translation: I am too busy selling a truckload of mousemats, coffee mugs, keyrings, cuddly penguin toys and other assorted expo detritus on eBay.

Hm!

T&K.

Where's XFree86 4.3.0?

[MarcQuadra]

Wasn't XFree86 4.3.0 supposed to out at he expo? I know it's close, but could somebody on the 'inside' let us know about where in the release process you are?

The XFree86 website is intentionally cryptic about such plans to keep people like me from -expecting- it on such-and-such a date.

Let's hear from people in the know!

Re:Where's XFree86 4.3.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they are. There is the RnR (rotate and resize) extentions and performance should be increased in the render extentions. Jim Getty and Keith Packard have done a lot with bringing X to the level of modern multimedia desktops while staying true to it's network transparent roots. 4.3 is supposed to be a huge improvement.

Re:Where's XFree86 4.3.0?

[IamTheRealMike]

I don't know any hard dates, but I know it was scheduled for the end of January, so maybe in a few weeks?

I'm looking forward to the animated cursors myself, Jimmac has made some really nice ones

Future of expo?

[edox.]

what would it be for the next year?

.

Sheesh, barf me

[Reality Master 101]

We don't need mansions or yachts to feel good about ourselves. Maybe one reason we don't need money as much as some people is that we save a bunch by using Free and/or Open Source software...

On the other hand, I don't need a vow of poverty to feel good about myself. Man, overcompensating a little about your apparently humble existence? Nothing wrong with that, of course, but throwing your "less rich than thou" attitude in people's faces is just as bad as throwing financial success in people's face.

Just for the record, the amount of money you earn -- either a huge amount or a small amount -- is absolutely no direct measurement of one's character. Apparently Miller believes it is.

Re:Sheesh, barf me

[Roblimo]

You could have read the whole paragraph instead of getting into a high dudgeon over what you perceived as a slight toward people who make too much or too little money. I don't choose my friends by their income levels.

I'm just tired of the idjit "You must be getting paid off by Microsoft!!!" accusations we get every time we so much as mention that company's name. It has been especially fierce lately because of their presence at LinuxWorld and the fact that we (gasp!) have dared to write about it.

My point (which you apparently didn't notice as it flew over your head) was not to play holy over income or lack thereof, but to slam in the idea that no, we are not only not paid by Microsoft to write about them, but that we don't have enough financial need to be susceptible to bribery if they offered, which they haven't.

Not that I expect you to believe any of this, since this is exactly what you'd expect a paid Microsoft flog to say, isn't it?

Whoops! Gotta go! I had more to say, but Chairman Bill is paging me. Maybe he wants to pay me $20,000 to write an article about how Microsoft's SQL server is so much more secure than PostGres.

(The preceding paragraph is a JOKE. I say this in case any Slashdot readers forgot to wear their aluminum foil deflector beanies today and have had their senses of humor deactivated by CIA mind control rays.)

- Robin

Re:Sheesh, barf me

[Reality Master 101]

Not that I expect you to believe any of this, since this is exactly what you'd expect a paid Microsoft flog to say, isn't it?

What the hell? I didn't say anything about Microsoft. Look, you started with (reasonably) trying to state that you aren't paid by Microsoft. OK, fine, point accepted. But then you went off on this tangent about somehow that making a low enough amount of money somehow shields you from taking money from Microsoft (seems like the opposite would be true to me, but moving on...). My point is that the amount of money you make has nothing to do with your ethics, and bringing that into the discussion to prove something proves nothing. Ethics is the question, not income.

I'm just tired of the idjit "You must be getting paid off by Microsoft!!!" accusations we get every time we so much as mention that company's name.

Everyone who matters with an ounce of sense knows that it's absurd that you would be getting paid by Microsoft. They are saying that basically to troll. In any case, ethics can only be proved by past actions, so personally I wouldn't waste time trying to "prove" it.

Anyway, I accept that perhaps I misinterpreted what you wrote, but I think my point is valid.

OpenSource in the White House?

[Big Mark]

open source in government

All we need now is for Blair and Bush to suddenly become GPL zealots. They'll GPL their war plans, accuse Saddam of violating the terms of it, declare war on him and destroy him!

And then it will turn out that they were accidentally released under the BSD licence, they'll get sued for acting wrongly!

-Mark

Re:OpenSource in the White House?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh, you British. Cornwallis was a fag that got his ass driven back into the Atlantic, and the world is a better place for it. Can you imagine $3 cups of tea at Starbucks? Cricket doubleheaders? Lawsuits over McBangers and McMash? I can't.

Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering if there's anyone who attends these things who comes dressed as a M$ Borg.

The Best Part of Linux World

[Carnage4Life]

Right Here

Open Source Massage!

[cioxx]

The Link Speaks for Itself

Linux World Expo must have been a cool party.

Re:Abuse of credentialism

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the cussing, I'll say right on!

Something stinks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the TV commercial for Tidy Cats cat litter with the cats that say "something stinks.. and it's not the litter box"? My girlfriend and I have a long-running feud about this commercial. We need unbiased third-party to help resolve this issue.

The commercial begins with Cat 1 (who thinks he is alone in the kitchen) talking smack about how he is glad Cat 2 and 3 are gone. Then two women come home and one says "with this new litter, you can't even tell there are multiple cats." The Tidy Cats litter bag falls over to reveal Cat 2 and 3! Cat 2 says "something stinks!" and Cat 3 (in a Sean Connery voice) says "and it's not the litter box!" Then the camera cuts to show the response of Cat 1.

If you have seen this commercial, can you please describe your interpretation of the expression of Cat 1 after he has been discovered talking smack? If you have not seen this commercial, please watch for it and pay close attention to the last scene!

Re:Something stinks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids,

This is just another example of how television rots the brain. Never Never watch television. It is a drug for the lazy.

Officer Friendly

Debian Expo.

[termos]

This summer there is DebConf coming up in Oslo, Norway for those of you who are interrested. 4-5 days before the conf. there will be a DebCamp, where you can sit outside in your tent, have a hot dog and talk with fellow Debian geeks. More information at:
here and
here

Re:There was a Linuxworld expo?

[Anonymous Coward]

They were all too busy beating off to pics of Booth Babe in their hotel room. On a Linux laptop, of course.

NetBSD @ LW

[jschauma]

NetBSD was in fact the only BSD at LW03 in New York. A short review is available online. Considering that we were stuck way in the depth of the .org pavillon, it was still quite a success, with many interested people stopping by.

NetBSD did have a booth there..

[bahwi]

NetBSD did have a booth there. Check out the info over here. My favorite quote is:

Interest in the NetBSD Project was certainly high, and we received numerous curious questions, ranging from the unavoidable ``So, ugh, what kernel version does your distribution include? 2.4?''

Re:Pictures? Fester runs Linux!!!

[LinuxGeek]

Uncle Fester was at Linuxworld and runs Linux!

Did anyone come up to check for a pulse?

[Anonymous Coward]

And when they did was it a case of "Look there is a free tux coffee mug on the floor", followed by the sound of wood on the back of a skull.

Audio Interviews

[FrostedWheat]

I've ogg'ed ExtremeTechs interviews and put them up here for a while.

Nothing fantastic but it's nice to hear people talking about things rather than reading it.

Re:Audio Interviews

[FrostedWheat]

Bah, Demon are rubbish tonight.

The site is here for a few hours.

Way to endorse MS

[bogie]

Morons gave MS an award. This now validates MS as company that plays nice with OpenSource and Linux. This of course is false as we all know MS is doing its best to destroy linux and every linux company. Someone there pointed out how MS is distributing GPL software with their kit. This fact means jack no matter how ironic it is. What does mean jack is that MS will with its billion dollar marketing budget will turn this award to their advantage in their quest to ruin linux.

I see the trend here lately is to bash people who bash MS. Well maybe sometimes that's called for. Let's not forget the facts though, Microsoft is literally trying to wipe linux from the face of the earth.(I'd like to see someone argue with that fact) This award will only help them in that endevor, thus I think my calling them morons is in this case justified.

BTW incase anyone notices, I posted something similar at the newsforge site but it might not show up , so I reposted here.

Re:Way to endorse MS

[AndrewGoat]

Let's not forget the facts though, Microsoft is literally trying to wipe linux from the face of the earth. I thought it was the other way around, too.

Re:Way to endorse MS

[Planesdragon]

Let's not forget the facts though, Microsoft is literally trying to wipe linux from the face of the earth.(I'd like to see someone argue with that fact)

OK.

Linux, in its current form, is MS's best way to solve its two biggest problems.

Firstly, if a significant share of the "wintel" market goes to Linux, MS will no longer be a monopoly--and can go back to doing whatever cuthroat things it wants to for another twenty years, without the government having cause to intervene and tell it to stop being evil.

Secondly, the presence of a free Linux gives it an escape vector to channel software pirates to. If MS _really_ wanted to wipe Linux from the world, they could simply cut the prices on their OS distributions for home users to $25 a pop, which would effectively kill of piracy of windows.

The really nice bit is that Linux / OpenOffice / KOffice provide MS with all of the beneifts of serious competition without any of the real competition. (When was the last time that you saw a Linux flyer in the mail?) There are all sorts of innovative ideas that Linux software comes up with, and MS can steal and benefit from them as much as they benefit from MS.

In short: MS benefits from Linux as much as Intel benefits from AMD, and wiping it out is far, far more trouble than it's worth. MS just wants to marginalize Linux so it can maximize its profit margin, and let Linux & Apple fill in the rest.

Plus, MS knows that Linux is better in some situations, and supports it. Heck, my webpage runs on Frontpage under Linux!

Re:Way to endorse MS

[IamTheRealMike]

Firstly, if a significant share of the "wintel" market goes to Linux, MS will no longer be a monopoly--and can go back to doing whatever cuthroat things it wants to for another twenty years, without the government having cause to intervene and tell it to stop being evil.

Microsoft only has the chance to do evil things because it is a monopoly, and anyway it's not like they are unduly worried about what the US govt says or thinks. They've been told to stop being evil many times, and so far haven't shown many signs of slowing down.

Secondly, the presence of a free Linux gives it an escape vector to channel software pirates to. If MS _really_ wanted to wipe Linux from the world, they could simply cut the prices on their OS distributions for home users to $25 a pop, which would effectively kill of piracy of windows.

Other than the fact that $25 is still $25 higher than Windows (and many, many people get windows "for free"), I think that'd do jack all to stop Linux. Very few people I know use Linux because it's cheap. In fact I know quite a few who have spent more on distros than they would have ever done on Windows. Maybe for corporates that'd make a difference, but if they slashed the price of Windows what funds all their other loss-making ventures?

The really nice bit is that Linux / OpenOffice / KOffice provide MS with all of the beneifts of serious competition without any of the real competition. (When was the last time that you saw a Linux flyer in the mail?)

Huh? How does that work? If anything that description would apply to Apple which is firmly under Microsofts thumb, and couldn't get high market share anyway due to not using commodity hardware. People are indeed switching all the way from Windows to Linux, and the assault on the corporate desktop is probably going to begin in about a year, at which point there will be no doubt that it's real competition.

Note that how many flyers you receive isn't a good way to measure competition. The home user desktop is still a few years away yet.

In short: MS benefits from Linux as much as Intel benefits from AMD, and wiping it out is far, far more trouble than it's worth.

A monopoly is about the most valuable thing you can have. Anyway, if they weren't interested in wiping it out why all the anti-GPL rhetoric earlier? Why have they been going around telling people Linux might open them up to patent lawsuits?

Microsoft are printing cash in the current situation, and almost certainly don't want to see the status quo end after so long.

Plus, MS knows that Linux is better in some situations, and supports it. Heck, my webpage runs on Frontpage under Linux!

No, I'm sure any MS rep would tell you Windows 2000 would make a far better server platform. The reason you can do that is because Linux is a force in the server world that's stronger than FrontPage is in the client world. So it'd be a case of "You can't use FrontPage for this, our servers run Linux", "Oh well". They support Passport on Linux/Apache as well, doesn't mean they like it, only that they can see it makes business sense.

So really there are three possible futures. In the first one, Microsoft fights Linux to the last and is destroyed. In the second, Microsoft isn't destroyed but merely recedes into the sunset, like IBM in the PC market. In the third, they succesfully make the transition to writing software for Linux and stick around (though not as a monopoly).

Re:Way to endorse MS

[Planesdragon]

Microsoft only has the chance to do evil things because it is a monopoly, and anyway it's not like they are unduly worried about what the US govt says or thinks. They've been told to stop being evil many times, and so far haven't shown many signs of slowing down.

MS has been doing evil things for a long, long time. The monopoly only keeps those who dislike their evil from finding an equally viable alternative (though Openoffice is, praise be to the coders, just about what I want. Developer build 643 fixed the last major bug, and once it rolls into 1.1 I can learn to live without Word's Outline View.)

Other than the fact that $25 is still $25 higher than Windows (and many, many people get windows "for free"), I think that'd do jack all to stop Linux.

I didn't say stop Linux, I said stop Windows piracy. $100 for the right to install Windows on a second PC is too much. $25 is just about right.

Huh? How does that work? If anything that description would apply to Apple which is firmly under Microsofts thumb, and couldn't get high market share anyway due to not using commodity hardware.

The benefits of competition for anyone are a drive to improve their product--and in the case of noncopyrightable nonpatentable ideas, a way to get new ideas and yet another source of feedback on the UI.

OpenOffice has some elements of it that are simply better than Word--I haven't used it extensively, and I can tell that. The UI folks at MS are probably looking over every new Word Processor, to see what the "scratch and itch" coders of Linux think should be done differently (and how well their changes work.)

A monopoly is about the most valuable thing you can have.

No, it isn't. Monopolies bring regulation and obstruction and resentment. The most valuable business line is a product that is capitalistically better than anything else in the market--but isn't a monopoly.

Anyway, if they weren't interested in wiping it out why all the anti-GPL rhetoric earlier? Why have they been going around telling people Linux might open them up to patent lawsuits?

Because the GPL works against them--and it isn't a core part of Linux. If MS got the GPL outlawed, it'd take all of a month for Linux to be re-released under a new license.

Also, MS is trying to marginalize / minimize Linux--but that's not equal to wiping it from the face of the Earth.

No, I'm sure any MS rep would tell you Windows 2000 would make a far better server platform

And when the client says "I run two webservers and your OS license is too much", they'll likely say something like "well, if you really want to run the risk of X, X, and X, we'll help you by doing Y."

But what sales reps say and what the company knows are two entirely different things.

Yeah well.. LCA rocked :)

[Large Green Mallard]

Hmm so linux.conf.au took all the smart geeks? oh boo-hoo. Perhaps these geeks are more interested in meeting talking with other programmers and geeks, than they are in dealing with PHBs and other people in suits.

There was a LCA dinner.. one person wore a suit, and he was a lawyer, so no-one complained ;) The rest of the conference, I saw only about one or two people with ties on. Everyone else was hanging around in shorts and a tshirt. Business-like? No way. Fun, useful? Oh yes :) IBM was a sponsor, with a lot of the ozlabs staff there, and Sun provided some LX50s, but aside from that, the commercial presence was tiny.

If I had my choice again, I still would have gone to LCA.

Question ?

[Billly Gates]

Is the FreeBSD chick in the red tight leather from New York Linux expo in 1999 there!

photos?

[_outcat_]

Am i the only one self-absorbed enough to be rifling through every online photo of LWE I can find to see if I'm in a picture?

...i am?

(mumbles) if I find one, I promise I'm posting it here.

--T.

dancing nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

i went and it was ok...usual nonsense but i made this mpg (it is crooked and i am too lazy to fix) that explains it all...

hehe

http://angrybit.com/random/linux-hacker.mpg

linux.conf.au

[davydmadeley]

As an organiser of the now-past linux.conf.au. I can say, Yes it was stupid to have them scheduled at the same time. We had our conference scheduled quite a bit of time in advance of LinuxWorld, but LinuxWorld was scheduled at the same time anyway.
It cost us getting Maddog Hall, and it cost LinuxWorld a lot of very cool people, but you can find out about them on your own.

time for BSDWorld Expo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that the linux hype is dying, perhaps it's time to start a new one. I think we should start promoting BSD now.

Linux forks VS BSD forks.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have 182 (or more http://www.ldl.cx/) Linux forks out there. If you say FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/Darwin (MacOSX is the same thing, just lickable)/BSDi are the BSD versions, that means 20% of the BSD's showed.

Where there 40 Linux forkes being pushed by their vendors? What %age of total linux versions showed?

YOU pay for boothbabes thru overpriced software

[Anonymous Coward]

When you buy regular commericial software. Where do you think the companies get money for the models/ex-playmates? From you buying their software, of course.

I would just take that same cash and get a site membership. Lots more value that way, ya know?

Idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of fighting the slashdot bloat by posting fewer stories...

YOU THINK YOU NEED TO START yet another slashdot article ON YOUR STUPID ANSWERS.

Thanks, Rob-lim-bone

mod it up, scotty! Warp:5!

[Anonymous Coward]

I died laughing! :D

8-B

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't see here.

Damn, I have a curse*erm*crush on that red devil!