Review Of LinuxWorld 2004

jamienk writes "I went to the LinuxWorld convention at the Javits Center in NYC again this year. This is where the post-post-industrial corporate complex flexes for us consumers and infrastructure staff to see. And the smell of Corps was thick in the air. So was the nerdy, curious, driven, hacker odor. Guess which vibe won?"

Comments

ummm

[zippo01]

I can't afford to fly to a Linux Convention, i think they should do a live feed over the net so i can see all the nerds, and venders trying to sell to them.

Re:First time @ LinuxWorld

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I will never understand... why were the people at LILUG playing that stupid dancing game? They looked like a bunch of fools.

Maybe because they don't give a f*** what people think of them? I don't mean to sound harsh, but who cares what they look like? You don't know any of them. It's amazing that in the USA, the land of equal opportunity and "freedom" that a bunch of people having fun can get such a comment for doing nothing else but having some innocent fun.

People forget

[Unregistered]

That corps are necessary for widespread adoption of linux. Sure the people they send too these shows are worthless, but important stuff does cope from corps as well as individuals. So don't gete too down on the corps since we wouldn't have come this far without them.

Rose-colored glasses

[PCM2]

Let the stuffed shirts and corporate bigwigs make money from the Free code. Let the pundits question what it will take for Linux to succeed on the Desktop. There is massive innovation in Linux userspace, driven by the same geeky joy that, in another era and in other fields is called "intellectual curiosity." That's what I see as the main force behind the Open Source movement; not corporate possibilities, as the LinuxWorld convention pretends, but brutal candor, mischievous smartness, self-mocking over-eagerness. The corporate successes of Linux are just the results of an overflow of energy, the excesses being mopped up. The hacker ethic is driving the corporations. We don't need them, but they need us.

Umm ... OK.

This guy's conclusion seems to be that LinuxWorld was overrun by corporations (read: evil) but that secretly the geeks were powering everything and they, in the long run, would "win out." Um -- huh?

I mean, that might be a nice way to think about things, but how really is the open source world any different than any other scientific endeavor? You've got gigantic automobile manufacturers, aerospace companies, drug companies ... Boeing, Ford, Glaxo, Archer Daniels-Midland, whatever. Yes, these are "evil" corporations doing "evil" things, but a large proportion of what constitutes the products they sell came out of academic research. Weird guys with beards, in laboratories, doing things for the sake of "intellectual curiosity." People squirting things into petri dishes, people pointing lasers at things to see what happens. And then the corporations buy it all up and make money off of it.

Does this surprise anyone?

• Researchers research.
• Tinkerers tinker.
• Businesses make money.

Aren't these pretty much the dictionary definitions, and hasn't that always been the case?

Sorry, but it just kills me when Linux geeks seem to think they're creating some kind of cultural/scientific revolution that somehow dwarfs past endeavors like, oh, the Saturn 5 rocket. And that, because of their personal ethics, they're going to somehow escape The Way the World Is, unlike Einstein, or Stephen Hawking, or John Nash, or whomever.

Nice world you must live in, buddy, but I'm not buying it.

Re:Rose-colored glasses

[crazyphilman]

Hang on, be fair. If everyone brings their straw man to slashdot at the same time, the resulting fire could kill us all. It would only take one stoner to set off the conflagration, ok? You know those bongs throw sparks from time to time.

Part of what you're saying is true. And part of what the other guy said was true. I think the TRUTH lies somewhere in the middle, like this:

Corporations, and people who buy into that whole mindset/lifestyle, are pretty boring and soulless. All they think about is money, so whenever they latch onto something cool or interesting, the best they can do is fake it and try and squeeze a buck out of it. It's like this guy I know, let's call him "M". Back when I was on speaking terms with him, I used to tell him about ideas I'd had, little things I was working on at home. He would ALWAYS evaluate them based on whether they could be "monetized". I would argue, "but wait, you don't understand; this is cool, it's not about money, it's about having it, playing with it..." And he would make fun of me. He would call me a "techie weenie".

Now, on the other hand, you have your true geeks, a group I consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool member of, albeit a moderate member. We do things because they're fun, although if there's money in it that DOES increase the fun a little bit. So, we'll build a system because it's interesting, or useful, or something we want but which we can't find anywhere. For example, I'm building myself a custom knowledge-management app because I'm tired of storing my source-code toolbox in a flat-file directory. Will there be money in it? Who knows? But it'll be USEFUL and FUN. Now, in contrast to the last guy, one of my friends, let's call him "D", heard a few of my ideas (the same ideas the other guy made fun of) and thought they were great. HE thought they should be done whether they make money or not, because it would be cool if they just EXISTED.

And, THIS is the difference between corporate and geek. It has nothing to do with revolution, or who's going to "win" or any other thing of that nature. It's a basic difference in mindset which results in two entirely different worlds coexisting in the same space.

The result of all this is that the vast majority of people are stuck with the boring, not particularly innovative stuff the corporations put out, and this isn't going to change, EVER. Because that's just how it is; boring people produce boring stuff for other boring people.

Us geeks will ALWAYS have cooler, more interesting tech than the rest of the people out there because WE BUILD IT OURSELVES from nothing. We pull this stuff right out of our heads, you know? Eventually some of that stuff finds its way into corporate imaginations, such as they are, and regular people get their hands on a watered down version of it. Look at how Comp USA is selling a staid, boring, plastic-panel "modded" PC, but the REAL enthusiasts are making systems regular people couldn't even imagine exist.

It's how it's supposed to be. Everybody relax; this is the nature of things, the form and structure of our world. Enjoy it.

Re:"scalability"

[Trick]

It all depends how it's used, and why. Have you been subjected to any sales pitches lately? I have, and "scalability" is most definitely used as a meaningless buzzword much more often than I'd care to hear it.

Re:"scalability"

[Rostin]

Agree. If this guy patted himself on the back for being cool, confident, and un-fake any harder, he'd probably break his damned elbow. What he doesn't understand is that the lengths he has gone to to stroke his own ego have revealed the fact that he is just as sub-human as the stereotypes he is trying to poke other people into.