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LinuxWorld Expo Day 1 Showfloor Reports

Gentu writes "Here are the first reports from the first day of LinuxWorldExpo's showfloor: NewsForge discusses a few interesting 'off-the-record' tidbits among the announced news, while OSNews offers a report, too, accompanied by a number of pictures from the Expo."

112 comments

  1. booth babes links please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    pretty please with sugar on top.

    1. Re:booth babes links please by boarder8925 · · Score: 1

      How does this post get modded "Insightful"? "Funny" would definitely fit it ... or maybe "Underrated" ...

    2. Re:booth babes links please by cytoman · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Dude, out of the 125 speakers at this expo, *only* 9 are women!!

      I'm not in IT, but my field has a much higher representation from the fairer sex!!

      Does this ratio of 9/125 represent the actual number of female workers in the IT industry, or is it lower?

      It sure sucks to be in IT if you are a guy... but if you are a girl, you're in extreme demand and you get your pick... not that there's much to pick from there :-P.

    3. Re:booth babes links please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You don't get it -- modding that post Insightful makes it *more* funny. When I read it I laughed and thought: "Funny! Only on Slashdot such a post is Insightful!" You see?

    4. Re:booth babes links please by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      That is about right. Their are not a lot of females in the Tech side of the IT industry.

    5. Re:booth babes links please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their are not a lot of females in the Tech side of the IT industry.

      I guess there are not a lot of dictionaries, either!

    6. Re:booth babes links please by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      this is becasue most women are to damn smart to put up with the way IT professionals are treated.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:booth babes links please by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Informative

      I spent 3 years teaching course all over the states. These ranged from perl/C/C++/Java to Kernel Hacking. These were taught at various places such as IBM, HP, Boeing, USWest, MCI, AT&T, Lucent/Avaya, sprint, etc. At the entry level type classes, it was maybe 1/4 to 1/3 women. But when you get to the upper end of classes, it was at best 1/10 women. Sad set of numbers. On the plus side, almost all of the women in the upper classes were damn smart and worth spending extra time to help. You knew that they would actually use the education.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    8. Re:booth babes links please by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > Does this ratio of 9/125 represent the actual number of female worker Does
      > this ratio of 9/125 represent the actual number of female workers in the
      > IT industry, or is it lower?

      It's probably very typical, within one standard deviation of average.

      > my field has a much higher representation from the fairer sex!

      Yeah. So does my workplace. I'm the (entire) IT department and am one of
      two male employees, the other being the maintenance guy. All my other
      coworkers are female. (I work at a library.) One imagines this is some
      kind of really unusual coincidence. Or something.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    9. Re:booth babes links please by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > On the plus side, almost all of the women in the upper classes were smart

      This is a well-known phenomenon. In strongly male-dominated fields (not
      fields where it's like 80%/20%, but more like 95%/5% or worse), the women
      you do find in those fields are some of the very best people in the field.
      This is an overgeneralization, but it's a *good* overgeneralization (i.e.,
      it's not true every time, but it's true WAY more often than it's false).

      I have a theory about why this is, and it goes like this: the women who
      don't have a strong affinity for the field strongly tend to leave the field
      due to the cultural pressures. The ones who are left are the ones whose
      inclination for the field was so strong that they couldn't make themselves
      give it up, even if all their friends and their parents and everyone think
      they ought to find something different to do.

      One would think that the same would work in reverse for males in fields
      that are female-dominated, but if it does it seems to be to a lesser extent.
      Apparently either the psychology or the sociology of the situation is in some
      way different for men.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    10. Re:booth babes links please by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      I would also have to say that most (but not all) of the guys that were in the top classes were pretty sharp cookies. What was interesting was the differences in the companies. You could tell which companies recuited for what. FWIIW, Avaya had some of the sharpest. IBM, and HP were no slouches, but Avaya had more of the edge for both men and women.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    11. Re:booth babes links please by HiThere · · Score: 1

      I think it has to do with the way women are edged out of math classes starting (no later than) with high school. Probably Junior High.

      Before junior high girls tend to be better at math than boys...and they still get shoved out. Your guess of why is as good as mine. (My wife tells of her first year algebra class where the teacher got the boys of the class together to talk football in class...so it's not exactly subtle.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    12. Re:booth babes links please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, I didn't see any there.

    13. Re:booth babes links please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the ratio is actually lower. Yes, it's great for the girls, but the women at Georgia Tech have a saying in reference to the male/female ratio: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

    14. Re:booth babes links please by object88 · · Score: 1

      I used to work for Lucent/Avaya, out Alameda, then Dublin. Of those I've worked with, I would say that *most* of the female software developers were very bright. The dim ones were, sadly, very dim.

    15. Re:booth babes links please by japorms · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but i'm working here in the exhibit hall, and I've only seen two (Pogo Linux booth) who qualify as booth babes.

    16. Re:booth babes links please by GeekBird · · Score: 1

      There are more women in IT than get invited to speak at conferences. There are more women in IT than get featured at major publisher's *coughoreillycough* blog sites. There are more women in IT than will put up with drooling k1dd33z and h4x0r wannabes.

      Then again, I like my booth babes middle aged, trim, tall, ponytailed, and bearded.

      --
      use Sig::Witty;
    17. Re:booth babes links please by GeekBird · · Score: 1

      Depends on how you define "babe", doesn't it?

      --
      use Sig::Witty;
  2. Mono is cool. by DAldredge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Novell:
    The Novell, Ximian and SuSE booths were under the same roof at LinuxWorld. We talked with two Mono guys who showed us MonoDevelop running, and a program which is able to load the Gecko module and create a functional browser in under 35-40 lines of code.

    1. Re:Mono is cool. by pohl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      35-40 lines of code is cool, but zero lines of code is cooler. And soon you'll be able to pull a similar trick to build something like GIMP.

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

    2. Re:Mono is cool. by mcrbids · · Score: 3, Funny
      We talked with two Mono guys who showed us MonoDevelop running, and a program which is able to load the Gecko module and create a functional browser in under 35-40 lines of code.

      Which is, I think, a silly claim to make. I mean, I can "load the gecko module and create a functional browser in just ONE line of code!"
      $ mozilla &
      Wow! Wasn't that F@!#ing KEWL!?!?

      I guess the real question is... SO? What are you going to do with this?

      I can just see it now...

      yambb - Yet Another Mozilla Based Browser

      yambb2 - Yet Another Mozilla Based Browser... 2

      yapteamb - Yet Another Project That Embeds A
      Mozilla Browser...

      Is there anybody who has USED this kewl feature (tm) to make a decent product or project I might be even remotely interested in?
      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    3. Re:Mono is cool. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So sad. Tragically born without an imagination. And we're supposed to just give you all our good ideas?

    4. Re:Mono is cool. by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      Yes, that is cool. However it carries the additional cost of buying a Mac with it. And, due to the supply issues with the G5s they don't show any signs of becomming cheaper in the next 6-12 months.

    5. Re:Mono is cool. by dfghjk · · Score: 1

      I think you misunderstand what Core Image is for (and what a line of code is for that matter). You won't be building a Photoshop killer out of a "modern foundation for video services".

    6. Re:Mono is cool. by mcrbids · · Score: 1

      Ok, I just discovered, that I'm not done ranting.

      I write applications using PHP. Sometimes LAMP, sometimes with PHP-GTK. With this toolkit, I get:

      1) Reasonable performance

      2) Cross platform (Win/Lin/Mac)

      3) Very rapid development times

      4) Language that lets me focus on the deliverable, not the "how to".

      Java comes pretty close to all these criterion, but I'm already most familiar with PHP, so it gets the brunt of my efforts.

      But, if I use the neat-o Gnome/UI/Whizbang application framework that can "do X in Y lines!" I lose the very important #2 above.

      For the types of boring, niche-market applications I work with, GTK works well enough. Why bother?

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    7. Re:Mono is cool. by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      Mono is crossplatform
      GTK# is crossplatform
      gecko#: is OSX/Linux with Win32 support being developed.

    8. Re:Mono is cool. by mr_exit · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I dont know how interested you are in it but Alias's Maya (the 3d package most of the large effects houses use) not only runs under linux, it now has embedded Gecko.

      It is very usefull. I can use it to mix pages of HTML and Mayas scripting language MEL, previously making GUI's for scripts with MEL was a major pain up the ass, now you can just make a window with mel enabled links.

      --

      -------
      Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
    9. Re:Mono is cool. by killjoe · · Score: 1

      I bought mine and have been very happy with it. More power then I know what to do with :).

      Life is good with a dual G5.

      --
      evil is as evil does
    10. Re:Mono is cool. by mcrbids · · Score: 1

      gecko#: is OSX/Linux with Win32 support being developed.

      No Win32? Sorry, but that's like 90% of my audience.

      I HAVE to support Windows. It's my philosophy to support Mac OS and Linux. (which I do with PHP and GTK) If a language/toolkit won't support Win32/MacOS/Linux, I won't use them.

      Now, that limits me to Perl (ugly), Java (boring) or PHP. (quick and elegant) C is too low-level to be meaningful in the space I work in. (customized, niche workflow management products for small-to-mid sized organizations)

      I don't know about Python's cross-platform support, but I did dink with it for a while, and really liked the tab-indent style that I now structure all my PHP code similarly. (I indent the braces to line up with the code they enclose - which eliminates the "mis-matched braces" issue)

      What advantages does "*#" have over PHP?

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    11. Re:Mono is cool. by pohl · · Score: 1

      You must have not seen the demo at the keynote. While it may be true that it also happens to sit architecturally underneath video services, it is a very general-purpose framework and certainly could be used to make something like GIMP or Photoshop. That is, in fact, the first thing that they demonstrated before they moved on to how it is used in the video services. Steve Jobs specifically mentioned in the keynote that he would like to see Adobe use this new framework in Photoshop, which struck many as a veiled threat that if they do not then two guys in a garage somewhere will eat their lunch.

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

    12. Re:Mono is cool. by pohl · · Score: 1
      ...(and what a line of code is for that matter)...

      I can only take this to mean that you must be assuming that there is some code-generation going on underneath the drag-and-drop mechanism that connects components together in InterfaceBuilder. That's an understandable mistake since so many other similar tools chose that implementation. (Most of them had to because C++ was too static to support the more elegant strategy.) When you're using InterfaceBuilder, however, you're actually working with live instantiations and manipulating the live values of their instance variables (in this case, references to other objects on the heap). The graph of objects then gets serialized when you save your project. Running your application, of course, causes this pickled interface to be unmarshalled back into memory. Yes, there are many lines of code behind this mechanism too, but they're lines of code that I didn't have to write, which I think is what most people mean when they say they can do something in N lines of code, isn't it?

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

  3. Quote about a gift horse and inspection... by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 4, Insightful
    comes to mind when I read this quote from the newsforge article...

    IBM says it is making the donation to help spur Java database development that will eventually lead more users back to the WebSphere server line. On the other hand, Cloudscape was never a big seller in the enterprise market, and IBM was faced with either releasing it to the open source community or possibly dropping it entirely from its catalog.

    IBM did not have to do this, and the product still has lots of value.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
  4. Invitations by michaelzhao · · Score: 4, Funny

    Was SCO invited?

    1. Re:Invitations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I didn't even know there was a squaredance and hangin' afterparty.

    2. Re:Invitations by kfg · · Score: 1, Funny

      Invited? They're demanding a $699 fee from every attendee under the claim that they own the Expo because it has the word "Linux" in the title.

      KFG

    3. Re:Invitations by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      You can bet on it that they are there and wondering who to sue next, in spite of what they are saying these days.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  5. Re:Amateur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Your mom sees.

  6. Sensationalistic. by rpbailey1642 · · Score: 1
    From the article, about Sun buying Novell:
    However, Stone never came out and said Novell would not entertain a buyout offer. Stay tuned.

    Am I the only one who heard cheesy sinister music after that? Moderately sensationalistic. Just an observation, no need to take offense.

  7. For the Embedded Penguins!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    On-going report with pictures over at LinuxDevices:
    http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4827920836.htm
    Lots of cool gagets and other "embedded" stuff running Linux! Now, where did I leave the darn Pitch Fork???

    1. Re:For the Embedded Penguins!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice article, but their pictures suck! They seem to have used a cheap VGA digicam or something.

  8. Apple 2, Microsoft 0 by cytoman · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Wow! Two speakers from Apple are featured at this expo, and nobody from Microsoft!

    What a difference! One company has active Open Source contributing employees, and the other discourages such people!

    1. Re:Apple 2, Microsoft 0 by cytoman · · Score: 1
      Oops! Correction... it's actually Apple 3, Microsoft 0.

      THREE speakers from Apple.

    2. Re:Apple 2, Microsoft 0 by Sasha+Slutsker · · Score: 0

      That is probably because Mac OS X has UNIX in it, which is what Linux really is pretty much.

    3. Re:Apple 2, Microsoft 0 by Salsaman · · Score: 1
      One company has active Open Source contributing employees

      Oh yes, they contribute the minimal amount they have to, considering their entire company relies on Open Source and that they make hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars from the work of others.

      How about them contributing something useful, like say, oh, the Sorenson codec, or an open source iTunes client ? How exactly have they repaid the Open Source community for the money they make from the contributions of others ?

  9. are they releasing the source code to OS/X ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That'd be a real contribution to Open Source !

  10. Novell just released SuSE Enterprise 9 too by (H)elix1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Novell also released SuSE Enterprise 9 today - all that good stuff in the 9.1 desktop version, with even better hardware support. Not what I would call a typical laptop distribution, but it automagically detected my wireless network card in my Thinkpad and got the video right... Sweet 2.6 kernel goodness officially blessed now that an *enterprise* distribution supports it.

    Life is good...

  11. Re:Amateur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    That's not even worthy of an answer. But I will give you one anyway:

    No, YOUR mom sees.

  12. They just did.... by p.rican · · Score: 2, Insightful

    here's the link to the source

    --

    /. --"Demented and sad....but social" -Judd Nelson

  13. cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how do i compile OS/X for my pentium box?

    1. Re:cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      With GCC. In case it isn't clear, OS/X source code does include drivers for pentium hardware.

      Doesn't ship with Aqua though.

  14. All big iron and free software by Broadcatch · · Score: 0

    That says it all.

    --

    The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
    -- Molly Ivins

  15. Interesting by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 3, Funny

    booth babes links please pretty please with sugar on top.

    That is interesting that you have mentioned booths. Every time I visit a computer expo, I have a strong urge to switch from Linux to BSD. It is a very strange feeling which I absolutely cannot explain. I never have this feeling in my basement, though, so when I'm back in front of my computer, I usually forget about it and keep using Debian, but during every expo that urge comes back and keeps getting stronger and stronger. It is nearly irresistible, yet completely subconscious, beyond any reason and understanding. It would almost be mystical, if only my thoughts were pure and innocent... Could someone please explain it to me? Could that be Satan's temptations? With all of those daemons around, I'm not sure...

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Please use HTML links:
      http://www.freebsdgirl.com/img/pictures/263.jpg
      http://www.freebsdgirl.com/img/pictures/284.jpg

      Freebsdgirl.com.. AHHHHHHHHH MY EYEEEEEEEES!!!.. KILLLLLLLL MEEEEEEE.... please... please?.. do itt.. do itt. YESSS.. YESSSS I'll be your victim!!
      And also, other links:

      all freebsdgirl.com pictures
      naked freebsdgirl.com pictures

      By the way, am I the only one who thinks Ceren Ercen is absolutely gorgeous?
    2. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "By the way, am I the only one who thinks Ceren Ercen is absolutely gorgeous?"

      No, you're not... and I got to work with her... every day at Linuxcare! ;) Beat that!

      BTW, did you know Cerent went on to do BDSM for a little while? (Yes, I'm completely serious)

      Her name there was "Siren". How poetic. Too bad archive.org doesn't have her images... they were soft-pornographic. I kid you not. Give them a call and ask them about her. ;) Here's another one of her in "normal" clothes.

    3. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All of the images in your link are 404!!!

    4. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incidentally, that second picture is a tattoo on the shoulder of Alfred Perlstein's sister.

      Nobody parties like us freebsd people. :)

      -- sektie (FreeBSDGirl.com)

    5. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting -- I have the same feeling about . . . Debian!

    6. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you still have those pictures? I can pay well.

  16. Lindows by Nicholas+Evans · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This may be just a tad offtopic (It's mention in one of the links!) but Lindows has users always logged in as root? ...Are they CRAZY?

    1. Re:Lindows by Stevyn · · Score: 0

      Yes you're offtopic and no they're not crazy, they're Lindows users.

    2. Re:Lindows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      Why?

      The machine is no more or less secure to remote exploits simply because the console user is root. Most of Lindows' users are home users some it's unlikely that someone's going to physical access.

      If someone *does* physically get on the machine, then the user's home directory is where all of their important stuff is anyway, and killing that kills anything of use to them, and at that point who cares what happens to the rest. Any physical access means the machine is owned anyway, no matter what kinds of accounts are there.

      If there *were* any spyware or spam zombies for Linux, and more specifically for Lindows, they can work just as well from a user account as from root.

      And if anyone actually *does* care, it's trivially easy to create user accounts on Lindows.

    3. Re:Lindows by HiThere · · Score: 1

      I find you rationale unreasonable, but you caveat is true.

      Personally, if I feel that I might be doing something in the slightest bit dangerous, I create a new unpriviledged user to do it as. Then if something gets loose, I wipe the user, with scant loss. (This has only happened a couple of times...but that's twice my neck has been saved.)

      Unfortunately, most Lindows users don't even think about the possibility of running as a non-root user. So they never find out about the possibilities and dangers. I much prefer the approach taken by Apple and Mandrake, where there is the option of setting up a non-priviledged user with a default login. And you only need to become root (or the administrator) when doing something that really ought to need root.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  17. NOVL rocks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, I think SUSE linux together with strong experience of Novell makes IS administration a whole new experience.

    1. Re:NOVL rocks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just bought some novell stock eh?

  18. FYI by lingqi · · Score: 2, Informative

    The girl in question is Ceren Ercen

    --

    My life in the land of the rising sun.

  19. "Off The Record" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The submitter says something about off the record, but doesn't it seem to anyone else that by recording something that is "off the record" it becomes on the record and thus no longer off the record? And if someone says "now this is off the record" and you record it, doesn't that make you a liar?

  20. When I did my Chemical Engineering degree by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 1

    There were more blokes called "Paul" in my course than women.

    My move to IT has at least been an improvement on that.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    1. Re:When I did my Chemical Engineering degree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I call bullshit. I find it hard to believe that the ratio of women has increased in your IT career. Perhaps there are more women than men named "Cyrus" or "Abraham," but surely not "Paul."

  21. Good; maybe RH will follow suit by SlashChick · · Score: 1

    I'm glad to hear that SuSE has taken the lead in deploying the 2.6 kernel in an enterprise environment. We use White Box Enterprise Linux (www.whiteboxlinux.org; it's an open-source, free clone of RHEL3) in production, and I'm anxiously awaiting the day when Red Hat (and thus White Box) will support 2.6. I know I could compile my own, but I'd rather wait for it to be official.

    I last read that RH planned to support 2.6 in 2005. Here's hoping that will be "late 2004" instead.

  22. Linuxcare? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wasn't she laid off from Linuxcare 2001 or something? I wonder what she's up to now.

    1. Re:Linuxcare? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      " Wasn't she laid off from Linuxcare 2001 or something?"

      Yes, along with dozens of others, unfortunately.

      "I wonder what she's up to now."
      Looks like more of the same... I truly hope she hasn't crossed over "to the other side", but these pictures might lead me to believe that.

      Hrm, maybe I should try to track her down and call her up again.

    2. Re:Linuxcare? by Ceren · · Score: 1

      Given that I'm at magnesium.net/~ceren, I'd hope it wouldn't require too much effort to figure out my email address.

      Sheesh, some of you are so easily amused. :)

  23. Riiiiight... by ChipMonk · · Score: 1

    As blatant violators of the GPL, SCO would be most unwelcome at the conference, and the hostilities would not be only from the attendees.

  24. two great quotes by ChipMonk · · Score: 0

    First quote:

    "I know what it is. Don't let the suit fool you."

    Second quote[s]:

    "So, how was her cleavage?"

    "I don't know, I had to keep my eye on the puck. Besides, it was her eyes that got my attention."

    "Welcome to the world of intelligent men."

  25. LinuxWorld Expo = NovellWorld by BrianWCarver · · Score: 3, Informative

    This LinuxWorld was better than last year's, or at least the three bags of free swag I got this year represents a larger bounty!

    If the Novell, SuSE, Ximian area were any bigger, they'd have to call it NovellWorld, which it just may be called by next year. If anyone was asleep while Novell was making these acquisitions, wake up, 'cause Novell is deadly serious about being the biggest baddest Linux company there is (and from their presentations they believe they already are.)

    Novell certainly gave out the best stuff. I got 2 tickets to a SF Giants game for Wed. night, 2 red Novell baseball jerseys, 1 Novell white t-shirt and a SuSE/Novell stuffed Gecko. Others got the Sharp Zaurus, Apple iPod, and $100 Amazon gift certificates.

    Also Novell was showcasing what they called the Novell Linux Desktop. I asked a lot of employees about this. They've taken the best of SuSE, the best of Ximian, combined Gnome and KDE and made a really slick looking desktop (which I think they will target at business users). But, it's so new they don't even know what they want to do with it yet.

    They had it running on tons of computers and had attendees go through forwarding an e-mail with Evolution and opening a Word document with OpenOffice.org Writer to show off how easy using Linux can be. I actually heard people next to me trying it out saying things like, "If a secretary sits down and it isn't Windows, there will be an initial fear, but this is not really that different, and is really easy to use. I think most people would pick this up in no time..." Duh. Welcome to 2001.

    Anyway, I thought this was Novell's LinuxWorld. They have a phalanx of people in brown shirts with red N's on 'em there. It will be interesting if by this time next year their tent is even bigger and merged with IBM's or Sun's. Or even more interesting, if their court cases work out such that they definitively show that they still own UNIX, they'll be one company that owns Netware, UNIX, and SuSE Linux. Biggest Baddest indeed.

    --
    Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
  26. Get your facts strait! by rokka · · Score: 1
    ...1 Novell white t-shirt and a SuSE/Novell stuffed Gecko.

    It's not a Gecko, It's a Chameleon!

    --
    I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
    1. Re:Get your facts strait! by BrianWCarver · · Score: 1

      Googlefight says:
      'suse gecko' = 23,400 hits,
      'suse chameleon' = 4,310 hits.
      Winner: 'suse gecko'

      But, Suse's own site explains it's a chameleon named Geeko.

      Them facts are straight.

      --
      Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
    2. Re:Get your facts strait! by rokka · · Score: 1

      But, Suse's own site [suse.com] explains it's a chameleon named Geeko.
      I did not know that :-) strikes me as a silly name for a chameleon. I still want one of my own though. Guess next year...

      --
      I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
  27. RedHat: The Nature of Choosing to Get Wierd by zapatero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At the RedHat booth they're passing out chapbooks of a sort titled "the nature of [choice]". This little inoccuous book is actually quite amusing. I think they're trying to show how clever they are or artsy? But it comes across as just idiotic. It's a cross between those old-time religious tract books popular in the 70s (perhaps an hommage to their bible-belt roots) and new-age jibberish. Here's a description:

    Page 1: "There is a choice in nature" [image of two red cicles A and B.]

    Page 2-3: "Where there is choice there is growth" [image of lots of alphabet shaded circles surrounding the two red A and B cicles

    Page 4-5: "What happens when elements are free to connect? And a simple choice becomes a range of interconnected choices?" [image: A and B circles connected with smaller D and C -- like a state graph]

    Page 6-7: "Choice is multiplied" ... etc

    Page 8-9: [In big red letters -- no images] "THIS IS THE NATURE OF CHOICE"

    It goes on for another dozen pages. Some kind of mix of Marshall McCluhan's Medium is the Massage, pop poetry, new-age religion, old-time bible belt religious tract books, and a good dose of plain old American Apple Pie B.S.

    So just what is Red Hat thinking with this stupid giveaway? I thought I'd at least get a source RPM cd, or maybe a Fedora CD, but no, this thing. Red Hat is going insane.

  28. Well you know... by oliverthered · · Score: 1

    With women it's all take.. take.. take..
    They may have showed if there'd have been some hard cash being burnt.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  29. Corporate whoring by wolf31o2 · · Score: 1

    Why is it that everyone spends all their time focusing on the big corporate showings and not the other guys? I did not see a single picture or mention of anything in the ".org Pavilion" except for a mention that "the Fedora Project has its own booth"...

    I mean, come on people! Doesn't anyone else remember when we didn't care who was touting "Linux support" or "plans on shipping Linux pre-installed" but instead on the cool things people were DOING with Linux?

    1. Re:Corporate whoring by kabloom · · Score: 1

      I find it sad that all of the exciting stuff is going on in the poor neglected .org pavilion. I'll probably be back Thursday exchanging GPG keys and learning about all of the projects.

    2. Re:Corporate whoring by heroine · · Score: 1

      Because corporations are based in India, home of the latest and greatest software. No-one wants to see what those other countries are doing.

    3. Re:Corporate whoring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The stench coming out of the .org Pavillion probably repels a lot of people. This is no joke, it seriously stinks of BO over there. Come on guys, you're at a show presenting your work. Take a shower, try some deodorant, comb your hair.