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POSSE Rides With Linus during OSCON

Posted by Zonk on from the see!-the-oss-folks-in-action dept.

amountlad writes "In addition to other activities like FOSCON happening outside of the "official" OSCON this week in Portland, Oregon, N4N.org is running a story and photos of the OSU/OTBC/POSSE party Thursday night. From Linus and IBM's Dan Frye to the OSU's Open Source Lab director and Open Technology Business Center founder LaVonne Reimer - Bar 71 was hopping as the N4N coverage details in word and images. The event was a joint effort by local OSS organizations POSSE (Portland OSS Entrepreneurs), the OTBC (Open Technology Business Center) and Oregon State University's OSL (Open Source Lab.)"

16 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Portland is SO .org! by linuxbaby · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I moved CD Baby from New York to Portland Oregon in 2000, and I'm more impressed than ever with the cool tech community here.

    If California is .com, Portland is .org in every way.

    From the INCREDIBLY cool FreeGeek ("helping the needy get nerdy") - to the active Portland Linux/Unix Group to the Portland Ruby Brigade that put together the FOSCON mentioned in the OP - Portland has some great geeky stuff going on.

    A few months back, I ran the exact same Craigslist help-wanted ad, looking for a great programmer for a well-paying job, in both Portland and Los Angeles Craigslist at the same time. (The job could be done from either Portland or Los Angeles.) The Portland ad was answered by about 30 brilliant programmers, all working on interesting things and seemed to be doing it for love more than money. The Los Angeles ad was answered by a couple clueless numnuts. I love Los Angeles for other reasons, but this was a telling experience.

    No sales tax. Great public transportation. More hybrid cars per-capita than anywhere. Kennedy School. Free wireless broadband covers the entire city. A damn good place to live and work. And not a single tourist attraction.

    1. Re:Portland is SO .org! by danpbrowning · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And not a single tourist attraction.

      You mean the tourists don't come here to see our rain? I love Portland, too. We seem to have an abundance of great user groups. The Portland Perl Mongers is a great group for us Perl-lovers (and includes several Perl celebrities). The Rose City Astronomers are a really neat group of people if you enjoy looking up at night.

      The recent interview with Linus Torvalds reveals a little bit about what is so attractive about this place. I've traveled a little, but there's no place like home.

      --
      Daniel
    2. Re:Portland is SO .org! by Baloo+Ursidae · · Score: 2, Informative
      No sales tax. Great public transportation. More hybrid cars per-capita than anywhere. Kennedy School. Free wireless broadband covers the entire city. A damn good place to live and work.

      Don't encourage people to move here. Oregon is full and unemployment is bad enough without more Californians moving up here and fucking it up that much worse.

      And not a single tourist attraction.

      Did you somehow miss:

      • The world's largest city park (Forest Park)
      • The world's smallest city park (Telegraph Park)
      • The world's only independently-raisable double-deck lift bridge (Steel Bridge)
      • The world's first lift bridge (Hawthorne Bridge)
      • Oaks Park
      • Saturday Market
      • Pioneer Courthouse Square
      • Riverplace Marina
      • OMSI
      • The Oregon Zoo
      • Hoyt Arboretum
      • The World Forestry Center
      • The International Rose Test Garden
      • 732 Evergreen, Lake Oswego (Childhood home of Matt Groening, house was inspiration for The Simpsons house of the same address in Springfield
      • Ainsworth Elementary School (where Matt Groening went to school, building is Springfield Elementary in The Simpsons)
      • Lincoln High School (Matt Groening's alma mater, Groening defaced the sidewalk on SW 18th along the back fence of LHS halfway across the street from the Salmon Street blue line station; walk south from the crosswalk along the fence to find it)
      • The Oregon Trail goes from the east and turns south in Portland
      • The Lewis and Clark Trail winds through town
      • The Rose Festival has many televised events, most famously the Grand Floral Parade, which is televised in almost as many countries as the Super Bowl (Fuck Pasadena and it's wanna-be rose parade)
      • Much more that doesn't come immediately to mind

      And if you want to include everything within an hour's drive of Portland...

      • Trojan Nuclear Power Plant (The now abandoned power plant was the inspiration for Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The cooling ponds are in a public park owned by Portland General Electric)
      • Sauvie Island, the world's largest inland island (fantastic u-picks and farmer's markets, decent beaches)
      • Champoeg State Park, where Oregon became a US state instead of a Canadian province due to two Canadian fugatives illegally tipping the polls in favor of statehood (indeed, a sad day for Oregon).
      • The west end of the Oregon Trail in Oregon City
      • Government Camp, "The Highest Town in Oregon", the surrounding Mt. Hood National Forest, Mt Hood's peak and Timberline Lodge
      • The Columbia River Gorge, home to Multnomah Falls, the second tallest waterfall in the US

      Which makes me wonder: Are you blind? The Metro region and vicinity is one gigantic tourist trap. Oregon's most famous governor, Tom McCall, even bragged about it. "Welcome to Oregon! Please, enjoy your stay, but remember to leave when you're done visiting."

      --
      Help us build a better map!
    3. Re:Portland is SO .org! by Black+Art · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And not a single tourist attraction.

      What about Powell's?

      --
      "Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
    4. Re:Portland is SO .org! by gabba_gabba_hey · · Score: 2

      Well said,

      I took your statement in the wrong way initially. Having just gotten home from the bar, i was browsing /. and got a little fired up imagining you to be a SUV driving maniac pissing on the bike crowd, my bad for the knee-jerk reaction. Thanks for the cool-headed reply and the show of class in the face of my initial response.

      xo

  2. The UK's got OHUKON by TGIFF · · Score: 2, Informative

    Linus frequents it regularly. OHUKON...

  3. What is this article about??? by cide1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    All these TLA's are making me think WTF, but as long as I can get the 10-4, I'll be A-OK. AFAIK, all we need is a FAQ, and then I can forget this 404.

    --
    -- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
  4. Acronyms by NilObject · · Score: 3, Funny
    I looked at the article summary and all my eyes glazed over. I mean:

    FOSCON ... OSCON ... N4N.org ... OSU/OTBC/POSSE ... IBM's ... OSU's ... N4N ... OSS ... POSSE ... OSS ... OTBC ... OSL ..."


    Ow! I need some aspirin!
    1. Re:Acronyms by RLiegh · · Score: 2, Funny

      I looked over the article and saw that linus is stuck running around with a bunch of suits from IBM and a crowd of mini-ESRs from some obscure OSS club. Poor linus, I bet it's during mind-numbing parties like those that he wishes he'd have heard of 386BSD back when he was considering hitting 'send' on that fateful usenet post!

    2. Re:Acronyms by Black+Art · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually Linus spent most of his time playing pool in the back. (Where there was some vestige of air conditioning. It was over 90 degrees outside.) He seemed to be enjoying himself. It was not just a bunch of fawning nerds. (How you could tell from only two pictures, I don't know...) Linus is pretty shy around "fans". The main bulk of the party crowd stayed over by the alcohol and food and left Linus alone. (Many of them did not seem to even know he was there.) The crowd seemed to be about 70% men and 30% women. (Just like about every other corporate party I have been to in Portland.) It was a fun relaxed evening.

      --
      "Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
  5. I was at the party by jbdodson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I work for OpenSourcery(http://www.opensourcery.com/ a member of POSSE. I talked to Linus, he was a nice guy, damn good pool player. I posted my view of the evening, and my best recollection of my conversation with Linus(http://cs.georgefox.edu/~jdodson/getArchive. php?gettedDate=20050805094736), I talked to him about some Kernel stuff, etc. I was a bit starstruck, oh well, it happens.

    1. Re:I was at the party by jbdodson · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well the one with Will was not as flattering to Will, Will is a sexy guy. Though, we are all total dorks, even Linus said that. A room full of Free and Open Source Software nuts? Yep, all dorks, no surprise here really.

  6. So it's true... by potpie · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...Linus Torvalds really does have a posse.

    --
    Esoteric reference.
  7. OMG!!!! by speck · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow, Linus was at a party! Stop the presses! The whole world must know about this development, NOW!

  8. Correction of Revolution OS Story by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Informative
    After I left HP, HP negotiated a non-agression pact with Microsoft. One of the results of this is that Microsoft required HP to edit the cover of the version of Revolution OS that HP distributed to remove the slashed-cirle containing a Windows logo and my photo on the DVD jacket. As far as I'm aware, the internal content is unchanged.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  9. The obligatory joke... by andrewa · · Score: 3, Funny

    Although I'd hardly place Widmer in the top of Portland brews...

    A Texan, a Californian, and Oregonian are out riding horses. The Texan pulls out an expensive bottle of whiskey, takes a long draught, then another and suddenly throws it into the air, pulls out his gun and shoots the bottle in midair.

    The Californian looks at him and says, "What are you doing? That was a perfectly good bottle of whiskey!"

    The Texan says, "In Texas, there is plenty of whiskey and the bottles are cheap."

    A while later, not wanting to be outdone, the Californian pulls out a bottle of champagne, takes a few sips, throws the champagne into the air, pulls out his gun and shoots it in midair.

    The Oregonian can't believe his eyes, "What the heck did you do that for? That was a perfectly good bottle of champagne!"

    The Californian says, "In California, we have plenty of champagne and bottles are cheap."

    So, awhile later, the Oregonian pulls out a bottle of Widmer Hefeweizen. He opens it, takes a sip, and then chugs the whole bottle. He then puts the bottle in his saddlebag, pulls out his gun, and shoots the Californian.

    The Texan, shocked, says, "Why the hell did you do that?!"

    The Oregonian replies, "In Oregon, we have plenty of Californians and the bottles are worth a nickel."

    --
    :(){ :|:& };: