[ale] Guess who's at LinuxWorld?

[aaron]

:-) :-) :-) :-) -) :-) :-) :-) -) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) -) :-) :-)
Well, *I* managed to be at LinuxWorld most of
the day on Wednesday, the 14th, so maybe I
can pick up this dated thread to share a little
news and views on who else was there...
:-) :-) :-) :-) -) :-) :-) :-) -) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) -) :-) :-)

I perused most of the show floor, but I never noticed a Micro$haft 
display or booth (see original thread). Curious, but looking at my floor 
plan now, I see that M$ was, in fact, listed for a small adjoining pair 
of craft table slots in "The Rookery" area. While I did spend a lot of 
time in that section, I have no recollection seeing of the criminal corp 
logos, nor did I smell any stench of putrefaction at that end of the 
showroom. Maybe M$ bought a clue and pulled a vanishing act? ;-)

On the other hand, HP (+compaq), IBM, Sun, AMD, Intel, Oracle and several 
other major name players were all present with large displays and had a 
very significant, if decidedly corporate, presence at the show. There 
were more Linux server stacks about than you could shake a Hub at!  
Unfortunately, my own interests in computers are more Desktop and 
Applications focused, and the main floor didn't have a lot of space 
addressing those aspects of Linux (et al). My only other Linux show 
experience so far has been the 2000 Linux Showcase in Atlanta; while the 
Showcase was roughly 30% smaller in scale it seemed much broader in scope 
and, to my view, it attracted a much more interesting variety of vendors 
for GUI's and Gadgets and General Geekstuff. Despite the corporate 
leaning, though, LinuxWorld still had some surprises.

One of my more noteworthy finds was a Linux and Open Office distribution 
company I hadn't heard of before called "ThizLinux Laboratory Ltd". 
<http://www.thizlinux.com/eng/index.php> 
Their distros seem nicely packaged and intelligently targeted. These 
include a mainstream Desktop and Server combo that is aimed directly at 
equipping business environments to run Linux as a total office suite and 
enterprise solution, and a unique combo package specifically designed for 
use in educational and classroom environments via distributed apps and 
diskless workstations [attn Linux 4 GA Schools group!]. Their Open Office 
package is being marketed as a cross-platform suite for both winblows and 
Linux, and their literature also advertises a Linux based set-top box. 
They have apparently been working the Asian markets for a while (they 
claim a large scale distro agreement with IBM Taiwan) but they would now 
seem to be expanding into U.S. and European distribution.

I was only able to catch one of the speaker presentations, and then only 
briefly, and that was the Wed. afternoon keynote "Unbreakable Linux", 
with Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison. It turned out, though, that 10 minutes 
was all the time needed to absorb the two most pertinent points: First, 
that Linux server boxes are so cost effective that [with the generous 
help of Oracle's new Open Source commercial software products for Linux] 
one can support fully duplicated server and storage redundancy with 
mission critical Oracle databases and *still* have far better price, 
performance and reliability than any competing systems. Secondly, one can 
readily ascertain that Mr. Ellison spectacularly exceeds his regional 
reputation for being an A**Hole of the "Major Flaming" clan.  (I departed 
after Larry reasonably suggested it was the M$ Orifice suite that 
entrenched the monopoly more than the winblows O$, but THEN wondered 
aloud to a crowd of Linux enthusiasts if there weren't any competing Open 
Source Office Suites in development! (!?!?!)  The person came across as 
yet another obscenely wealthy CEO who hasn't enough understanding of 
their own industry to buy a clue.)

But I digress... ;-)

After bailing on the Ellison speech I returned to the show floor to 
investigate some HP and Sun streaming media products that had caught my 
eye. However, I instead got hung up  at HP's presentation area where the 
company was showing clips from the "Revolution OS" documentary and 
sponsoring a DVD give away to the first 100 folks there. So my last few 
minutes at LinuxWorld were spent getting my "official" DVD copy of the 
documentary signed by the director, JTS Moore :-).  Having now viewed the 
entire program, I can only give the production values and delivery a 
marginal rating, but the message is very relevant and definitely of 
interest to the community, so I would like to suggest setting up a 
special screening at Emory some evening, or maybe we can offer showings 
as an addendum to the October install fest??

After next spending a little early evening free time enjoying San 
Francisco with two of my sisters (I was mainly in the Bay area for a 
family reunion thing), we topped the day off by attending the Full Tilt 
Pinball Party for the Free Software Foundation (generously sponsored by 
IBM, HP and Egenera). I was a little disappointed that none of the more 
notorious names were present at the gathering, but there were still a 
couple of rousing orations on civil liberty,  free speech and open 
software to accompany the drinks, hors d'oeuvres, hours of free pinball 
play, the live band and dancing.

All told, my day at this Linux show was generally educational and highly 
enjoyable, and I'm hoping I can do another one again soon.

peace
aaron



============= Original Thread ==============

On Tuesday 13 August 2002 07:36, you wrote:
> There is a new booth this year at LinuxWorld. Here are the details:
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,54489,00.html
>
> What next? "Embrace and extend" anybody?

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