[cumbria_lug] [long post] Re: inuxWorld Expo writeup

[Richard Smedley]

On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 13:12, Schwuk wrote:
> I've done a writeup[1] of the LinuxWorld Expo in London on my site if
> anyone's interested.
> 
> [1] http://schwuk.com/entries/39/linuxworld-aftermath

Hello Dave,

Always interesting to see how these things look
to visitors.

> LinuxWorld aftermath

> Saw lots of big companies trying to sell their enterprise 
> systems to the wrong people. Saw a few small companies and
> .orgs doing some cool things with Linux. Was generally
> unimpressed by the whole thing though – as with
> LUDEx 2004...

I think the main problem was that the event was poorly 
publicised to the business audience at which the shows
are all aimed. Visitor numbers were low, but the layout
and visitor demographic seemed to work very well for us
on the .Org stands :-)

> Managed to come away with more freebies this time
> (although I had to sit through presentations by HP and
> Novell to get two of them). For answering a question
> during the HP/Oracle talk, they gave me a copy of The
> Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source –
> admittedly published by them…

If you'd managed to sit your way through the Interactive
Ideas business breakfast you'd have got an MP3 player
- I never listen to the things myself, but at least I 
can use it as a USB key. However the event was hard work :-(
A Red Hat talk was interesting enough - they were explaining
about their move from direct marketing to dealing with 
almost all clients through ISVs - there was also the talk
from security company Comodo. Comodo spoke proudly of their
suite of security patents and involvement in the so-called
trusted computing platform. Now they've bought Trustix... :-(

> HP and Novell were the dominant stands of the show,
> with IBM and Red Hat noticably absent (Red Hat had 
> a small presence on the HP stand).

IBM were a *small* presence on the Novell stand. Red Hat
were quite prominent with senior staff giving a number
of talks and Michael Tieman wandering around in a
red fedora - you may have missed him on the Wednesday
as his flight was cancelled, then the taxi gave him
a bit of a run around, so he didn't arrive until
the end of the day.

> Veritas had three people in penguin suits who seemed to be
> attempting to sabotage the HP presentations. Sun was probably
> the next biggest stand, and were notable for their half dozen 
> out-of-work wannabe actors walking round in red, white, and
> black combat gear, yellow glasses and TFT screens showing
> Project Looking Glass suspended above their heads.

I think of the two I'd rather have been in the penguin 
suit - and seen everyone smiling at me - then had to wear
the Sun gear and see people's sympathetic gazes =^)

> Sat through the “Great Linux Debate” of which Jeremy
> Allison was the shining light for constantly defending
> Open Source and free choice attitudes, and IBM, HP, Novell,
> and Sun were the bad guys for pretty much continously plugging
> their products rather than answering the questions directly.
> Sun was by far the worst of these with it’s constant plugs
> for their Java Desktop (which I won’t bother linking to – go
> Google for it). I’d like to see more community personalities
> and less businesses on the panel for the next one.

I didn't bother this time - but it sounds similar to the
LUDEx one. However LUDEx did have the entertaining addition of 
an MS representative, and Jon ``Maddog'' Hall :)

> The general consensus about these types of events are
> that they are less for learning/seeing things and more for
> the social aspect. On which note we spent most of the evening
> the pub, I had my first Persian meal, and spent most of the
> evening talking/discussing/arguing with Aq.

Which table were you at? We weren't overly impressed,
but had quite a good time :^) Yes, the social side is
very important - lots of people know each other online
but only get one opportunity a year to put names to
faces and relax with a drink and talk about other things 
to someone they only know through a project that both
parties work on. 

> Met lots of cool/interesting people: 
[snip]
> Jon Masters (who seems to be going for the record of
> LUG mailing list subscriptions – he joined Cumbria LUG’s
> list whilst we were in the pub!);

Hello Jon - still waiting for you to appear at
sc.lug's meetings - http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sc

> Sorry, but no photos. Decided to travel (extremely) light
> this, which in hindsight was a mistake.

Well I made the same decision, it's not unreasonable
as I'm sure some people will be putting up photographs
soon :)

Sorry I didn't get to meet you when you appear to have been 
in the same restaurant as me :-/

Cheers,

 - Richard

--
Association For Free Software
- keeping the freedom in software
http://www.affs.org.uk/