To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Liz's notes on Linus's keynote
From: Elizabeth Coolbaugh <cool@eklektix.com>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 22:45:29 -0700

Linus' Keynote

Before the Talk

The lines outside the room started more than 45 minutes before the
keynote began.  Long lines of patient people queueing up for a seat
for the talk.  Even the VIP/Press door was packed with people waiting
to get in.   No one was allowed in until within a few minutes of the
start time.  The room filled up quickly.  A separate ballroom was
also promised, with a simulcast of the broadcast.

Just past 6:30, there are still empty seats, people are still coming
in.  I can see five video cameras in addition to the official
simulcast cams.  Rock music is playing, neon lights.  There are
screens within the room as well, to make sure everyone will get to see
Linus' face.  The section set aside for press probably holds over 200
people.  I managed to get a seat in the very first row, thanks to
Dwight Johnson from LinuxToday.  Evan Leibovitch was with us in
the pack outside the door before we came in; his connection with 
ZDnet's new site for Linux, linux.zdnet.com, is official as of today.
He will be writing weekly opinion pieces.  Amusingly enough, the rumor
later is that people were told that Linus demanded the room for his
walk-through; if we wanted to go in early, we could, but then he'd
refuse to talk ... this image of Linus doesn't necessarily fit with
the one we see elsewhere.

Dwight's wandering around and tells me that all the seats have been
filled and we're now getting people standing at the back.
LinuxWorld's estimate of 8-10 thousand for the event seems likely to
be accurate, though perhaps not with them all here at the same time.

There are Lots of red, white and blue balloons labeled "Linus for
President".  They were on the exhibit floor today, too.

The Talk Begins

[from here on, we drop from commentary to quotes and back and
forth without warning.  The quotes are paraphrased based on
what I could type ... buy an audiotape for more accuracy.]

They've just introduced Larry Augustin.  He commented, "Wow! I can
remember I'd go to these little Linux meetings a while ago with about
fifteen people.  It's hard to tell but I think there are more now ..."

He called LinuxWorld "the coming out party for Linux ... seems to be
going well."

He also commented, "One question I keep getting at this show ... 
'Can you give me the ticker symbol for Linux?'"

He told the story of the first evening he and his wife had
Linus and Tove over to dinner.  When it was over, his wife 
commented, "Gosh, they're such normal people!"

He finished his intro with "The leader of the free world, Linus
Torvalds ... " which was, of course, followed by a standing ovation ...

Linus comes up and comments, "Calm down ... we'll see if you still
applaud after I talk."  He told people that if they found his
talk boring, we can all go drown our sorrows in beer afterwards."

His first slide started with thanks and acknowledgements.
He called it his completely futile attempt at humility, since the more
you thank other people, the more everyone is convinced that you
actually did all the work.  "That's really why I do it ..."

He sent his acknowledgements to:

	Developers
	Testers
	Integrators
	People who pay me
	   (thanks guys, I'd hate to live in squalor)

Where We Come From ...

Pragmatism
 
	I'm not a visionary. This industry has enough visionaries
as it is.  I just know where I want to go and how to get there.
People standing in the middle of the road look like roadkill to me.

Ideals

	It doesn't hurt to have some morals.  Basically, I'm a very
selfish person and I really don't care about all of you.  I care about
doing what I enjoy.


The Future

	Linux showed an old slide he created many years ago as
a joke.  It had a logarithmic scale on it and predicted a million
people would be using it by 1996.  The joke turned out to be
how close his estimates came to coming true.  Linux growth hasn't
quite reached a factor of ten a year, but it hasn't been
tha much less.  For a joke, few people are laughing now.

What am I doing now?

	I'm going to concentrate on the kernel.  The last stable
version lasted 2.5 years.  That got us where we are today.  That tells
people something.  You can follow development.  You can get a new
kernel every day or you can stay with a stable system for a very long
time.  What is different with Linux, like 2.2, is that the old version
is still useable.  You are not forced to upgrade.  You aren't caught
in the endless maze of upgrades forced upon you just to allow you
to run your programs.

	We have had a lot of constant development.  We have caught up
to and in some cases surpassed many of the other operating systems.
It is up there with the big boys and they are nervous.  That's good.
Keep them on their toes but don't get rid of them, we need the
competition.  We'll always have new goals, new platforms to support.
As long as it is interesting, I'm going to enjoy doing it.

Aside from development, the acceptance of Linux has been amazing.
To many people, it is a new phenomenon, but having done it for eight
years, to me, it has been a long time growing.

What Does the New 2.2 Kernel Do For You?

An open development tree has an agressive schedule about fixing bugs
early.  Two patches for 2.2 have been released so far.  Releasing
patches is cheap with Linux, since they just go out for download on
the Internet.  There is no reason to hold them back, unlike commercial
operating systems.  In addition, if the problem that required the
patch did not affect you, you can stay with the initial release.

Scalable SMP groundwork

High Performance Filesystem Interfaces

Solid multi-platform support

	every interesting platform out there and some that aren't
	so interesting

Expect 2.2 to be around for 2-3 years.  Rapid development will
be going on, but you can ignore it.

Kernel Future

In 2.2, we're middle of the pack.  Better than most for stability,
but not the top.  For many applications, Linux is not *yet* the
number one choice.  We'll be concentrating on changing that.
We'll be working on the yadayadda stuff that you see in any operating systems
sales brochures.  We'll be following through on what we promise, which
they don't always do.

Scaling up is always sexy, scaling up to multi-CPU platforms,
supercomputers, etc.  Scaling down is not so sexy, embedded platforms,
etc., but it is interesting as well.  I'll be personally concentrating
on the downscaled version, a quad-CPU personal station like you might
have at home.

What I'm seeing for the future is that the kernel is just being
accepted.  There is a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of
new platforms, but the highest level of excitement is in the user
level programs.  I don't expect to be out of work, but the other
projects but will be the stars.

Don't get too caught up with the hype.  We want to take over the
world, but it doesn't have to be tomorrow.  A few days or a week or
two from now is okay ...

Applications ... you will see a lot of new programs and hopefully a
lot of new users.  With sources and the licenses we have, you can
tailor the system to do what you want, tailor it to special cases that
most people aren't interested in.  Language localizations, not useful
to most people in the US, are needed.  It is important that they
are available and non-proprietary so that people will have choices.
Most people may get their software from a well-known company, but
when you want a microcode application, you'll go to a special company.

What then?

	World domination is just around the corner.  It's just the
first step.

[At this point, Linus put up a full slide of hypothetical future
questions, setting the audience to laughing.  For example,
one said something like, "My dog's microchip is
having problems ...]

You're laughing now but my estimate of Linux's growth was a joke
when it was first done as well.

[His last slide was humorous as well.  The crowd was too large
for his normal interactive style, so he put up the answers to
the most common questions:

What happens if Linus is hit by a bus?
I won't care, will I?

What with the penguin, anyway?
If Budweiser can have a frog to sell beer, why ask about the penguin?

Wouldn't you like to be like Bill Gates?
Bill who?

What does Transmeta do?
Cool stuff ...

]

At the end, IDG and Linus awarded the $25,000 IDG Linus Torvalds award
to be split between Jay Salzburger [sp?] and The Stampede Foundation.
Jay Salzburger and his organization are "teaching the virtues of open
source to the high schools of urban new york by installing Linux on
their servers."  Linus has never met the guy.  Jay commented that New
York has about a thousand high schools and he doesn't think it is
justifiable that *any* of them are running anything but Linux.  (Jay
was an interesting person, "Like a character actor", comments someone
in the press behind me).

The Stampede Foundation is A GNU/Linux distribution now hosted by VA
Research.  It is the first to be shipping with a 2.2.1 kernel and 2.1 glibc.
It will use the money to expand its services to users and developers.
Please welcome Michael S. Wood and one other person whose name
I missed.  Michael started with, "Wow!  We don't have a speech
prepared.  We'll start by thanking some people ... go ahead ..".

Between the two of them, they said, (heavily paraphrased)
"We'd like to thank Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation
and anyone who has worked on GNU utilities.  All the kernel
developers, all of Stampede developers, VA Research for hosting our
web site, all the other users and developers involved in Stampede
Linux."

The next awards will be given at the August LinuxWorld.  Let's
adjourn to the party just down the hall ...