To: lwn@eklektix.com Subject: LinuxWorld report From: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@eklektix.com> Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 20:27:38 -0700 While Liz takes in Linus's keynote, I'm sitting here in LinuxCare's booth in the deserted exhibition hall trying to get some LWN stuff done. That beautiful read VW bug is gleaming in front of me. I wish to strongly thank LinuxCare for not only giving us a place to plug in, but in going out of their way to insure that I could stay here even when everybody else was kicked out. It seems that the conference organizers are afraid that the exhibitors will drink too much at the party later tonight and run amok in the exhibit hall. Makes sense, actually. This conference is an interesting experience. Just look at the series of press releases that has come out this week to see how seriously the business world is now taking Linux. If there's one thing in the air here, it's that a lot of people are smelling money and want their part of it. Nothing too surprising there, I guess. Despite some complaints beforehand, the organization of the conference here on site has really been pretty good. Everything seems to work. The security isn't obnoxious. The sessions seem to go well. IDG has done OK here. Still, one must find some things to complain about, no? Certainly the decision to put all of the birds of a feather (BOF) sessions together, not only at the same time but in the same room, is a bit questionable. The "email garden" is inadequate. In these modern times, they should really just provide a table with twisted pair jacks and a DHCP server; they would make a lot of people happy that way. Here's another disappointment: both keynote speeches this morning were tremendously self-serving. Mr. Cowpland of Corel spent the time selling his company's products. Did we really need a WordPerfect demonstration? Corel's really interesting news - their new "end user" distribution - rated a slide at the end almost as an afterthought. I missed Oracle's keynote, but it was said to be worse. There's plenty of time - and willing subjects - in the exhibition hall for sales pitches. The keynote talks should be more visionary and interesting. Here's another gripe: the first session tomorrow features - at the same time, the following talks: - Linux Standard Base report - Dan Quinlan - Ten reasons ... - Jon "maddog" Hall - Integrating Unix and NT - Jeremy Allison - Perl... - Larry Wall - GNOME - Miguel de Icaza Plus a talk by some Oracle guy. Which of those would you attend? Given the rather thinner nature of the talks at some of the other times, one would think that they could have spread these ones out a bit... Oh well. I guess that's how they sell tapes. Nonetheless, this seems to be a good conference. Lots of interesting people, lots of interesting corporate moves. It may well be seen as a turning point in the commercial development of Linux. The conference sessions begin tomorrow; watch these pages for reports as we can pull them together. jon Jonathan Corbet, Eklektix, Inc. corbet@eklektix.com