SCALE: Southern California Linux Expo 2006 - Introduction
The SCALE 4x meetings are done with the first day of activities. I have to say that this conference and show always leaves me wanting more. There is this great mix of users, communities, LUGs, enterprises; all rubbing shoulders. My first day was spent primarily at our show booth but because of the low-key nature I was able to get over to the Debian booth, get to the KDE booth and ask for a copy of the PLASMA Desktop slideshow slides, and also meet up with bunches of old friends. The talk was heavy duty Linux and open source and a lot of Debian. Seems that Debian is the unofficial love puppy of this show 
I also met up with a variety of newer friends that I had first met and we had a rousing discussion of Open Standards, the Open Document Standard, the coalescence of OpenOffice and some news about its bid to be a foundation, and some of the duality of OpenOffice and StarOffice. All very interesting and thought provoking.
Finally, my own prognostications about SCALE as an entity. I am so glad that the guys that do SCALE are commited to the show, what it brings, how its built, and its progress. It really is necessary to have a counter-part to the enterprise-heavy LWE twice a year. We need the duality; the place where users and enterprises come together to discuss the body Linux. Perhaps we need the enterprise show too. Yes. Perhaps we do.
What I do know is that without a place for the community of users to cuss and discuss, we love sight of the mission. I’ll continue to come to SCALE when its 5x better
