Well, even more significant than two blogposts in two days; its also time for the San Francisco chapter of the Penguin at the Moscone Center. The big OEMs and the dot.orgs are lining up for their respective but unequal places. I’m hoping that this year IDG gets it right with the dot.org pavilion and actually gives it a place and not a few feet of carpet like last year. So, I always ask the big questions:
- what will I do this year at the show?
- will the show provide new and interesting Linux hardware and software?
- will there still be free beer?
While all these are definitely important and have their place, I mostly go these days to meet up with old friends from other times and places. I always think back to other shows in my checkered past like giving away a car, getting a cease/desist order for a poster, having some of the most unusual show giveaways (like bugsuckers), and the people that transformed the shows into events. Linuxcare back then was fun and it was destructive and we let most of it come out during the shows. We gave away stuff, we actually did deals at the show. I remember a deal went down with a certain OEM at the show in one of those small meeting rooms on th exposition floor.
If you’re heading to the show, stop by the dog.orgs and give something in your wallet to them. They need it because of the work they do. Most of all, if you need a quality Linux distribution there is no real need to go to a Green Lizard or a Red Hat. There are distributions made for people. My forecast of the current crop of the less than admirable consumer distributions is there will be one less by the time next Linuxworld SF rolls around; yet the people distributions will continue and be more popular. Choose Ubuntu if you want a nice Debian. I could almost recommend Fedora; but I travel in different directions since I alway seem able to break a rpm distribution with minimal attempts.
I’ll be there at the show Tuesday and Wednesday checking out stuff. I will also probably write a blogpost each day kinda summing up the great stuff. Perhaps a gratuitous link or two to old friends and their home places.
See ya there!
