[vox] [fwd] The Death of Linuxworld

[Scot A]

Wow!
It seems that "someone" is trying to rub Linux out.
While I am not yet an efficianado of Linux, I am happy
that certain people kept talking to me over the years.
I finally set up my own Linux system and can now at
least do that much (as long as you give me a CD...lol)
I think it is a shame that such things are taking place.
I feel that the main way that Linux will survive is through
small grass roots gatherings.
It seems that there may be a need to simply begin to
fund raise for Linux as is done with other organizations
so that decent presentations on a larger scale than just
the grass roots level can thrive.
I have heard that there is even a bit of a problem finding
space locally for the local Davis, CA Linux group.
I hope that this stops being an obstacle.
My wish is that Linux becomes a complete
and utter force to be reckoned with as an OS on a global level.
Namaste'
Scot


On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Joseph Arruda <joseph.arruda at gmail.com>wrote:

> The hyperbole aside, the show was neither good nor bad.  It was dull,
> but there were vendors there doing thing useful to 'the enterprise'
> (which in this economy is the only people worth attracting). 'the
> enterprise' tends to be dull to most LUG folken (if we are being
> remotely honest).
>
> Now, that being said, the show was otherwise lackluster, but some
> vendors (Cloudera particularly) looked interesting, but I am biased
> because we are entertaining playing with Hadoop where I work now.  I
> liked seeing Talend and SQLStream, etc.  But I am coming from the
> position of someone looking at actual offerings for my own projects that
> I manage.
>
> There were vendors I though had interesting but otherwise moot offerings
> (i.e. Cubetree, which could just as well be replaced by Wordpress MU
> with some additional plugins or with an adapted GForge/Joomla/Drupal
> rig), but lets face it, the real reason I went was to party with old VA
> Linux alumni. :)
>
> ja
>
> Bill Kendrick wrote:
> > Darth's post to SacLUG about this year's OpenSource World
> > (previously known as LinuxWorld).
> >
> > It sounds like it was even worse than I had expected, based on various
> > random people complaining in their Facebook statuses a few days ago.
> >
> >
> > Seriously?  Exhibit hall only one 1hr at a time?
> >
> > -bill!
> >
> > ----- Forwarded message from Darth Borehd <darth.borehd at gmail.com> -----
> >
> > Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:53:21 -0700
> > From: Darth Borehd <darth.borehd at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [Lug-nuts] The Death of Linuxworld
> > To: General SacLUG discussing <lug-nuts at saclug.org>
> > Reply-To: General SacLUG discussing <lug-nuts at saclug.org>
> >
> > Linuxworld died sometime at the end of 2008.
> >
> > I have been a regular attendee for roughly 10 years now.  I only
> > missed the 2005 conference because my daughter was born on the same
> > day.  I was a huge fan of LinuxWorld, I was an organiser of several
> > LinuxWorld attending groups, I have a closet full of material from
> > past Linuxworlds.  Senator, you are no Linuxworld.
> >
> > IDG claims they merely renamed it to "OpenSource World/NextGen Data
> > Center/CloudWorld" but it's quite obviously they were out to remove
> > anything that resembled the Linuxworld and try to pawn off a new
> > conference as its successor.  It's not.  Not even close.
> >
> > Let me explain why.
> >
> > * The name change.  First thing you notice is the confusing
> > buzzword-heavy new name where 3 conference share equal size and space
> > on the banner.  Not only is it aesthetically unappealing, its
> > confusing what the focus is going to be.  Sure they combined
> > conferences before, but they were always auxiliary riders latched onto
> > LinuxWorld.  It was the king and quite obviously the main event.
> > There is no main event any more.
> >
> > * The size.  The conference was moved from the main Moscone Hall where
> > it had resided for about 10 years and is now in a smaller space on the
> > west side.  The main Moscone Hall now sits empty.  The exhibit hall is
> > now .25 of the size of what it was in 2008 and even smaller if you
> > compare it to previous years.  The number of conference/lecture rooms
> > are roughly the same.  There are no testing centers for LPI
> > certification or workshops.
> >
> > * The exhibit hall.  This is the *worst* part of the whole conference.
> >  Now about a quarter of the size.  Just one of the major vendor
> > squares from 2008 would have taken up the size of a half dozen booths
> > at the 2009 conference.  Gone are a lot of the usual exhibitors from
> > years past.  No VMWare, IBM, HP, CDW, Dice, Intel, AMD, Motorola,
> > O'Reilly, and dozens of others.   Of those that were there, you
> > quickly found they were staffed with salespeople and temp presenters
> > hired off the street.  Dell was there.  Sun was there.  Both had
> > competent programmers and engineers to actually talk to but the
> > exhibit spaces were reduced to the size of two small booth put
> > together.  The most frustrating thing is that the exhibit hall was
> > only open for about an hour at a time.  Yes, you heard that right.
> > After only an hour inside, security guards come and herd you into
> > lecture rooms for the next 3 hours until the exhibits open again.
> >
> > * Alcohol.  During the last hour, they served free beer.  It would
> > seem to me to be a stupid move liability-wise to serve alcohol to
> > people who might be getting in cars and driving away when it closes.
> > Also, they were not checking IDs and I personally met a young man who
> > said he was 19 and had several beers already.  Beyond that, it was
> > just annoying to see drunken people stumbling around.  It wasn't even
> > good beer.  I don't drink beer, but I was told that it tasted like
> > watered-down Budweiser.  Maybe some marketing maven got confused by
> > the phrase "free, as in beer"???
> >
> > * Almost no Linux.  Roughly 3/4th of the entire conference was Windows
> > oriented.  Increase that if you include Cloud Computing products.  The
> > only distro present was Ubuntu.  BSD guys were there if you want to
> > stretch to include them.  Even Sun did their presentation on a
> > Macintosh.  Almost all other vendors ran their presentation on Windows
> > XP or Vista.
> >
> > * .orgs treated like lepers.  They were all forced into a small room
> > isolated from the main exhibit hall like the conference promoters were
> > ashamed of their presence.  They didn't even get booths.  They had to
> > share small tables.  Most didn't even show up.  No slashdot, gentoo,
> > debian, linuxfund, sourceforge, fedora, etcetera.  The only two active
> > tables were Clonezilla and Haiku OS.  A complete insult to the
> > non-profit community.
> >
> > * Attempts to turn away "undesirable" people.  An environmental
> > engineer I met at the conference was initially denied entrance because
> > his "job did not include direct influence on the purchasing of IT
> > products" and it would be a "waste of time for the exhibitors to even
> > talk to [[him]]" (note: direct quotes except they said "you").  The
> > fact he had pre-registered, attended previous Linuxworlds and made
> > arrangements to attend made no difference. Only after the rest of his
> > "desired target audience" threatened to leave did they grudgingly
> > grant him access.
> >
> > * Lectures were non-technical.  Not only non-technical, but they were
> > basic, vague, buzzword-laden, and vendor specific.  In other words,
> > they were sales pitches--complete with flashy lights and Powerpoint
> > presentations with terms like "in the Cloud", "Paradigm-shifting", and
> > "Web 2.0".  Any attempts to ask technical questions were usually
> > deferred to "offline" discussions.  What was left was the equivalent
> > of sitting through an hour-long infomercial.  The only exceptions to
> > this was the presentation by the California Secretary of State about
> > Open Source Voting, a somewhat interesting panel about open source on
> > netbooks, and an amusing "evolution of desktop" given by Jono from
> > Ubuntu.
> >
> > * Outdone by a 6-booth career fair.  Dice had set up their own
> > unrelated career fair a few doors down.  We stepped in and got a small
> > taste of what Linuxworld used to be like.  Amazon had a C programming
> > puzzle up for people to solve.  Phoenix Bios was there to recruit new
> > employees but were happen to just discuss the motherboard BIOS
> > subjects as well.  They had prizes and cool things to show with
> > friendly and intelligent people.
> >
> > In closing, I do not plan to attend this conference any more.  I have
> > to make a lot of arrangements months in advance to be able to attend
> > and the pathetic excuse of a conference it has become is not worth it
> > to me.  Linuxworld used to be more than just about Linux.  It was the
> > IT departments of some companies showing off their latest stuff to
> > other IT people.  Geeks talking to geeks.  Not only was it cool and
> > fun, but I feel it did a better job of promoting those products.
> > There are still some vendor contacts that I maintain from the
> > conference and use professionally.  Many of the products I proposed
> > and purchased for work I remember first seeing at Linuxworld.  The
> > "OpenSource World/NextGen Data Center/CloudWorld" just doesn't do
> > that.  I deeply saddened, but I must declare, that for me, the mighty
> > Linuxworld has died.
> > _______________________________________________
> >
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