Welcome!   Linus and Pekka "The Hacker Ethic" - New York Univeristy -   Samba Rocks Away With 25Gs! (That's Not Gigs of Disk Space!)

• A diversified set of exhibits - all walkin the open penguin walk and talkin' the open penguin talk on the expo floor. By my count of the listing on the Linux World Expo exhibitors web page, close to 13 floor spots booths... Did anyone stop them all?
  
  
• An equally diversified set of Linux User Groups (LUG's) and open org's in the .org pavillions
  
  
• A well rounded set of conference proceeding from well known Linux gurus and evangelists
  
  
• A huge gala party hosted by IBM
  
  
• A financial services party hosted by VA Linux Systems -
  See Don Marti's Article: "Linux and Finance at LinuxWorld Expo"
  
  
• Three awesome keynote speeches by IBM, Intel, VA Linux Systems and Suse
  
  
• An presentation of the spirit of the information age with Linus and Pekka at the announcing their new book, The Hacker Ethic: The Open-Source Movement & the Spirit of the New Economy.
  
  
• An opportunity to certify yourself with Sair Linux GNU Certification
  
  
• The battle of the Geek wits vs the Nerd wits. As you might have guessed! The battle ended several memfaults. However, there was some speculation that one or two cores were dumped while correcting the memfaults :)

Building .org Pavillion	NYLUG's own Rubin Safir With The Other Notable Geeks!i	Just a few NYLUG volunteers that made the .org PavillionPossible

But you still might have heard that..

• Linus un-announced the Linux 2.4 kernel, preffering perhaps, a quiet riot...
  
  
• Lots of folks were wearing red tails, horns, hats, tatooes, t-shirts and other penguin gear.
  
  
• The Ximian project had the best none-penguin animal branding scheme, with their humugous jungle paradise and monkey beanbag dolls (they were gone by end of day 2)...The dinosaur and bluecat logos only followed a close 42nd!

A Devil in Disguise!
NYLUGGER Mark Andal

Now, if *none* of this Expo fun was for you, then perhaps the last big expo spectacle might have appealed to you - the cartoon guy from off the For Dummies books series. He was larger than life...miming at you...miming...the phrase "Download Here!" at you...I'm joking!

The Dummy Guy

And if absolutely none of the spectacle was for you, then talking to the people behind the booths might be your iceberg... I could not have been more satisfied with the technical prowess that exuded from .org pavillion. I had real un-marketted down-to-this-earth conversations with several of the .org representatives. GNUe, LTSP, OSDL, BNL, LinAXE, SEUL and, my home base, NYLUG - for the conversations I had with you, you guys rock! Above all Thanks to all of .org pavillion for sharing. Newbies, if you were too shy, you missed out...The booths were teaming with people ready to help you.

The Keynote speeches were all worth attending... with all the detail available on just about anything, its important to find and get a broad sweeping perspective of the market, the technology and the growth paths. In the end it suits better decision making... For me, there was a satisfying balance of both detail and perspective. Particularly dramatic was Intel's William A. Swope on Intel Architecture Solutions Enabling Group (SEG). He offered a hands on view of the latest massive Intel box. IBM's Samuel J. Palmisano opened with a number of myths which he thought, that by now, were dispelled and then aimed to prove otherwise:

• Linux can't scale
• Linux is only a niche player
• Linux will never make it in mission critical environments
• Linux is a bathtub of software (So what now? Software floats?)

Caught In the Krowd! David Korn!	Fingering The Penguin!	Building Ximian!

Regarding the conference scene... The Openflock presentation did redefine, in my mind, the rules of the conference. It ending in a simple call for arms, since the project was not getting the attention it was due. A responsive audience, submitted their business cards in earnest, including yours truly! In my mind, it set the standard for what a expo conference can be: a springboard by which one can grow a developer community.

John Maddog Hall

Furthermore, the presentations of Adam Turoff and John "Maddog" Hall were equally enlightening. Turoff gave a eloquent State of the Union address on Perl6 siting the issues that Perl6 will need to face. By the end of it, I realized how important a managing infrastructure is in the long term growth of a serious project. Ever project has the potential to become serious and managing it well is one of the big steps, right along with having a sound code base.

Count Me In!

Hall's grand perspective, again, reinforces the truth that perspective and details still operate side by side in the ultra techie world of Linux... One without the other get all of us nowhere.

Finally, there's plenty more to say about Linux World Expo; the floor and the geek talk and all the gain it has afforded me. I'm glad it was only four days... Just getting this far with the article has me pooped; About as pooped as I was on the evening of the fourth day post expo start.

-- Written by Monjay Settro, New York Linux User Group
-- Pictures by Monjay Settro and Ron Guerin, New York Linux Users Group

Reference Links:

• www.nylug.org/images/lwe2001/rguerin/
• www.nylug.org/images/lwe2001/msettro/

Articles

• 11/30/02: Fanying Got A Job!

• 09/11/01: An American Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center

• 02/02/01: Linux World Expo 2001 - A View Of The Floor (with pics)

• 07/07/00: New York Linux Users Demonstrate at DVD Trial (with pics)

• 05/02/00: NYLUG.org Protests the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in Washington DC (with pics)

• 05/03/00: Linux Users Take to the Streets over the DMCA - Rachel Chalmers, the451.com

• 02/04/00: Reflecting on LinuxWorld Expo 2000 (with pics)

• 09/07/99: Bob Young Speaks at LXNY (with pics)

• 05/19/99: Donald Becker Speaks about Beowulf at NYLUG (with pics)

• 01/26/99: Windows Refund Day NYC (with pics)

• 09/23/98: Guerilla Action To Install Linux In A New York Public School