[Debian-uk] Re: Expo aftermath

[Philip Hands]

At Wed, 23 Oct 2002 19:03:24 +0100 (BST),
Wookey  wrote:
> 
> On Fri 11 Oct, Martin Schulze wrote:
> > Somebody around who would like to write a summary for www.debian.org/events/?
> 
> As this hasn't happened yet I'd better have a go. (Can be a belated DWN
> item too).
> 
> This version is for review byt those there - it needs some names filling
> in.
> 
> -----
> The well-oiled Debian-uk machine rolled into action again for this year's
> Linux Expo in London. Phil Hands ably negotiated the .org section with the
> organisers and was vaguely in charge of the Debian effort too. The turnout
> of developers was excellent and we by far the best-manned stand in the
> whole exhibition, as well as being probably the most-attended stand.
> Charles Briscoe provided an on-demand CD production system for the more
> obscure CD sets so we could blow and print CDs for anything people needed.
> Wookey and his lard-powered van provided transport of machines, monitors
> CDs and beer there and back. CDs/DVDs of Debian-i386 and Knoppix were

The knoppix CDs were burnt on the stand.

> kindly provided by John Winters of the LinuxEmporium on sale-or-return.
> 
> The trend of recent years continued with a large Debian-arm contingent
> showing off interesting devices and entertaining the crowds. Debian-NetBSD
> were represented and the rest of the team answered questions about Debian
> and free-software, and sold CDs, DVDs and T-shirts. A lot of people got
> top-notch technical advice on a range of problems, and enjoyed the
> experience of no-one trying to sell them anything for a few minutes.
> 
> To illustrate the difference between 'free as in beer' and 'free as in
> freedom' free beer was handed out to people whilst selling them the
> software. A couple of grands-worth of stuff for sold, making a profit for
> Debian of around 800 pounds.
> 
> The things demonstrated were:
> * Debian-i386 in various guises, on various machines (of course)
> * Knoppix - live-cd 'instant Debian' for easily trying out the one true OS
> * Debian-NetBSD running on Matthew Garrett's laptop.
> * The Debian-arm corner:
>   * <Andrew Cater's mate> attempting a live Risc-PC (install (with some, if not
>     complete, success) 
>   * A host of funky arm-based devices runnig Debian or derivatives
>     (Psion5mx, ipaq, LART, RiscPC).
>   * Nick Bane, demonstrating a new open-hardware ARM platform - 'Balloon'
>     which could speak about 8 languages using 3 different synethesisers.
>     This generated a lot of interest, showing what you can do with
>     Debian/familiar on an embedded device and got us a mention on ZDNet. 
> 
> Other developers who helped out were: Jonathan McDowell, Paul Hedderly,
> Paul Sladen, Andrew Cater, ?<help - I don't know your name - very nice
> helpful mild mannered fellow>, David Pashley (being the KDE stand), more?
> 
> Phil Hands also gave a talk on Debian and free-software to the assembled
> multitude of suits, which hopefuly expanded their minds a little, and in one

That was probably in the program, or pre-publicity, but it turned out
that there was no slot available, so while I was in the so called
"Great Linux Debate" both days, I didn't speak separately.

The people who did speak in the .ORG area were:

  Wed  15:30   Michael Meeks   - Gnome2
       16:00   Julian Midgely  - Campaign for Digital Rights
       16:30   Eddie Bleasdale - Secure Desktop Computing

  Thur 15:30   Tom Weiss       - Free Content Management
       16:00   Luke Leighton   - lessons learned from samba

> of the discussion forums he gave a Sun executive a good ranting-at for
> describing Staroffice as 'free software', which earned him a cheer.

... and also revealed that the new SuSE bloke (should probably find
out he name and position) doesn't understand what Free Software is,
and is apparently rather proud of that fact, if anything, which bodes
ill for SuSE's medium/long term future.

Names like LinuxCare and VA (Linux) come to mind for some reason.
Maybe it's time to write about the quickest way to kill a golden goose.

On the second day, the panel had had a few replacements, although
surprisingly the chap from Sun (we really should get the names ---
I'll ask James D-B) bravely returned, despite having been awarded a
pair of fake breasts the day before, for "services to Linux" or some
such --- by popular vote.

The chap from IBM (Andy Hoiles IIRC) was incredibly positive about the
scalability & general goodness of Linux, and dismissive of the others
"only server", "only 1 or 2 CPU", "only anything" mealy-mouthedness.

After he mentioned that Red Hat & SuSE were making major strides
towards ISV-friendliness by slowing their release cycles towards 18
months, I pointed out that Debian had never managed to put out two
releases in the same 18 months, and after a brief exchange he said
something like:

  "Oh, OK then.  IBM says ``ISVs should target Debian'' :-)"

He said I could quote him on that, I think --- Well, he said it in
public anyway :-)

Anyway, if you want to pick the bones out of that, and add it to your
summary, go ahead --- and, well volunteered BTW Wookey :-)

Cheers, Phil.