Linux World 2004 Review

Submitted by Jamie 2004-01-24 Linux 42 Comments

Here’s a review of this year’s Linux World convention. It’s from a frog’s-eye perspective, a guy with a free “exhibitions-only” pass.

About The Author

Eugenia Loli

Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.

Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli

42 Comments

2004-01-24 3:58 am

Anonymous
Why, are you interested in developing Java apps with KDE 3.2 beta and doing a distcc compile to make the libs?

If not, what’s the problem?
2004-01-24 4:54 am

Anonymous
There is massive innovation in Linux userspace, driven by the same geeky joy that, in another era and in other fields is called “intellectual curiosity.” That’s what I see as the main force behind the Open Source movement; not corporate possibilities, as the LinuxWorld convention pretends, but brutal candor, mischievous smartness, self-mocking over-eagerness. The corporate successes of Linux are just the results of an overflow of energy, the excesses being mopped up. The hacker ethic is driving the corporations. We don’t need them, but they need us.

Amen. Looks like someone hit the proverbial nail right on the head.
2004-01-24 4:55 am

Anonymous
The program he is referring to is kjsembed. Its new for KDE 3.2, so don’t be surprised that things don’t work flawlessly at first.

Anyway, KJSEmbed is pretty cool. You get full access to the KDE API from Javascript, for rapidly making programs. KDE actually seems very promising from a language users standpoint. KDE already has excellent API bindings for Python, and now it has great bindings for Javascript. These high-productivity, dynamic languages have great potential to make KDE development the fastest and easiest of any platform. Consider how much developers love the dynamic, object-oriented programming environment of OS X’s Cocoa. Well, Python takes this dynamic environment to the next level — it is fully dynamic, and fully OO. What KDE needs at this point is language bindings for a dynamic, compiled language. Python and Javascript are great for utilities, but lacks the speed for certain classes of applications.
2004-01-24 4:55 am

Anonymous
The code to allow you to make KDE programs in javaSCRIPT is under development. Here’s a link of the developers’ progress:

http://www.kdedevelopers.org/taxonomy/page/or/33
2004-01-24 5:24 am

Anonymous
There is a problem there, I fit in neither group, I am a hybrid of both. Am I the “third candidate”, fringe party

One thing I always like about *NIX (linux/BSD/SUN/etc) conferences in general is the depth and breadth of people there who actually have a clue about programming and system design rather than the Microsoft expos which are nothing more than giant roadshows built on the same evagelical hype that rolled Bill Graham along in the 1960s and 1970s with his “crusades”.

Ask a question at an MSDN conference and what do you receive in reply? nothing more than a speal of market speak rather than an actual indepth answer.
2004-01-24 5:54 am

Anonymous
Its not arrogant, pretentious, or condescending. There are a great many highly intelligent and informed people in the Microsoft programming community, no doubt. But there are also a lot of people who simply regurgitate marketing hype. Indeed, Microsoft itself tends to encourage this behavior, with its emphasis on hype and evangelism than actual content. Now, you can say that this is in their best interest as a business, and you’d probably be right. But the fact remains that the *NIX community has a lot less to gain from this sort of behavior, and thus do not practice it quite as much.

PS> To be fair, this behavior is an disease of the entire commercial software industry, especially the larger corporations. For the most part, the industry is far more concerned with reinventing old wheels in a more marketable way than with actually building upon the work of the past and improving upon it. A few companies, notably Apple, HP, and IBM, as well as many smaller companies, still have an innovative spirit, but the are in the minority.
2004-01-24 5:59 am

Anonymous
I believe your group is known as the arrogant, pretentious, condescending, over-generalizing group.

So what are the bad points?
2004-01-24 6:11 am

Anonymous
Its not arrogant, pretentious, or condescending. There are a great many highly intelligent and informed people in the Microsoft programming community, no doubt. But there are also a lot of people who simply regurgitate marketing hype. Indeed, Microsoft itself tends to encourage this behavior, with its emphasis on hype and evangelism than actual content. Now, you can say that this is in their best interest as a business, and you’d probably be right. But the fact remains that the *NIX community has a lot less to gain from this sort of behavior, and thus do not practice it quite as much.

It isn’t so bad if the information is evangelised AND the people knew what they were talking about. Take Balmer for instance, he rips into Linux and yet, he has difficulty running his own desktop PC. Alchlins last contact with a non-Microsoft operating system was 30 years ago when he was studying at university and yet, he considers himself the fountain of information on his “competition”.

Neither managers can actually point out SPECIFIC problems with Linux/UNIX. That is SPECIFIC issues in relation to the technology that Linux is based on. These managers NEVER talk about SPECIFICS, they always generalise things and hope that the gullable media simply suck the content down and regurgitate it via the local trade rags they work for.

It always reminds me of GWB when he visisted Australia and was interjected by Bob Brown during his speech. Never addressed the question and brushed off saying (in a goofy voice), “I love free speech”. No sunshine, address the question. You’re at the dispatch box, now address the question. Maybe Balmer should stop brushing the questions off and actually start addressing them. If he can’t address them then he should stand aside and a new CEO should be chosen who has a clue about the business they’re managing.

PS> To be fair, this behavior is an disease of the entire commercial software industry, especially the larger corporations. For the most part, the industry is far more concerned with reinventing old wheels in a more marketable way than with actually building upon the work of the past and improving upon it. A few companies, notably Apple, HP, and IBM, as well as many smaller companies, still have an innovative spirit, but the are in the minority.

True. Apart from the normal Apple road shows designed for the average enthusiast to go along to, the developer expos are generally speaking, very good. Borland had a good “launch party” in Canberra for JBuilder 9. Talked to employees at Borland who knew their stuff.
2004-01-24 6:12 am

Anonymous
Bleh, I went to Linux World for the last 3 years in NYC. The first time it was good, the second time sucked ass, the third time was only slightly better than the second time. If you are going for a corporate environment then it may be good to you, but if your just a home user of Linux then its not worth your time. Go out into the city and explore that instead, it will be a lot more fun.
2004-01-24 7:15 am

Anonymous
… from someone that does web pages in vi. I am pretty neutral and I am not taking sides in the camp, but I would like to paste in the following quote:

“He didn’t have it installed though, so he decided to download it from the net; there was a compatibility problem with the binary, so he pulled the code from CVS; he didn’t want to wait for a long compile, so he decided to use the other processors on the LAN, but to do that he needed icecream; he pulled that from CVS… All this was done at a fast and furious pace, he had 10 or 12 shells running at the same time, was bouncing between them”

Wow, there is massive innovation in Linux userspace.
2004-01-24 7:33 am

Anonymous
This review has emense value if for no other reason than the social commentary it offers. How absolutely fitting was this observation:

“These folk are amazingly canned and bullshitty compared to Linux enthusiasts. They try to talk the Linux talk when speaking one-on-one (“how many times did you have to patch Open SSH this week dude?”), but fall back on corporate speak when addressing a crowd (“middleware,” “enterprise”).”

What’s sad is that we get this same kind of crap from people inside – or is it outside – the Linux community, Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat, for example, with his “clustered” home system. People with this type of contrived, imitative personality, those often given to using trite, some-one-else-invented expressions employing such images as “rocket science” or “brain surgery” ought to be returned to the womb. That or given an enema.

jlowell
2004-01-24 7:35 am

Anonymous
It makes me sick that anyone would try to “talk the Linux talk,” like that is a good thing. I mean, jeez, how hard is it to fit in with a group like this: http://www.nylug.org/images/adler_images/linux_nylug_booth.jpg

?!
2004-01-24 7:46 am

Anonymous
I thought it would have been good if he kept his politics to himself. Oh and SFU is 100 times better than Cygwin.
2004-01-24 9:48 am

Anonymous
It makes me sick that anyone would try to “talk the Linux talk,” like that is a good thing. I mean, jeez, how hard is it to fit in with a group like this:

2004-01-24 9:50 am

Anonymous
Neither managers can actually point out SPECIFIC problems with Linux/UNIX.

There’s no need to because the specific problems are quite obvious for everybody to see:

[…] there was a compatibility problem with the binary, so he pulled the code from CVS; […]

You want mom and dad run into problems like that, and solve them like that?

However, in most cases the audience managers usually talk to won’t understand “specific” problems nor is interested in them.

2004-01-24 10:10 am

Anonymous
“Neither managers can actually point out SPECIFIC problems with Linux/UNIX.”

There’s no need to because the specific problems are quite obvious for everybody to see:

[…] there was a compatibility problem with the binary, so he pulled the code from CVS; […]

You want mom and dad run into problems like that, and solve them like that?

However, in most cases the audience managers usually talk to won’t understand “specific” problems nor is interested in them.

For goodness sake, read what I wrote. Every thing the two manager say are directed at Linux on the server. Neither of them can point out problems.

As for the audience, yes they can actually explain things. If it they comment regarding Linux and how poorly it scales on a multi-processor server, how hard would it be to explain to a manager that the operating system Linux doesn’t utilise the the hardware properly so in a nutshell, their $1million dollar machine is only performing as good as a $500,000 machine.

I think a manager can work out in the head that the equipment they have isn’t performing at its optimal level performance resuling in inefficiencies.

If Balmer and Achlin have problems explaining that then obviously they have communication issues and should take a class at the local polytech to get over this problem.

2004-01-24 1:25 pm

Anonymous
For goodness sake, read what I wrote.

Well, I did my best to understand your post. However, a sentence like

“Linus scales poorly on a multi-processor server _because_ it doesn’t utilise the hardware properly.”

is not what I would call “pointing to a SPECIFIC problem”. That’s all. No need to be get upset.

2004-01-24 4:05 pm

Anonymous
It seems the author is a self hating geek “loser” (as he terms it) himself. Pissed off the people are actually trying to make linux a profitable business venture. Sad that being a linux user is not a unique as it once was. Get over it! linux is larger than geekdom!

2004-01-24 5:20 pm

Anonymous
Yes, Linux is “larger than geekdom.” But the geeks, the people furiously, excitedly, boldly coding are the ones who have created Linux, and continue to create Linux. The corporate interests have contributed capital and some code and testing and publicity. But despite their efforts, at a convention meant to showcase the corporate interests in Linux, the geek feel, the hacker ethic, even when pushed to the fringes of the showroom, easily overpowers the business atmosphere: the geeks are more interesting, more diverse, more honest, funnier, have greater vision, and are more innovative.

2004-01-24 6:33 pm

Anonymous
“[…] there was a compatibility problem with the binary, so he pulled the code from CVS; […]

You want mom and dad run into problems like that, and solve them like that?”

If she were demoing beta-quality development tools at a Linux conference to a fellow hacker, I’d expect her to be able to.

2004-01-24 7:58 pm

Anonymous
ROTFL.

I loved the image of the New York Linux Users’ Group. The older person in back with the propeller beanie obviously has a sense of humor. The kids have that classic “geek” look. I wish more would turn out like them.

As for the article. Good social commentary with an obvious bias. The description of the guy grabbing from CVS is writing of a very high order.

2004-01-24 8:36 pm

Anonymous
You want mom and dad run into problems like that, and solve them like that?

—

Dude! Your mom is into rapid application development with Javascript? Cool! My mom just uses the internet to research gardening!

Seriously, though, kjsembed is beta! Very often, they do not preserve binary compatibility during development releases, because the APIs are still in flux.

2004-01-24 10:41 pm

Anonymous
I disagree. We should all educate our friends on how to use Linux to replace crappy M$ bloatware. This is a good example: http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.11.26.101258.24.html

2004-01-24 11:00 pm

Anonymous
Peter Besenbruch,

That’s no beanie, that’s a yalmakah. 🙂

Regards.

jlowell

2004-01-24 11:49 pm

Anonymous
This was mean to be an example what I would call a specific problem. You may like to visit linuxquestions.org and study the vast range of real problems with Non-Beta software for a day or two.

Please don’t come back and say: Nobody had a problem with missing binary compatibility over there.

2004-01-24 11:56 pm

Anonymous
Well, speaking as someone who visited the exhibition just the other day and also attended last year, I agree with article author’s overall impressions. Linux is even bigger business now than ever before, and there were piles of large displays from big companies drawing huge crowds. Yes, it was a lot of marketing nonsense, and this nonsense will probably grow and grow. As far as I’m concerned this is perfectly fine, just as long as Free Software remains free and the developer community continues to cooperate and do great work.

But the author is also correct in that the smaller “dot org” pavilion has always been the place to really connect with people and learn things. In response to the incredibly commercial nature of LWE almost all of the local LUGs and SIGs have decided to get together and form something like a New York LinuxTag. Expect to see something interesting next year.

As for the picture, the only person still involved with NYLUG is the old bearded guy on the right. That’s Jay Sulzberger, mathematician, LISP expert, cryptographer, inventor of the word “englobulators”, disrupter of the Commerce Department’s DRM meeting several years ago, and distant relative of the owners of the New York Times.

2004-01-25 12:08 am

Anonymous
It may suprise you that many Linux users don’t give a damn about American companies… because they are not Americans. On a personal level, I’d be quite happy to see Microsoft simply die, because it would mean that local software companies in my country (New Zealand) wouldn’t have to play some mouse-elephant morphing game, where they seem big enough to get decent bussiness, but small enough not to incur the ire of Microsoft.

2004-01-25 12:27 am

Anonymous
Linux: it morphed into something you guys are not going to enjoy: subscription base software. Yes, it is rent vs. buy. That is the biggest innovation Linux brought.

You will see it more and more. Red Hat does it. Lindows does it. Other companies do it- some are still shy, some not so shy any more.

As an extra bonus: all these business guys selling their stocks and bonds for the second time to the same naive US public- they can still use free labor from a developer community. Someone somewhere would only be happy to contribute hours and hours of his or her time for exchange of their name prominently positioned in a Readme file nobody ever reads.

Sooner or later “Software must be free” will be permanently replaced by “Software is free but you must pay for freedom”- because capitalism will never die, only adapt. Capitalism, my friend, is all about making money, not about free (as in whatever).

2004-01-25 12:46 am

Anonymous
Yes, Linux is “larger than geekdom.” But the geeks, the people furiously, excitedly, boldly coding are the ones who have created Linux, and continue to create Linux. The corporate interests have contributed capital and some code and testing and publicity. But despite their efforts, at a convention meant to showcase the corporate interests in Linux, the geek feel, the hacker ethic, even when pushed to the fringes of the showroom, easily overpowers the business atmosphere: the geeks are more interesting, more diverse, more honest, funnier, have greater vision, and are more innovative.

I have bad news, Jamie. Eventually, even Linux will be commoditized to the point that enterprises are going to care less about what new gadgets geeks have to offer. I mean, after you build most of the OS infrastructure, scalability and clustering technology, there isn’t a whole lot of innovation that’s all that interesting to companies that either (a) they can’t do themselves, or (b) that they need. All products reach a natural point of maturity, beyond which further maturation is of limited interest. Microsoft is seeing this happen with Windows. Linux is headed in that direction. Eventually, the only ones who will care are the ones making money from sales or support of Linux.

2004-01-25 3:16 am

Anonymous
I disagree. Here are a few examples of things that never reach a “natural point of maturity, beyond which further maturation is of limited interest:” Physics, literature, travel, friendships. It’s true, none of these things are “products,” as you say, but I think Free Software is more like these things than like MS software. It isn’t driven by enterprises’ interests, it is driven by human desires. If one day the only business people who care about Linux are “the ones making money from sales or support,” there will still be a bunch of geeky nerds furiously coding up some crazy obscure software project that no one but they care about… until that project turns out to be the infrastucture of the next cool thing (that also can potentially make businesses money).

2004-01-25 6:41 am

Anonymous
Physics, literature, travel, friendships. It’s true, none of these things are “products,”

Innovation is a measure of whether something can be productized and put in the hands of human beings. Short of that, it’s nothing more than an academic or hobby exercise. Which, as I said, is of no interest to enterprise customers (the point of my original comments, remember?)

2004-01-25 8:07 am

Anonymous
“Innovation” is defined as the “act of introducing something new.” I don’t care how “Enterprise customers” define it. Corporate-types have a history of absolutely mutilating language — stripping all meaning from words that were formerly perfectly respectable.

“Enterprise customers” are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to recognizing true innovation. Quantum mechanics was regarded as “an academic or hobby exercise.” Now, quantum mechanics is the direct enabler of a large fraction of the US GDP (something like 30% IIRC).

2004-01-25 10:47 am

Anonymous
“Innovation” is defined as the “act of introducing something new.” I don’t care how “Enterprise customers” define it. Corporate-types have a history of absolutely mutilating language — stripping all meaning from words that were formerly perfectly respectable.

“Enterprise customers” are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to recognizing true innovation. Quantum mechanics was regarded as “an academic or hobby exercise.” Now, quantum mechanics is the direct enabler of a large fraction of the US GDP (something like 30% IIRC).

The problem is also that these corporate types are unwilling to learn new skills. For example, a manager should have a basic fundamental understanding of IT. Not necessarily to the point of setting up a server and integrating software together, but they should know atleast what a 32-way SMP server is, or what a gigabyte is. This is pretty basic lingo and something I would expect every manager to know.

Managers also need to move away from this, “I insist on using zyx companies product” to “These are my problems, put out a tender, and lets see which company can provide the best solution”. Too many a times I see companies concerntrate more on supplier than the actual product being supplied to them, and whether or not it is suitable for the task.

Just look at Oracle. Why do people insist on using Oracle on UltraSPARC when it is consistantly out performed by Sybase? why do people insist on spending thousands on purchasing Windows for their very basic webserver when FreeBSD plus Apache or Zeus for a fraction of the cost?

2004-01-25 1:32 pm

Anonymous
Managers also need to move away from this, “I insist on using zyx companies product” to “These are my problems, put out a tender, and lets see which company can provide the best solution”.

A rational decision maker should ask: “How much will it cost anaylse my problems, to put out a tender, to analyse the offerings, to check the reliablity of the offerings, etc. on one hand, and on the other one: What are the chances that I find a less expensive solution, and that the costs reducion will be higher than the costs of analysing the situation within a moderate time frame?”

Last year, I had a really short look at the published numbers of Munich’s Linux decision. It was interesting to see that the cost differences were rather small; and depending on how you looked at them, not in favour for the Linux solution. It’s the aweful lot of small additional costs for such actions which don’t appear in single number comparisions like “Sybase outperforms Oracle”.

There’s no need to blame the “corporate types” or “the managers”. Probably some of them are fools, just as some server administrators are.

By the way, a main problem with OpenSource solutions is that nobody pays for the drinks after a contract.

2004-01-25 3:31 pm

Anonymous
Fine words of wisdom that bear repeating since they likely flew over the heads of the Linux crowd completely:

Linux: it morphed into something you guys are not going to enjoy: subscription base software. Yes, it is rent vs. buy. That is the biggest innovation Linux brought.

You will see it more and more. Red Hat does it. Lindows does it. Other companies do it- some are still shy, some not so shy any more.

As an extra bonus: all these business guys selling their stocks and bonds for the second time to the same naive US public- they can still use free labor from a developer community. Someone somewhere would only be happy to contribute hours and hours of his or her time for exchange of their name prominently positioned in a Readme file nobody ever reads.

Sooner or later “Software must be free” will be permanently replaced by “Software is free but you must pay for freedom”- because capitalism will never die, only adapt. Capitalism, my friend, is all about making money, not about free (as in whatever).

2004-01-25 4:38 pm

Anonymous
Sooner or later the only people who will write literature are those who do so becuase they are hired by a particular company to write a particular book because that company has determined that that book will make them money. No one writes books under capitalism because they have something to say, or some creativity to express, or to recount an experience to themselves, right?

2004-01-25 4:49 pm

Anonymous
Anonymous authors can write all the books they want, but if their works are good, and they give them away via a public license, then companies will certainly come in and make money off of them and widely distribute for their own profit, not that author’s. The author wouldn’t get much in return at all, except an increase in his reputation he might could profit from at a later time. Right?

2004-01-25 7:50 pm

Anonymous
it’s amusing to watch some people try and pin a direct measurable-personal-profit-related-to-effort motive to why people create. of course there _are_ many who create for no other reason than to make a measurable personal profit that is directly related to that creative effort. walk into most shopping mall “art galeries” to see one portion of that segment of humanity in action. and kudos to them, as it makes many of them happy and satisfied. such people are involved in Open Source development, too.

but that’s not the only reason people contribute. some have suggested it’s karma banking via improving one’s reputation. but few contribute for some reputational improvement that might later become exploitable for measurable personal profit. it’s a nice side-effect when it happens, but i don’t know any for whom that’s the primary reason or motivator.

some people don’t expect nor need nor want a measurable personal profit to come of every single one of their actions. as an example: why do people go fly fishing? some do it for competition and the resulting prize money. but talk to your average fly fisher and you’ll learn something about passion and deeply human spiritual needs. which is somewhat ironic, since the “sport” revolves around forcefully putting metal barbs into living animals.

when it comes to Open Source software, for many it is a similarly “end unto itself” endeavor. and here’s the shocker for all those caged firmly within the left hemisphere of their brain: you can do innovative things even when you aren’t attempting to profit from them. this is how much “Great” art occurs (compare/contrast to previously mentioned mall art galleries).

for others, they find a personal profit in creating a world that is more to their liking. one, perhaps, in which the poor and otherwise disadvantaged have access to technology, as a pre-emptive strike against the deepening of social inequities via the field of technology they are personal involved in and in some small way responsible for. there’s also the issues of informational rights and freedom. these sociopolitical issues are important to some, and have no bearing on economics while having a very real bearing on the reward factor for those involved.

then there’s the feeling of “belonging”: being a member of a culture of like minded people doing similar things that interest and fascinate. ask astronomers how much “amateur” astronomers have helped out with the observational needs of their field.

for most involved, it’s probably a complex mix of a number of reasons, from the profit motive to the sociopolitical.

but just because you don’t understand first-hand why someone may be doing something, that doesn’t mean that they therefore have no good reason for doing it. not everyone is you. not everyone is driven in the same ways you are.

it isn’t up to you to try and explain why what is obviously occurring (namely, innovative efforts put in by people without the guarantee or need for measurable personal profit as a direct consequence) isn’t happening. it is happening. whether you understand it or not.

i’d suggest being a good scientist: lay down your personal prejudice and limited intelectual scope in the face of factual evidence. don’t deny the phenomenom; rather accept it since it’s visible, measurable and real.

(a 4.5 of the Rant Scale)

2004-01-26 1:43 am

Anonymous
The problem is also that these corporate types are unwilling to learn new skills.

So what. There has to be some tangible benefit to learning new ways of doing things in order to justify a switch. Simply asserting that there’s something different doesn’t cut it. That’s why these enterprise customers are profitable. They don’t reinvent the wheel every time some zealot jumps out of the woodwork proclaiming a better mousetrap.

2004-01-26 3:09 am

Anonymous
We wouldn’t care, if it wasn’t for the fact that as influential people, they keep spawning opinions on things they know nothing about. If a CTO/CIO doesn’t know anything about the databases technology, then why in gods name is he in the position to make a judgement call weather Oracle or SyBase is better?

2004-01-26 7:14 am

Anonymous
We wouldn’t care, if it wasn’t for the fact that as influential people, they keep spawning opinions on things they know nothing about. If a CTO/CIO doesn’t know anything about the databases technology, then why in gods name is he in the position to make a judgement call weather Oracle or SyBase is better?

You’re building straw men. I never suggested that it’s okay for CTO/CIOs to be clueless. What I said is that corporate types need to be convinced that a particular technology justifies the cost of making a switch. That’s it.

2004-01-26 10:21 am

Anonymous
I am happy to see that the linux world conference was a total disappointment to those posters here saying that the confernce iteself should be hyped. cheers. i think the linux expo was primarly build for linux users to share ideas socialize meet their fellow linux users and most of all turn off their computers and go outside for just 3 days . save the hypeing, if linux needs more pixie dust, for CES or COMDEX instead .

i must say this particular thread is really fun read, the speculations about the direction of linux,opensource, Free software and the criticisms of ceo and geeks. so heres my 2 cents, linux, opensource, free software as it started out as free would be free as always, and forever… there would still be a free distro whether. opensource and freesoftwares are good initiatives to the computing world at this point in history, more than half of this world use live and profit from computer hardware to an extent that it would be logical to offer free operating systems and programs that are oftenly used. imagine if your government tax the air although this is a far fetched link to free software or opensource initiative, it really is logical to see programs or os to be free, as linux toravldz puts it. There are also softwares and operating system that is really worth spending your money, and lets hope that they coincide together with free software. however when one spew their thoughts about the rent or buy direction of opensource spftware and about profitting from a codemonkey’s free software contribution and somehow try to link that thought to sweatshops it makes me think. that this guy is talking out of his ass. i mean these guys code and offer the results that they have learned out of their curiosity. isnt that the core of hackers ethics. also most of the company who is offering their distro to commercial use as far as i know has been help full or have sponsored to the developemnet of good features in linux, i might be wrong but if this isnt the case then it would be a good idea to sponsor codemonkeys or hackers as an independent for their contributions. as ive said there will always be free distros around and the move for linux as a buy or rent product commercially isnt a bad thought. why you ask? coz its not that expensive and far more reliable than any other offers available as of now. As for how ceos play in conventions or any sort of business i agree that they should know at least how their product works, it is also important to know the ceos who has cahones or who is in it just for the ride. i personally think that ceos, and the “rent and buy” view as linux goes to provide services commercially, are important so that when their product, the one that u are using, has been compromised you can crush their balls and hold them responsible for any damages that it brought upon to you, those are the guys who needs enema or whatever it is. and as for the geeks, the conferences is really for the geeks. would you rather see yuppies dressed colorfully? like a pinata? have fun reading.