Filed under: Linux
I went to check out the Boston LinuxWorld Expo today at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. I didn’t expect much, but it was free, so I figured I’d stroll around. (See here for photos)
My prediction of it being a bore fest were pretty accurate. The only news I’ve seen so far on the web is about Unisys’ little fire mishap. You know when the biggest story of a Linux expo has nothing to do with Linux that it isn’t very exciting.
I walked around for a while, hoping to spot some cool little gadget running linux, or someone giving out free shwag that didn’t stink, but no such luck.
Instead I found many “win a free iPod” contests. You’d think that maybe people would want to win the product you are selling, not an MP3 player that doesn’t even officially (via iTunes) support Linux. Further irony, Apple had a small booth showing off their Xserve and Xserve RAID hardware, but did not have a “win a free iPod” contest.
The .org pavillion was a little more in the Linux spirit. A couple rows of booths with people who are interested in Linux for philosophical reasons not necessarily to make money. Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Gnome, KDE, and several others had booths. In the middle of it was the “Slashdot Lounge” which was pretty sad. Poor CmdrTaco and his cohorts sat awkwardly playing games. No one was talking to them presumably because they were preoccupied, or perhaps because all the 13 year olds have moved onto to digg.
The buzzword that I kept hearing was “virtualization”, something I’ve been waiting to mature for a few years now. I heard it mentioned several booths including AMD, RedHat, and obviously VMWare (who did actually announce that they are opening their virtual machine disk format.
After a few laps around the floor, I wandered the convention center a bit. It a new building. So new Google Earth’s aerial imagery doesn’t have it yet (oddly Google Maps does). The place is mammoth.
I can now confidently say that the with the exception of a Steve Jobs keynote, the usefulness of an Expo has passed. If you want to learn about a product or communicate with a company, the Internet is just much more efficient.
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