I agreed to speak at Linuxfest Northwest and so drove down to Bellingham and back today. It’s about an hour, except for this Saturday morning it seemed like every other Canadian had that U.S. urge so I sat for 90 minutes in a line of cars at the border. Anyhow, the event was terrific. Simon Phipps has written eloquently of marketing values leeching the life out of some Linux events; but not this one.
Because I was late, I only got to see a couple of minutes of our own Charles Ditzel on NetBeans; but I attended a terrific talk by Brian Martin about making your sysadmin scripts production-quality. Obvious things like output-checking and exit codes and useful diagnostics; but presented with clarity and verve and terrific examples; the kind of thing we should all bear in mind more than we do.
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UnMarketing · When I rolled into the exhibit area, I saw motley computers everywhere, a baby being breast-fed, an EFF booth, not a single good suit or even business-casual outfit in evidence; nope, no marketing values here.
This is why Linux blew past the BSDs and nearly became the only Unix-like game in town, it’s about the community, the people who get together because they like each other and like computers. Is this so hard to understand?
