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gnat (29)

gnat
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Journal of gnat (29)

Monday February 24, 2003
04:00 PM

Linux

[ #10760 ]
I'm getting a few questions about why there's not a Linux track at OSCON. My first answer, whenever I'm asked why anything isn't at OSCON, is "space". I could put on a kick-ass showcase of everything in open source, if I had fifteen rooms for five days. However, I don't ...

The specific reason for Linux, though, is that I think most of the interest in Linux lies in what you can do with it, rather than the latest filesystems or other kernel hackery. That is, most people are interested in running applications on top of Linux rather than in running Linux qua Linux. So most of the Linux juice will be in the "Applications" track (desktop GUIs, SAMBA, etc.), and that's where I'll throw any system administration stuff as well.

Am I high? Is there really an audience of many thousands of people who will come to OSCON to hear a day or two of kernel hackery talks?

--Nat


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  • Fantastic (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dom2 (2981)
    There's no Linux track... because it's so damned pervasive! It really has gotten to the point that it's become just part of the infrastructure. This is a Good Thing[tm].

    -Dom

  • Linux tracks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ziggy (25) on 2003.02.24 16:20 (#17442) Journal
    Am I high?
    Nope. Coming to your senses, more like it. One of the common complaints I heard circa 2000/2001 was that there was too much content at OSCon. I talked to some people who were interested in hearing some of the Linux presentations, but were also interested in hearing two or three other things concurrently. Most of the perlfolk (including sysadmins) I talked to who had this POV seemed to think that the Linux track was mostly a distraction to them.

    Of course, that's a small part of the OSCon audience. But it is a segment of the audience that comes back year after year...

    Is there really an audience of many thousands of people who will come to OSCON to hear a day or two of kernel hackery talks?
    On the contrary, actually. I think more people will be interested in OSCon if there aren't lots of bit-twiddly sessions on the agenda. One of the hallmarks of TPC/OSCon is that most of the sessions are about something you can use at your desk later today, not obscure and interesting things that you want to play with but won't.
  • Plus the linux world is getting big enough to support a number of conferences on its own, and not just in the US. I assume hardcore linuxfolk would prefer to attend those rather than mingle with the lowly scripting people and those icky Sun worshippers...
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