LinuxWorld Summit New York City: A Wrap-Up Report

If you hold a LinuxWorld but there are no community exhibits on hand or
distro CDs to pick up, what do you have? On May 25-26, IDG World Expo
held a first-of-its-kind
LinuxWorld Summit
in New York City with that sort of dynamic. And for those two days, the
answer to the question was "business focus."

Designed to attract attendees from corporate managerial strata (read:
big time suits) rather than function as a general penguin fest, the
LinuxWorld Summit opened with daily keynote panels before featuring
a three-track conference: "The Business of Linux and Open Source",
"Data Center and Virtualization" and "Security: Inside and Out."

The CIO Magazine Keynote Panel opened the event. Featuring three
notable panelists, it was no surprise that each brought an enthusiastic
message of positive results deploying Linux. For business, the financial
bottom line is an imposing factor in decision-making policy. Thus, as
would be expected, large cost savings were reported by each panelist.
Each reported additional technical good news beyond cost savings--
improved scalability, reliability, uptime and so on--but given
the responsibilities of C-level management, the cost savings was the headline.

I must confess that given the sometimes rancorous debate over what
constitutes proper TCO accounting on the desktop, I was not surprised
that each panelist detailed successful projects that reside in the data
center rather than sweeping Linux-on-the-desktop initiatives. Within the
data center, there is intense focus on the mission-critical task at hand
and considerably less opportunity for lateral feature exploration.
Given the possible range of options, one can imagine that
Linux-on-the-desktop initiatives easily can be waylaid in no time.

The second day opened with the ambitiously titled "The Evolving World
of Linux and Open Source Keynote Panel." Although flanked by two
corporate panelists with solid messages, the star of this panel was Eben
Moglen. As General Counsel to the Free Software Foundation, he gets
to say such things as his "I make freedom" introductory statement.
However, Moglen did much more than drop packaged hype to a crowd used
to wading through sensational messages. He presented cogent analysis
of why free software is the future and never strayed from point--"Free
Software is not product. Free Software is knowledge"--even when handling
questions during the Q & A that followed his talk.

"The Business of Linux and Open Source" conference track generally
focused on resenting positive news to decision makers. The early adopters of
Linux and open source are leading successfully, but quite a large number
of more risk-averse managers still are on the sidelines,
awaiting the results. Thus, this was an important track for this
conference.

Although not exclusively about legal and licensing concerns, "The
Business of Linux and Open Source" track did
feature packed presentations about these important issues. Given the
various FUD public relations efforts both
directly issued from Microsoft and indirectly staged through partners
targeting precisely these people, their attention to the legal issues
was not surprising.

The "Data Center and Virtualization" track was weighted heavily with
vendor presentations about Linux in the data center. This content
dovetailed quite nicely with the Wednesday morning keynote panelist
presentations. Virtualization is a hot topic, and AMD was among the
vendors presenting (Xen for AMD) within this track.

"Security: Inside and Out" featured a range of presentations
about Linux security in a corporate setting. I have to confess that
the initial thought of having to reassure managers currently running
massive Windows deployments about the quality of Linux security seemed
like nonsense. How could they not know this? However,
after reflecting on the high level of managerially targeted Microsoft
FUD, especially the dubious accusations about Linux vulnerabilities and
patching efforts, I had to agree with the inclusion and importance of
this track.

Outside of the planned events, the big news at the LinuxWorld Summit
was made by Nokia. At a press conference immediately following the
CIO Magazine Keynote Panel, the
Nokia
770 Internet Tablet handheld device and the
maemo.org development site
were unveiled and the formal pledge not to use patents against the Linux
kernel was stated.

As big an announcement as the patent pledge was--Eben Moglen acknowledged
its importance when answering questions about Linux patent concerns
the following day--the 770 easily overshadowed it throughout the two
day event. How could it not? A handheld device featuring
multiple forms of input and wireless connectivity, the 770 also is designed as
an open development platform. To encourage developers, Nokia unveiled
the maemo Web site, which is dedicated to supporting 770 development.
The Nokia table was constantly busy the rest of the show, as everyone in attendance
had to witness the 770 up close. I was able to speak with a Nokia
representative about the announcement; see
An Interview with
Dr. Ari Jaaksi of Nokia.

The substitution of Summit for Expo in the title of this conference hinted
at an event designed not to be a comprehensive vendor exposition.
Thus, there were no enormous partner booths teeming with marketing
types loaded with piles of printed materials. Instead, a diverse
set of partners--headlined by Nokia, IBM, Novell and Sybase--staffed
table-sized displays. Despite the reduced size, the vendor area seemed
no less intense than at a typical exposition.

Among vendor representatives I spoke with, the mood was positive.
Some admitted that there had been concerns about LinuxWorld Summit. Fear of
low attendance given the reduced size of the event was a common theme.
Despite these concerns and because of the quality and focus of the audience,
exhibiting was considered to be worthwhile.

The IDG organizers I spoke with considered this inaugural LinuxWorld
Summit a success. Although audience numbers were not available prior
to this report, the early indications are that the attendance level
was good, especially for a new event with such a focused theme.

In closing, I have to share a couple of stories about my two favorite attendees at this event.
One was a gentleman who showed up after lunch on Thursday desperately
looking for Linux CDs only to go away disappointed. Probably due to the
upcoming event in New Orleans, Red Hat was nowhere to be found in New
York--not even a box of Fedora media. Novell, the only exhibiting partner
with a distribution to offer, was not giving away corporate evaluation CD
kits either. As this fellow learned, the event was not about individuals
and distributions; rather, the focus was the enterprise and strategy.

The other was a Microsoft attendee who sat quietly through each
presentation taking it all in. I openly wondered to an acquaintance how
long it would take for "our slides to become their slides." My cynicism
about Microsoft aside, if one accepts the presentation content at the
LinuxWorld Summit as an informal state of the rising tide of Linux
adoption in the enterprise, one wonders what the folks from Redmond are
thinking they can do to stem this particular tide.

Jeffrey Bianchine is an advocate, author and journalist living
and working in Upstate New York. He can be contacted at
jjbianchine@earthlink.net.