At 11/11/2003 08:37 AM (Tuesday), you wrote:

I'm wondering if anybody went to the Linux Desktop conference in Tyngsboro yesterday, and if so, what did you think of it?

I went and learned a lot and had a good time. Lots of positive energy and chance to meet people. Minor logistical problems (less than is often seen for a first time event). Too bad it was just one day! Lots of Linux community luminaries were present. Good, thoughtful reflections on the state of Linux, open software, recent industry changes. Also, lots of practitioners who described real world experiences and successes. Bruce Perens says the biggest danger to Linux overall is software patents (but he thinks the SCO situation is almost over and will have no lasting impact on the scene). Next biggest danger is digital rights management efforts of content creators (a la RIAA). Best defense is support of EFF. Bruce says go to www.groklaw.net for a good analysis of the SCO legalities by a para-legal. Several case studies were described of government orgs and schools converting to Linux. An interesting observation was made that these are mainly outside the USA. Several demos showing the status of the Linux desktop as a viable alternative to Windows. Some talks by KDE and Gnome developers on their current work and plans. Bruce Perrins thinks IBM purchase/merger with Novell/Suse is likely. A major observation for me was that, in the cases of migration to Linux, the biggest cost category was "application migration" - not hardware, software, licensing, training, or support. costs. That is big for me since I do contract application development. Would love to help anyone re-implement Windows apps on Linux. Great talk on Linux terminal Server Project (http://www.ltsp.org/). This stuff works. Great way to use older machines but the best were the low cost, no moving parts remote boxes. No local storage but fully functional otherwise. These guys sell them as well as use them. Jill Ratkevic did an amazing job to pull this off. Apparently this is not the last of these gatherings. If you would like to see more of them join & support the Desktop Linux Consortium at http://www.desktoplinux.com/ (membership is $ free). That's all of the top of my head and not nearly a complete report. Doug C.