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Re: Linux Event notes
Hi all,
I was too busy to write my notes, so sorry for the delay.
(Contents: Thanks, the success, an apology, a summary of the
lectures (plus a feedback for Eitan), quality of lecturers and
their Linux commitments, Compaq, some minor fixes, and something
about the Hebrew Netscape, including its future availability.)
First of all, regarding to the thanks: It is very complimenting to
get so many thanks from so many people, but many others in addition
to me deserve these thanks. As ususal, I'll publish a "Credits"
list, hopefully today. Of course, it will be only a draft (0.9)
because I don't want to miss anybody who contributed to this
success.
Secondly, regarding to the success: I was very skeptical about it,
and you can say that I am too perfectionist or even flame me (hey,
not really, I was just kidding :-), but I could not join all the "I
join too!". There were many things to improve, many "almost"
fashla's which were prevented or fixed in the last minute (so you
couldn't notice), and even some plans that were cancelled (you did
not know the plans, so you are not aware of the cancels). But I am
very happy and excited to read all these postings. Thank you!
An apology: In order to help to prevent the almost failures, I was
very busy during the day, including the time of the lectures. I
deeply apologize for not giving you and other friends, even a
minimal relation or treatment. I was very busy. (This also hurt my
own lecture...).
Regarding to a summary of the lectures: I planned to summarize all
the lectures, but because of the above reason, I couldn't. I even
missed major parts of the lectures, although I was very longing for
hearing them.
I want to thank Gilad for helping in that. I want to add some notes
(such as some names he missed), remove some not important notes
(like "...he did make some unimportant factual mistakes..."), add
some information I still have to gather from Oracle (e.g. number of
audience), add photos (to be gathered from Oracle), and have a
final summary, to be added to our home page (BTW: Thank you Eitan
for your work. Of course, everybody has his notes and comments, but
instead of writing: "There is no graphics!", I would offer to send
graphics. I also plan to give him my ideas for improvements and
minor fixes for details about me/Hebrew, but I didn't do it till
now because I was busy, so the only one to blame, is me).
If I'll have time, I'll raise the important things from that long
summary, and try to build a PR (after all, there were some scoops
and uncoverings which deserve headlines in the press, like the OS
behind the strongest computing power in Israel, the OS behind ICQ,
maybe Hebrew issues, etc.).
Regarding to quality of lecturers and their Linux commitments:
According to the responses till now, everybody loved Yossi Vardi,
Joel Isaacson, and Amnon Barak. There was some criticism regarding
to the other lecturers (i.e. Compaq, Oracle, PF1). Although I admit
that I chose and contacted Yossi, Joel, and Amnon, and that I did
not have any involvement regarding to the other lecturers (Compaq,
Oracle, PF1), I must defend them because of many reasons:
1. All these companies paid MUCH money for this event. The hall is
not given for free. Moreover, the price of this hall is MUCH
higher during Internet-World, than in usual days. You may argue
that we could hire a hall in a usual day, but I think it was the
right decision.
Putting money in promoting Linux, is much more meaningful than
any declarative commitment. In paraphrase of Linus' slogan: Show
me the money.
2. While I had the privilege of choosing lecturers among the whole
Israeli population (something like 5 million), these companies
had to choose lecturers among their employees. Considering that,
and considering the limiting issue (Linux, and not Barak vs.
Netanyahu vs. Mordechai vs. Begin) which cannot be delivered by
everybody, I think that the lecturers were reasonable. All the
lecturers who were chosen by me, are Doctors or Professors, and
have much experience in lecturing. All the others, lack this
experience, but could be very interesting in comparison to
normal lecturers. This is not fair to judge them after hearing
Yossi/Amnon/Joel. The comparison CANNOT be complimenting.
I joined many Yemei-Iyun, and I must say that the average level
of our "commercial" lecturers was higher than the average level
of lecturers in other events.
3. These 3 companies were the first to adopt Linux: Oracle, among
the DB vendors, Compaq, among the hardware vendors, and PF1,
among the Israeli software vendors. It cannot be ignored.
4. Some words specific to Compaq: When we started to organize the
event, Natan Gavish contacted all the leading hardware vendors
(except for SGI, more about it later). Only one of them came to
the meeting, and even this one decided not to join. Compaq did
not come, but still considered it. Hetz wrote some negative
things about Compaq employees he met; I must remind you that
Compaq is a huge company, with many employees. There are many
who ignore Linux, or underestimate it. But there are many else
who honor Linux, and I believe that this is the major part. So
even after Natan asked them to join, the person who was
responsible for this issues declined to agree. So before the
final negative answer, I asked Natan: "Tell him that Compaq
Israel has a special Linux support department. Tell him that
Compaq promotes the use of Linux under its Alpha computers. Tell
him that Compaq is going to have some important announcements
about Linux, even under its PCs" etc. This person, who was not
aware of these activities (because he was in the part of Compaq
and not DEC before the merger), promised to check, and returned
with a positive answer.
I suggested that our ex-subscriber, Amit Margalit, would
lecture. After all, he is the author of some famous GPLed
packages for Linux and other UNIXes. Unfortunately, he left
Compaq a short time before the event. But there are still many
Linuxers there, such as Vlad Mossiniou (I'm surely mispelled his
name...).
In any case, Compaq was the only bold/brave to agree. I believe
that SGI would agree too, but as one who is busy with many issues
in addition to Linux, Natan could not be aware of the Linux
involvement of SGI, so he didn't contact them. When I asked about
it, it was too late (for the organizers, not for SGI which still
was willing to join).
And last thing about Compaq: This is not the first time Compaq is
helping/sponsoring us/Linux. They already donated money to two
Linux boothes, loaned an Alpha machine, etc. I wish all the
hardware vendors, especially the Israeli (excluding our good
friends in Milton), would be so positive to Linux.
Misc.:
> Then it was Eli turn, which while being (as pointed out before me) a great
> orgranizer, and Motif Guru, (THANKS! ) failed to combat the forces of bad
> Inet connection, beta releases, clueless audience (some of them) and the
> short time he had but never the less mannaged to :
Short time: agreed. Bad Internet connection: agreed. Beta releases:
disagreed. Fortunately, there was not even one failure or bug, in
any demonstration or lecture, all the day. Linux rocks.
> We startedm as usuall, half an hour late
The hour "9:00" referred to the "Getting together". The first
lecture was planned to 9:30, and began with a delay of 5 minutes,
less than my prediction (15 minutes), and even than a Matkalist or
academic lateness.
Regarding to the Hebrew Netscape and other demonstrations:
We originally planned to demonstrate many things. Because of some
technical issues, I asked some of the lecturers to demonstrate some
of the things during their lectures (e.g. Wine, KDE, Applix, etc.).
I didn't plan to demonstrate the Hebrew Netscape so heavily, but
only a short demo. However, because of the many organization
issues, I had to prepare my slides during other lectures (sorry!),
and the only simple way to do it was HTML. So naturally, it forced
me to deliver all my lecture by the browser.
Unfortunately, the time was very late (other lecturers asked me to
be earlier, so I postponed my lecture to the end), and people began
to leave, including the technicals (infrastructures, electricity,
etc.). So we were forced to stop, before some demonstration by Seva
of PF1. It ended up that the main demo was my Hebrew Netscape, and
it REALLY wasn't the meaning.
In any case, I don't know if you noticed, but I made an important
commitment: It will be free for use, and will be financed by other
ways, not by the users. This is the Linux way. I am sorry that it
cannot be open-source/GPL/whatever (it contains much stuff which I
am not allowed to uncover, like sources and other things which are
under NDAs). The deal is simple: I am looking for a sponsor. The
starting page of the browser will point to a page of the sponsor,
and in return - this sponsor will join my costs. It means that many
Linux users will start their day in the page of this sponsor (which
can be an ISP or a portal). I know that it will cover only a part
of my costs, and that I could earn much more money by selling the
software, but again - I believe that this is the Linux way.
I still have to fix some minor problems (long start-up time,
packaging, finishing the FAQ/README/etc., bypassing a legal issue).
P.S. I promised GTK+ 1.2, Java 2 for Linux (x86), and BIND 8.2, in
a few DAYS (and other things in a few WEEKS); And as promised, GTK+
released 1.2, and the other two are going to be released in 48
hours! I hope that my other promises and predictions, will be
realized soon; Welcome to the Linux era!
Thanks again,
--
Eli Marmor
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