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Corel Linux Advisory Council



Well everyone,

I just got back from representing Debian at the Linux Advisory Council
sponsored by Corel.  Some of the attendees were:  
	Michael Cowpland, Corel
	Jon Hall, Linux International
	Edward Riddle, LinuxCare
	Kevin Phillips, Cygnus
	Alexandre Julliard, WINE
	Cristian Tiberna, KDE
	Havoc Pennington, GNOME (they were seated at the same table during
							dinner ;)
	Dan Quinlan, LSB
	Red Hat was represented, but I forget by who and Jon Hall was also
	representing VA.
	Others who I didn't spend much time talking with like Puffin Group,
	Turbo Linux, Caldera.
	A whole slew of Corel people.
	Also represented were HP, Oracle, Philips and PCChips.

I got checked in at 5pm... had to leave due to a fire on the 6th floor at
6pm... met the group for dinner at 6:30... Ok.. not much to do with the
actual council but the fire drill added a little excitment to the evening.

During the dinner, "Raul" from the United Nation's Development Project
section was the guest speaker.  He related how they use Linux to network
developing countries and emerging economies to, basicly the interent.  This
has been going on for many years... starting with kernel 0.9.

The next morning council started at 8am.  The first thing on the agenda was
some talks from Mike Cowpland and a few other notables from Corel.. then
the first panel: Linux Support the rest of the day was filled with the
panels for the Linux Community and Sales and Marketing.  I'm not sure how
much anyone else got out of these panels.  Most of what I noticed were
positions.  Where people stand and where people come from.  

I noticed that everyone seems to think a certification program is 
necessary.. and charging is acceptable.  The most major concern seemed to
be -fragmentation- in various forms.  There also seemed to be agreement
that certain unprofessional conduct should be avoided... (MS bashing, BSD
bashing, Newbie bashing... Pictures of Bill "Hitler" Gates, etc).  There
was a starting contrast between the panels with "techs" on it (like the
Linux Community) and the panel with CEOs and Marketers (like Sales and
Marketing)...

Most of the value of *this* Council, I think, came from networking with
other people... the dinner/lunch/breakfast conversations.  The discussions
that came up on the way to the airport or after dinner before the "party"
borke up.  I think, in this first(?) meeting, a lot of people had their own
agendas to hash and hash they did.  May others came out to figure out more
about what this Linux stuff is all about and maybe get "heard" by the
"establish community".  

This council will be kept alive as long as the Linux Community will 
respond and accept it.  Before the next meeting, however, there probably
needs to be more direction.  Choose some real problems that exist and seek
to come to some sort of solution or direction.  The Corel Linux Advisory
Council doesn't have a goal or mandate yet and it was evident in the
meeting.  However, I'm not sure it was needed this time.

-- 
Please cc all mailing list replies to me, also.
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