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. ========================================================================= * http://benham.net/index.html <gecko@benham.net> <>< * * -------------------- * -----------------------------------------------* * Debian Developer, Debian Project Secretary, Debian Webmaster * * <gecko@debian.org> <secretary@debian.org> <webmaster@debian.org> * * <lintian-maint@debian.org> * =========================================================================
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