On Saturday, October 2, 2004, President George W. Bush made a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio, during which he spoke to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). While the President was giving his presentation, Rich Bowen of the Apache Software Foundation was in a room right across the hall, giving a presentation titled "Apache Performance." Next door to Bowen was the room in which I found myself, listening to Colin Walters (Red Hat, Inc.) tell an enthusiastic audience about the next step in Linux security evolution--the National Security Agency's hardened distribution called Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux). Was I at LinuxWorld? Nope. I was at the second annual Ohio LinuxFest conference. And I'm certain that I learned more listening to Walters than I would have listening to campaign rhetoric.
Free!
I don't remember if it was in a mailing list, in a newsgroup, or at a Web site where I first heard about the Ohio LinuxFest event, but the announcement I read was similar to an announcement from any other technical conference. Embedded within was a link to the event Web site, to which I directed my browser. The main page had the obligatory links providing information about the event, its speakers and presentations, the various "guests of honor" that would be attending, and local housing accommodations--the usual. As I navigated the various links, I happened back on to the home page, where two things suddenly caught my eye. The first was the statement "Free conference and event for Linux and OSS enthusiasts!" and the second was a link to "Register Now (Free!)." Having already read the impressive lists of speakers, presentations, and guests, I was intrigued! Free?
Free conferences are usually thinly veiled organized sales pitches. From what I read, this one appeared to have some substance to it. Like most of you, I like to attend technical conferences, but their cost limits the frequency with which I can partake. Given that Columbus is a mere five-hour drive from my home and that the financial/time risk would be minimal, I just couldn't resist giving this conference a try. I clicked the "Register Now" link and filled in the forms. Once I received my registration number via email, I booked a room with a Holiday Inn close to the event (to be held at Ohio State University), and I was all set to go. Or so I thought.
Roughly a week after I had registered and booked a room, I received an email from the event informing me that the event had been moved from the Ohio State University campus to the Hyatt Regency Columbus. So much the better! I always like to stay in the hotel where an event is being held so that I can leisurely walk from my room to the keynote, without ever donning a jacket or getting wet. A quick check of Hyatt's Web site showed the venue to be booked up for the weekend, but a call directly to the hotel garnered me a room. Once again, I was all set to go. I'll explain the venue change later.
Checking In and Checking It Out
Upon arriving at the conference, I made my way to Hyatt's Union room to check in at the registration table. Along the way, I was accosted no fewer than three times (in the space of 50 feet) by people wearing dark business suits equipped with ear pieces and demanding to see my badge. After informing these rather humorless (albeit polite) individuals that I was there to attend the Ohio LinuxFest, not to hear the President speak, I was directed to the appropriate area. After registering, I received the schedule for the day--and what a full schedule it was!
Keynote
Paul Ferris of KeyCorp kicked off the day with his presentation, "Linux: Millennium Momentum." Ferris has quite a history with the Linux phenomenon and is very active in the community, so he has a good handle on the current rate and breadth of its adoption, which he related to us. During his talk, he polled the audience, asking us what Linux means to us (the replies ranged from "freedom of choice" to "flexibility") and what we're using it for (everything from "home servers" to "Web servers"). It became obvious to me that an incredibly wide range of users were in the audience, as there were both hobbyists and business users represented. Ferris is a good speaker and got us all into the open-source frame of mind.
Let the Sessions Begin!
Immediately following the keynote, the technical sessions were presented. If you have ever attended an IBM Technical Conference, you would have had a sense of deja vu. Each session was one hour long, with two simultaneous sessions per hour. We had 75 minutes off for lunch, but no breaks were scheduled other than that.
These are the sessions I attended:
- Theory and Practice: SELinux on Fedora (by Colin Walters, Red Hat, Inc.)
- The Mozilla Project (a Birds of a Feather session by Scott Collins, Mozilla Foundation and Trolltech)
- The Future of the Linux Desktop (by Dan Rusek, Novell)
- Asterisk and Linux: VoIP for the Masses (by Greg Boehnlien, N2Net)
- Using Open Source Tools to Solve Big Problems: Email (by Bill Moran, Potential Technologies)
- Migrating to Apache 2.0 (by Rich Bowen, Apache Software Foundation).
Each presentation was interesting, and the speakers were well-prepared. I only regret that I had to miss the sessions that conflicted with these. I won't go into detail about any of the topics. If you are interested, view the session outlines at the Ohio Linux Web site.
Meanwhile, Outside in the Lobby
The original purpose of the Ohio LinuxFest was to provide only the presentations. The change of venue permitted the bonus of some limited opportunity for vendors to participate. Not surprisingly, only four exhibitors attended, since there was only one week's notice that table space was available. The two exhibitors that really caught my eye were hardware-related.
The first was a demo system running the latest version of Asterisk (the open-source PBX) and hardware from Digium (the company that sponsors the Asterisk project and offers various boards to interface the Asterisk/Linux computer with the phone company's equipment). Greg Boehnlien (who gave the Asterisk presentation) was on hand to demonstrate everything and answer questions. If you ever need a more feature-filled phone system than you currently have but don't want to cough up tons of money to acquire it, then I would recommend that you this investigate Asterisk. It has all of the things you'd expect from a PBX, including voicemail, an elaborate menu system (if that's a benefit), and call-routing based on the caller's phone number--all on a system that can interface to a POTS line or any of the digital lines, including the Internet. I'm going to build one for my home, just to tinker.
The second item to catch my eye was what IBM had to show: a prototype PowerPC motherboard produced by one of its German development labs. Ohio LinuxFest was the first time that the board had been shown in the U.S., and it is amazing. This little board is only about 7x9 inches and, for the show, was enclosed in a case just large enough to swallow the board and its attached CPU, a small power supply, and the physical connectors for keyboard, mouse, network, and video. Henry Keultjes, author of the interesting article "Perfect Pair: PowerPC and Linux," showed the product with Yellow Dog Linux (a distribution compiled for the PowerPC platform) running a desktop environment. One of the applications displayed was a DVD player that flawlessly reproduced a movie, even when other applications were accessed and the system subsequently loaded up. That feat alone aptly demonstrates the power of the PowerPC architecture, but the best part is that the hardware itself is silent. I couldn't hear anything from the box. This tiny device isn't just a new-age terminal; it's loaded with enough processing power to perform as a decent workstation. Perhaps in the future IBM will make some interesting use of these boards in a product that finds its way into your shop.
The LinuxFest Story
Although I have been to user group meetings before, this one has got to be one of the finest I have attended. I was curious about the evolution of this event and contacted one of the organizers, William Lorenz, who graciously exchanged a few emails with me to answer some of my questions.
Given the scope of this event, it was apparent to me that the driving force had to be an organization larger than your typical local users' group. So I asked Lorenz to elaborate on what the Ohio Linux group entailed. He responded, "The Ohio LinuxFest originally grew from an effort to get many of the regional LUGs together to meet, share ideas, and generate momentum. Since then, it's become an event of its own. The Ohio LinuxFest isn't a Linux users group per se, but many users groups do, of course, participate. I don't have a list of the many groups that attended this year's event, but we drew people from all over the United States as well as Canada." He went on to say that the core of the organizational team consists of six people, with many more contributing to the project.
I asked Lorenz for a rough estimate of the number of person-hours required to plan this event. His simple response was "lots" but then went on to elaborate: "I myself spent the week before the event running around and doing things as if it were a full-time job. Many of our other core team members did the same--and more. Organizing an event of this magnitude really does require a full team effort and 40 hours a week of combined work. I'm thankful we had such a great team behind the event, and many of our team members did much more than I did to make the event a success this year."
When asked if there was anything he wanted me to mention about next year's event, he replied, "If you want, you can mention that anyone interested in helping for next year can email us at
So why was the venue moved? As the date of the event drew closer and the number of registrants (over 500) grew well above that of the previous year (about 100), the group found themselves unable to secure suitable accommodations at the University. At this point they contacted Jon "Maddog" Hall, one of the luminaries in the Linux community and the Executive Director of Linux International, a non-profit association of computer vendors who support and promote the Linux operating system. Hall arranged the funding to rent the space at the Hyatt and persuaded IBM to become one of the major sponsors of the event. What could have become a major problem for the group instead turned into a simple growing pain--one that I wouldn't mind for them to repeat.
I have nothing but nice things to say about this event. The quality of the presentations was superb, and the organizers were truly hospitable. I greatly enjoyed my visit (and the evening get-together at Dave and Buster's) and will definitely go back next year. I have no doubt that this event will continue to grow as word of its quality spreads. You'll want to be there next year!
Barry L. Kline is a consultant and has been developing software on various DEC and IBM midrange platforms for over 21 years. Barry discovered Linux back in the days when it was necessary to download diskette images and source code from the Internet. Since then, he has installed Linux on hundreds of machines, where it functions as servers and workstations in iSeries and Windows networks. He co-authored the book Understanding Linux Web Hosting with Don Denoncourt. Barry can be reached at
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