Most people at Scale seem to think this one illustrates that Scale has survived the Covid era and is looking better than ever.
Everyone’s talking about AI writing code. But what about AI shipping code? How will LLMs change how we build, test and deploy software? Will DevOps as we know it continue to exist? Will our favorite tools become obsolete, or endure?
Is this our golden age, or is it the beginning of the end?
So many questions, so little time.
Solomon Hykes Saturday Morning Keynote
The creator of Docker and co-founder of Dagger.io, Solomon Hykes, gave the keynote on Saturday morning at Scale 22x. He took us on a journey through time, retracing the history of software’s industrial revolution, and explored the ramifications of the AI revolution for our community — the engineers running the world’s software factories.
Hykes started with how we started to code by hand and then artificial intelligence came along.
“There is an army of developers out there building a variety of products and then there are the systems people — the platform people — designing the factory that makes it possible,” Hykes said. “Great programs are designed within their factories.”
Hykes turned to automation of some of the software, “trending toward the automated product.”
And then comes the shiny, new artificial intelligence.
“The first reaction is that developers get excited and then settle down,” Hykes said. “And there’s a second reaction of overhype fueled by marketing dollars and also existential dread,” since most of immediate discussion would be around whether you’re being replaced by automation.
But this is real, according to Hykes.
“Usually what happens it’s all hype and then something that really blows your mind, and you have to explore more,” he said. “But don’t dismiss it.”
However, it’s also still software.
“Things we had to do by hand before is not automated,” so the idea is that the AI can write the code is overhyped.
But there’s a problem here: The AI companies are presenting a tech “with a perspective which I think is flawed, that there’s an AI model at the middle of everything — the one megabrain for everything — and it’s delivered to you — the mere mortal — as an app.”
So this model needs a little tweak… specifically, “where is my software?”
“The software engineering communities, the platform community – whatever you want to call it has an important role to play because we bring this built-in sense that you’ve got to put things in boxes and you have to constrain what can go out of the box. In other words, you have to do proper software engineering here.”
Hykes gave us the choice of a demo “that may or may not work” or ending on an inspirational message like “the future us up to you.”
We all chose the demo, which starts here at around 21 minutes into the video.
Roaming the Exhibit Floor
Is it the cathedral or is it the bazaar? Why not both all wrapped up in one?
“I’d say it’s been a little bit of both,” said Jonathan Wright, infrastructure team lead for AlmaLinux, when discussing Scale 22x, from the AlmaLinux booth on the exhibit floor.
Wright, originally from Alabama, is spending his first weekend on the exhibit floor at Scale, and he says the experience has been “a lot of fun so far.”
“There’s a lot going on, a lot of talks about AI,” Wright said, though he was quick to add that it was not his first rodeo, so to speak, in the conference game.
Drew Adams, a self-employed programmer representing openSUSE as a veteran to Scale, said that the show has started to gain its proverbial footing since Covid cancelled the show a few years ago.
“So far it’s been really wonderful,” Adams said. “The team and I were talking last night, and we were saying that it’s starting to feel a lot more ‘pre-Covid.’ It’s been a wonderful year so far.”
Adams has been involved with the openSUSE booth at Scale since 2011.
Prior to that, “there was an international group (from SUSE) that tried to find local people in the area, and I was hovering around the booth (and) they realized I knew up from down and they said, ‘Oh, great – we can leave all these boxes with you.
“And, by the way, you can do the booth next year, right?” Adams laughed.
On Saturday morning, Adams said that they’re expecting it to pick up once the keynote lets out.
Alex Acosta – a software developer from Chihuahua, Mexico and not the former Secretary of Labor – has been part of the Fedora Project’s Scale presence for more than a decade.
Acosta, who has been contributing to the Fedora Project since 2008 and working in the Scale booth at the Fedora Project for the past 13 Scales.
“We try to spread the word (about Linux and the Fedora Project), we answer questions about Fedora, and we explain what we do, and what makes Linux ‘Linux,'” Acosta said.
How has the show changed in the past 13 years?
“My first Scale was Scale 8X at the LAX Hilton,” Acosta said. “It was a different experience because we were using the ballrooms in the hotel.”
Now Acosta said that with the size of the exhibit floor at the Pasadena Convention Center, it lends a higher degree of credibility for software vendors to show their wares. Adding to this the multiple tracks that the four-day event has, it rounds out the expo as one of the premier shows in North America.
Acosta’s colleague in the Fedora booth, Scott Williams, has been involved with the Fedora Project for around 20 years and has been a Fedora Ambassador since 2009, working his first Scale in 2010.
Williams said that while the expo has grown to focus on more corporate entities, “there has been an immutable thing to this where you still have a lot of hobbyists and familiar faces, and there’s still kind of a core that seems familiar despite the venue changes and despite the growth and the size and everything.”
In other words, “There’s still kind of a core hobbyist basis that feels like Scale that’s persistent, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
Williams said that the response to Fedora at Scale has been steady. “We have a lot of users who love to show what they’ve been doing with (Fedora),” Williams said.
Coming back next year, Scott?
“Lord willing,” Williams quipped.
Bradley Kuhn of the Software Freedom Conservancy took a bow for his organization’s providing the WiFi for Scale 22X with the OpenWrtOne router, which is ubiquitous around the Scale presentation rooms and exhibit hall.
Kuhn first spoke at Scale in 2006 and the Software Freedom Conservancy has had a booth
“We’re so appreciative of the Scale organizers,” Kuhn was quick to point out. “They’ve always been supportive of not-for-profit organizations.”
Kuhn said that Scale is one of the most important Linux/FOSS events in the United States, “and it’s so much better than the events you’ll see from the big trade associations and corporations because it’s about individuals who are enthusiastic rather than people who are just making money.”
Charlotte McGraw, a 10-year volunteer in the NextCloud.com booth, said that she has been using NextCloud for over a decade, “and I love to come out to Scale to hang out and talk to people.”
McGraw said the response to Hub 10, released last week by NextCloud.com and reported by FOSS Force here, “has been very positive. A new release of a version is always going to have a hiccup here or there, but for the most part, most everyone has been pleased with it.”
The range of people who visit the booth, according to McGraw, has been on either end of the proverbial spectrum.
“You know, generally at the booth we have people who have never heard about NextCloud or we have people who use it every day and love it,” she said. “So I’ve had a good mix of that, and I’ve had some good conversations with people about how to use NextCloud to make their business better and make their life better, so it’s been a really good show.”
COMING LATER TODAY: SCALE Sunday
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