shuttleworth Archives

SCALE 14X Gets Rolling for the Weekend

By Larry Cafiero on January 23, 2016 |

SCALE 14X Friday

One of the fears — one of the many in having an established conference at a brand spanking new venue — is this: Suppose they gave an outstanding Friday keynote, and nobody came? All those sleepless nights worrying about it were essentially for naught, since Cory Doctorow’s keynote at SCALE 14X Friday was a standing room only success.

The keynote kicked off yet another day of SCALE at its new digs, and the Pasadena Convention Center has gotten high marks among attendees. The wide-open exhibit hall, holding 143 exhibitors, was a complete hit with both attendees and vendors alike.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

SCALE 14X: Making the Mark and Getting Ready for Doctorow

By Larry Cafiero on January 22, 2016 |

Community and News

SCALE 14X Thursday

One of the drawbacks of having to work a show like SCALE is that I don’t get to go to enough sessions while I’m here. As the traffic cop at the intersection of old and new media, it’s my job to marshal the publicity team’s forces into taking the information happening at the show and then processing it for the wider public consumption.

Pasadena Convention Center - SCALE 14x — The calm before the perfect storm, complete with plaza-sweeping Zamboni: The hall at the Pasadena Convention Center is ready for SCALE 14X attendees.

That said — and fighting off rumors Thursday morning that, yes, I am the one to introduce Mark Shuttleworth at the UbuCon keynote that starts the entire UbuCon and SCALE 14X on Thursday (not to worry, I didn’t) — SCALE 14X Thursday kicked off a new era in the conference; specifically one where it become a major player in the FOSS expo constellation, and perhaps the biggest independent show in North America.

Larry Cafiero

FOSS Rock Stars at SCALE 14x

FOSS Rock Stars at SCALE 14x

By Christine Hall on January 11, 2016 |

Community

Sure you go to Linux expos such as SCALE to sharpen your coding skills and to learn about how to get your hands dirty going under the hood with you favorite open source applications. You might even go to learn a little bit about the business of open source. But you have to admit that an added attraction is just getting to see presentations from FOSS rock stars, the well known movers and shakers who have taken a big part in shaping the past, present and future of free and open source software. These are people whose presentations you’ll be tempted to attend no matter what the subject because…well, just because. Some of these are legends; some are not. But they’re all rock stars. And as usual, there’ll be an abundance of them at SCALE.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com

Advertising Desktop Linux

Advertising Desktop Linux

By Ken Starks on June 16, 2015 |

Distros and Operating Systems

It ceased to be funny about the third time I read it. “Is this the year of the Linux desktop?”

Uh, yeah it is. Just like it was in 2014, 2013, 2012…It just depends on whose desktop you are talking about.

The topic came up when an old friend, Richard, and I began an email exchange to catch up after a number of years. He’s a senior Linux admin for one of the major New York City hospitals and the topic turned to some things we’ve noted over time. We talked about how Linux isn’t. It isn’t in the public awareness. It isn’t in stores. It isn’t offered by OEMs in any real quantity. It isn’t visible at all. Richard stated that it was probably better that way. Why he said that, I don’t know. I’ll have to bring that up again, but I have a fairly good idea.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

Why Mark Shuttleworth Is Important to Desktop Linux

By Christine Hall on August 1, 2013 |

Business, Desktops and Distros

If you want to see desktop Linux finally get some traction with the unwashed public, Mark Shuttleworth is more likely to be the guy who’ll make that happen than anyone who’s come along so far. He’s a capitalist and for better or worse this is a capitalist world. He knows that nothing big is going to get done on this market oriented planet without the art of the deal and some hustle. He also understands something about fit and finish, which was always lacking in desktop Linux until he came along.

For too long, we’ve been sitting around wringing our hands, sometimes proclaiming this to finally be the year of the Linux desktop without doing anything to make it happen and sometimes bemoaning the fact that the world still hasn’t discovered Linux as the secret to computing happiness. The thing is, the world never knows anything about secrets until they’re not secret anymore. We’ve been wanting Linux to just “catch on,” while we’ve been blaming the OEMs for not automatically pushing our home grown geek-centric distros with the same elan they put behind their bread and butter Windows.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

What If Ubuntu Edge Misses Fundraising Goal?

By Christine Hall on July 30, 2013 |

Business, Distros and Hardware

It’s beginning to look as if the naysayers are right about Mark Shuttleworth’s hopes to raise $32 million to produce about 40,000 Ubuntu Edge devices. It ain’t going to happen, unless he manages to pull another rabbit out of the hat. Right now, his Indiegogo campaign is stalled at a little over $7 million, where it’s been for several days.

I’m not going to go into the details that led to this, we’ve covered that already, but it’s beginning to look like the Ubuntu Edge happy train is running out of steam, especially since about half of the money raised came in the first day or two of a campaign that’s now in day nine.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Posts tagged as “shuttleworth”

SCALE 14X Gets Rolling for the Weekend

SCALE 14X Friday

SCALE 14X: Making the Mark and Getting Ready for Doctorow

SCALE 14X Thursday

FOSS Rock Stars at SCALE 14x

Advertising Desktop Linux

Why Mark Shuttleworth Is Important to Desktop Linux

What If Ubuntu Edge Misses Fundraising Goal?