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<title>Title of Article Issue 16</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H2>UniForum'97, March 12-14</H2>
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<H4>By Marjorie L. Richardson,
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<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</a></H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<A HREF="./photos.html">UniForum Photo Album</A>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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My trip to San Francisco to attend UniForum'97 was very satisfyng as I
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got to see two great luminaries of our time--the Hale-Bopp comet and
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Linus Torvalds. Hale-Bopp was visible in the pre-dawn sky on March 12
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and 13. Linus was visible at the Keynote speech on March 13 and was
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definitely the brighter of the two.
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<p>
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The president of UniForum, Tom Mace, was present to welcome Linus, and
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Douglas Michaels of SCO presented Linus with UniForum's
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Achievement Award. The award itself is a clear,
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pyramid-shaped trophy, about which Linus said he was pleased to have
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something "physical" to show for his work. Linus' acceptance speech was
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brief and self-effacing as usual. He referred to himself as the "spider at
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the center of the web" with many others working around him. Tove and their
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3 month old baby girl, Patricia Miranda, had accompanied Linus and both
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tolerated my pushiness in taking pictures. After the keynote, Linus and Tove
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made the rounds of the Exhibit Hall, visiting all their fans in the Linux
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Pavillion. Tove confided that they were enjoying the weather (no snow), but
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that the arrival of their furniture had been delayed by a bad storm that
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had forced the ship back
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to Germany.
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<p>
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Mitchell Kertzman of Sybase gave a vibrant keynote speech that morning,
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in which he ignored Linux as a possible factor in a paradigm shift that
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might topple Microsoft. Perhaps he hasn't heard that Linus' goal is "world
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domination". Kertzman compared today's software industry
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to the automobile industry of the fifties--that it is designing
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products to be obsolete in 3 years, while consumers are wanting long
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term reliability. Sounds to me like consumers are looking for Linux.
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<p>
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While 7000 people had pre-registered for UniForum, only about 75% of those
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actually attended. Perhaps they went to one of the competing shows such as
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Internet World. At any rate, at times the floor was crowded with attendees,
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while at other times (particularly toward the end of the day) it was quite
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empty. The Linux Pavillion was placed in the right rear corner of the
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floor, yet it seemed to me that most attendees were gravitating over to
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check out this upstart operating system that dares to be freely available.
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SSC gave away their stock of magazines and bumper stickers, as well as
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displaying t-shirts, reference cards and the new "Tux" mugs. IBM
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and Lucent Technologies both had central positions on the floor, but I saw
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many people passing them by to visit Digital to check out both the Alpha
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and Jon "maddog" Hall's new Linux setup for Digital's Intel box. Jon is
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providing us with a short article about this setup that will appear next
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month.
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<p>
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I attended two of the talks: one on Electronic Document Interchange and one
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on high speed Internet access. Both were well presented and full of good
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information. I was particularly impressed with Jeff Wilbur's thoughts on
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the directions that access to the Internet will take in the future (i.e.,
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cable modems, xDSL, satellite, ISDN), and so asked him for an article.
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<p>
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Since UniForum'97 was my first conference as Editor of Linux Journal, I met
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many people that I had only heard about before, including Joel Goldberg of
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InfoMagic (who is a sponsor of Linux Gazette), Mark Bolzern of WGS, Adam
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Richter of Yggdrasil, and of course, Jon "maddog" Hall of Digital. Jon
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introduced me to Ted Cook of BRU, who told me of his plan to give away Bru
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software to Linux User Groups at the upcoming Linux Expo and to groups that
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are members of <A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/glue/">G.L.U.E.</A>
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<p>
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On Wednesday night Joanne Wagner, one of our advertising representatives,
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and I attended a press conference/party put on by XiGraphics--free food
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and drink, always a plus. The press conference was held to announce the
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recent name change (from X Inside) and the latest release of Xi's
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Accelerated X software. The president and founder of the company, Thomas
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Roell, gave a short presentation in which he described the directions he
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envisions for Xi Graphics.
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<p>
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All in all, I had a good time at the conference and a pleasant stay in San
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Francisco.
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Marjorie L. Richardson <BR>
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Published in Issue 16 of the Linux Gazette, April 1997</H5></center>
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