"In the past, LinuxWorld has had a refreshing
lightheartedness to it. Since the open-source people who usually
flock to Linux events are more carefree than the marketing types
who clog other Internet events, the conferences have been, at the
very least, tolerable.
This year the marketers have attacked. Now, it's virtually
impossible to walk around LinuxWorld without hearing pitches from
company reps extolling the benefits of Linux for "mission-critical
applications in the enterprise," or some such drivel. ... What's
great about de Icaza and Friedman is that, although they can easily
use words like "productize" and "enterprise" when talking about
some aspects of their company, they're intimately knowledgeable
about the technology they're building. They are coders at heart,
and you can see their enthusiasm for their code when they
demonstrate it -- which is more than can be said about a lot of the
firms here."
