RE Misinformation and General Commonsense. Was [plug] Linus Torvalds' role at conference

[Simon Scott]

> Thankyou for calling me short-sighted, shallow and bitter, not to me,
> but in the public forum. 

That sounds remarkably short-sighted, shallow and bitter :D <joking!>

> 
> I can't go to the conf for various recent reasons (including work) and
> have friends busily beavering notes to bring back. ("showbags" ^_^)

Yeh, work is the biggy for me too. Things change when you have children and
contracts are thin on the ground.

> I am, though, disappointed that as a person who was 99.999% ready to go
> but decided not to, that the organisers knew of of 'yet another
> sweetner' (even said as much in the original post). While I do

hmmm. This situation is odd for many reasons.

Firstly, I find it odd that someone would find watching a guy walking around
campus worth the money, but Ill accept some people are interested in Linus to
that degree.

Keeping the Linus thing a secret is odd (and quite amusing) for other reasons.
Notice how the organisers dont want 'Linus groupies' to turn up, and yet are
Linus groupies themselves.... who else would have dinner with the man, talk
about totally benign stuff with a jetlagged Linus, and then post to the list
dripping praise for the way he cut his steak? Odd, very odd.

Its easy to take the stance that nobody should be that interested in talking
to Linus to warrant a ticket purchase when your own meet-and-greet is assured
already.

This whole situation is very odd, and for some reason leaves me feeling
uneasy. I guess I always imagined geeks being geeks, and always enjoyed the
openness of OS (or FS or whatever the term is this week) guys. This kind of
clandestine 'us and them' approach is unfamiliar and a little disconcerting.

I guess there are many benefits to organising the conf, as well as many
responsibilities, but you need to keep a level head and not lose sight of the
fact that we are all just a bunch of geeks, and not too long ago Linus was
hacking 6502 assembler on his grandfather's VIC-20 (<off topic> actually, it
might have been a VC-20, Volks Computer, since Commodore rebadged the VIC-20
in most of Europe since VIC sounds rude in languages that pronounce the V as
an F</off topic>). 

I still dont see the bang for buck value in the conference, especially since
those of us who would have to pay full price more than likely could only catch
the last 2 days, but Im glad people are enjoying it and look forward to
reviewing the notes.

Im sorry you couldnt find the last 0.001% reason to go... but oh well :D 

ps. I just realised, does having Tux tattooed on my arm make me a Linus
groupie?? agh, I feel so dirty. Actually, it probably makes me a Larry Ewing
groupie.... yeh, much better :D I cant stay home now, and not chase Linus
around UWA like a Benny Hill skit :D