NYCPHP Meetup

[David Sklar]

>> Subjectively speaking, of course:  I noticed that the low-rent
>> district where the small booths (like NYPHP's) were located had a
>> more exciting vibe than the upscale part of town where the flashy
>> big corporate exhibits were. The conversation seemed more animated
>> and interesting.
>
> I compare the commercial/FOSS booths to television/Internet:  with the
> first, you get talked at; and the second, talked to.

This is a tricky generalization. I had a fine time at the NYPHP booth (of
course) but also a surprisingly pleasant time at the IBM mega-booth. I went
over to voice my tiny opinion that although I love my Thinkpad, it would be
nice if I could get a Thinkpad-aware version of Linux to run on it natively
(with support for sleep/hibernation, display switching, firewire, etc.) The
random IBM booth guy I approached with my question pointed me to a specific
person to talk to who I spent about 15 informative minutes with. (Short
answer: they have a distribution they use internally for 25,000 employees
which consists of nice packaging for already externally available tools. No,
I can't have it but as soon as some large company calls up IBM and says
"We'd like 100k Thinkpads with Linux on them, please," that configuration
will probably become a consumer option."

That said, the guy in a penguin suit at the CA booth and the woman at the HP
booth wearing a bridal veil who began her spiel with "I'm going to marry one
of you guys [in the audience]" were both, each in their own way, very
creepy.

So I think it really depends on the questions you ask and who you're talking
to. J. Random Developer is on the radar of the folks working a small or
non-profit booth. CA doesn't care about one guy who might be interested in
buying one copy of something they make. That's the way the world works.

David