Sam Varghese
Monday, 21 April 2008 23:22
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
When the Foundation
talks of itself as being "a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux" we have to understand that growth is measured in terms of what industry wants, not the average user's needs.
There was limited reportage from the summit - because journalists were not allowed to attend on the second and third days, according to journalist Joe Barr, who,
in a piece on linux.com, also mentioned the exclusion of Paul Elliott, a long-time advocate and activist from Austin.
Elliott tried to attend but was told to butt out.
Interestingly, there is no link to Barr's piece on the Foundation website - there are links to every favourable report, including many "blog entries" by its own employee Amanda McPherson. Sure, that's the right person to provide balanced coverage.
Zemlin has justified the way the summit was structured - in
a five-minute video clip (recorded by Robin Miller of linux.com) he uses every possible biztech phrase which has been invented (and a couple of new ones too) to point out that if people want to lobby kernel developers about their own needs, they had better form their own group.
Some gems from Zemlin: "leveraging the fundamental strengths of the Linux platform", "provide key developers a window into users of the technology world" and "this event is focused on the more sophisticated users of Linux."
