I enjoyed LinuxWorld West 2001 a lot. There were two main themes on display: clustering software and hardware; and application software.

My expertise is not in hardware, so I will limit my comments to software. My overall impression was that Linux applications were maturing and starting to enter the main stream. The weakest part of the show was the limited tutorials. The best part of the show was the good mixture of open and closed source products that were of sufficient quality for me to consider using them in my everyday life. My guess on this year’s attendance was about 10,000 people. From the exhibitors I asked, the quality of the attendees was good to excellent. The venue changed from last year in San Jose to this year in San Francisco. For some strange reason, sessions were split between the Moscone Center North and the San Francisco Mariott hotel.

As most of you know, I am fascinated by statistics and this show was no exception. I happen to have last year’s show guide and this year’s. Here are some comparisons:

Table #1: Show statistics

While the technical content seems to have increased, the drop in advertisers and sponsors does not bode well for future Linux conferences.

In the next few pages, I am going to highlight some exhibits and products I found the most interesting.

Two interface vendors had interesting offerings: Trolltech (www.trolltech.com) with their Qt Palmtop; and Ximian (www.ximian.com) with their GNOME and Evolution GUI.

I must own up to the fact that I bought a Compaq iPaq just so that I could install Linux and Qt desktop on the iPaq. Next to the Windows version of the iPaq, Qt just shines. There is no comparison with regards to usability. The most telling point for me was the fact that the Windows handwriting recognition was abysmal. It failed to recognize 30-40% of my strokes when I tried to copy the alphabet and there was no way to train it. On the other hand, the Qt handwriting is trainable and you can even enter alternative keystrokes for each letter. In case you make a mistake, you can even reset it to the default, so you have lost nothing. Recognition is on-the-fly. In contrast, the Windows version keeps everything in “ink” format until you ask it to recognize the entry. If it gets it wrong, it is often too late to correct the error. See Trolltech’s web site for sample screen snapshots.

Two productivity tools attracted my attention at the show. The first was by HancomLinux, Inc., called HancomOffice. They were previewing version 2.0. It includes 8 applications including a word processing product, a spreadsheet product, a presentation product, a MS Access-like database product, a painter product, a diagramming tool, a simple web page builder and a PIM. It is based on Trolltech’s KDE/Qt. It also shows an ability to transparently use MS Office file formats, with no conversion necessary. Of the productivity suites that I saw, it was the furthest along. It is not an Open Source product, but it does sell for a reasonable price of $45.

The other productivity suite that I use is StarOffice or its Open Source variant, OpenOffice. Both these application suites are good for many things, but more compatibility with MS file formats is needed to allow for free interchange between users.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed a number of people about Linux and where they saw it going. I decided to repeat the exercise this year. The main questions were:

What does Linux need most?

Where do you see Linux going?

Is NT/XP going to continue to grow versus Linux?

Often the answers reflected what the person was doing or selling. Sometimes, however, a different answer was given. Aron Kozak, PR representative from Trolltech felt that what Linux needed most was successful businesses based on Linux. Vern Brownell, CEO of Egenera, www.egenera.com, was concerned that Linux does not splinter and that it have sufficient service capability. Larry Augustine, CEO of VA Linux, www.valinux.com, felt that Linux most needed applications and productivity tools. Bruce Perens of HP, felt that Linux needed more adherence and support for the Linux Standard Base. Lastly, Shlomo Weintraub, COO of Aduva, www;aduva.com, said that Linux needed good press and better manageability tools.

On Linux’s future, Holger Dyrff of SuSE, www.suse.com, sees Linux going everywhere and will be the #1 O/S for the enterprise and in 5-7 years will be the O/S of choice for everyone. Aron Kozak of Trolltech thinks that soon battled hardened companies will start adopting Linux more openly. Egenera’s Vern Brownell thinks that Linux will become the defacto standard for Unices, replacing all other types of Unix O/S servers. Larry Augustine thinks that GUI’s like Gnome will leverage Linux’s server dominance into the desktop. Trent Mick of ActiveState thinks that Linux will move into the embedded space and end up dominating it.

Unless you live on a different planet, you know that Microsoft is about to launch Windows XP. Under the unrelenting promotion this will entail, I asked how will Linux fair? Holger thought that XP’s licensing will detract from any success it could garner. Aron and Trent both thought that the licensing was XP’s weak spot. Vern thought that XP will take over the Enterprise space with Linux taking over the Unix space and Microsoft getting the rest. Larry believes that NT/XP will hold its own, but not grow. It will gain no design wins from Linux and no conversions. Linux will have a better than even chance in Asia where distrust of Microsoft is rampant. The HP folks felt that XP’s growth will be limited. Lastly, Shlomo felt that any growth on the part of XP will not be at Linux’s expense.

There were three development tools that attracted my attention. They are KDE’s KDevelop, Borland’s Kylix and JBuilder, and ActiveState’s Komodo IDE.

KDE’s KDevelop is the most mature development IDE for C and C++ development. While not new at the time of the show, I recommend it for C and C++ if you are into IDEs and are not wedded to command line editing/compiling/linking cycle. KDevelop allows you to use tools of your choice and can be customized to a great degree. I like IDEs because they centralized everything.

If you are not wedded/welded to C/C++, there are a number of other languages out there. I have supported Borland for a long time. They have very high quality programmer tools in the Windows world. They have now ported some of them to Linux. If performance is your bag, then Kylix is the way to go on the x86 platform. Applications are easy to develop using this tool and the code is excellent. If cross-platform applications are your bag, then Borland’s JBuilder is your thing. Again, both the IDE and compiler are world-class and they uses the VM of your choice (within limits). Both Kylix and JBuilder share many similarities in the way the IDE works and integrates components into your project.

If you are into developing sophisticated scripts and running them cross-platform using a browser like Mozilla, then ActiveState’s Komodo IDE may be for you. It has most of the properties of a compiled language IDE tailored for interpreted languages. Features include a regular expression toolkit, auto-completion, call tips, interactive remote debugging, code editor folding, and language aware code editors.

The folks at NetMAX, www.netmax.com, were giving away a pair of products: a Web Server; and a Firewall. While free giveaways are not new or unusual, the folks at NetMAX had nicely packaged them and were giving them away with no tracking. It means that the giveaway was almost useless for business purposes and that impacts NetMAX’s ability to stay in business. I even had trouble giving them my contact information. They must be viable for their product to be successful.

On August 28, Computer Literacy bookstores closed their doors forever. For the Valley, me, and many others, this closure is very sad day. They were a hugely valuable source for technical information and a culture that valued the geek in all of us. They offered their facilities for many activities, including our monthly meetings and the Silicon Valley Linux User Group monthly InstallFests. I will miss working with the staff, especially Cherry Chiu, who helped launch this newsletter and who arranged for our meetings. Our best wishes for all the former staff. If you have the opportunity to assist them, please do so as part repayment for all they have done for us.

I support the Electronic Freedom Foundation and am an active participant. However, I am angry at the ineptness at their handling of the DVD court case. At the California Court of Appeals, the EFF argued that the restraining order on publication of the DeCSS algorithm was a violation of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech. The DVD Consortium claimed that the DeCSS was a result of theft and thus was “poisoned fruit”. If the DVD Consortium is right and the code was stolen, then I agree that the DeCSS should be banned. However, no such evidence or proof was ever presented. The EFF never questioned the theft claim. Thus, the Appeals Court Justices will have no recourse but to support the Consortium.

As I left the California Appeals Court, I was approached by a polite, young lady who identified herself as a PR person working for the DVD Consortium. She asked for my name and I gave her my business card. It is interesting that the DVD Consortium is collecting names and addresses of all apparent opponents. Keep in mind that as a private agency, the victims of this surveillance have no rights to see what is collected and what they are doing with the data.

By Allan Kelly