Open Source Solutions Stage

The Open Source Solutions stage was new this year at Ohio LinuxFest. It was a fairly neat idea, a projection screen, small elevated stage for the presenter and some chairs. While I wanted to check out both the Puppet Talk and the rPath solutions stage talk, they were both on at the same time. Unfortunately Frank couldn't make it to OLF this year, so I made the decision to check out the rPath talk, mainly to see what the solutions stage format was like.

Cfengine talk

The Cfengine talk was interesting, but CFengine seemed to be an overly complex way of doing things you could do much easily with other projects. The presentation was good, although it was a little hard to see the console output on the projection screen from a distance. The one presenter, one person working the keyboard, dual presentation approach was very effective. CFengine seemed pretty cool, but it lacked in certain areas where other projects provide features (Monit, ZenOSS etc), seems like CFengine wants to be a jack-of-all trades but ultimately is a master of very few. Good presentation though.

Marketing FOSS talk

The marketing FOSS talk by Don Parris was excellent. Don walked through the dos and don'ts of marketing. He pointed out some good resources and the importance of making a plan. He even offered to help with plans that folks posted up on Blue Gnu. I had a brief chance to chat with Don, great guy, keep up the good work!

Zenoss talk

Zenoss talk was interesting, introduced the product, integration /
usabilty with cactus and nagios modules. Modelling via port scan,
snmp, or rpc

Various modules for monitoring, answered questions no netflow

John Buswell
Email: buswellj@gmail.com
(Sent on the go via iPhone)

Opening keynote

The opening keynote was a bit of a bait n switch discussing open
source community, open vs closed software and the economics of open
source. Instead of discussing fedora. Not bad, bit slow at times,
jboss plug.

John Buswell
Email: buswellj@gmail.com
(Sent on the go via iPhone)

Arrived at linuxfest

Finally got here after having to go back and switch cars because of a
leaking valve stem on the new tire of the rx8.

Despite arriving late took less than a minute to check in. Good crowd,
some interesting vendors and notably no sign of IBM at their booth.

Waiting on the keynote to start.

John Buswell
Email: buswellj@gmail.com
(Sent on the go via iPhone)

Off to LinuxFest

Well its just after 6am, I'm headed up to LinuxFest.