Introduction, Continued

It was so cold in New York that AMD's CEO left his heavy coat on as journalists grilled him during a press conference.

Just a few years ago, LinuxWorld still had a cult feel to it, even though this was long after programmers and true OS enthusiasts had begun to latch onto its very smart Unix characteristics and open source availability in the early 1990s. There were programmers everywhere willing to share their gaming code and not-for-profit exhibitors willing to offer open source Linux kernels for the common good. Those of us who had made the shift to networked PCs learned first-hand of the stability Linux offered the networking environment. And for real geeks, it was fun to learn Unix in our spare time and to get a real nitty-gritty understanding of what Linux was and how it worked (in case you did not know, Linux is really a Unix OS).

Enter the corporate sponsors: yes, Microsoft is there, now singing the Linux tune after realizing that the Linux OS is the most likely candidate to serve the majority of hand-held electronics applications within two years, likely knocking out WindowsCE, not to mention its importance in the realm of networking. Then there are Intel and AMD, the world's two largest CPU suppliers, respectively, that have spent a lot of marketing dollars to communicate that they, too, are Linux fans. Not to mention the venture capitalists and investment bankers that now take the time to ride the subway up to mid-town Manhattan all the way from Wall Street to circle the booths at LinuxWorld like hungry sharks.

As the gear makers and chipmakers will tell you following the healthy attendance levels and interest exhibited at this year's CES held earlier in January, the average Joe Consumer wants to connect his PDA, PC, cell phone, and MP3 player to a network now, and Linux, for many reasons, will play a big part in the mass move to connect.

For the techno-phile, the esoteric appeal of Linux has begun to abate - although there are plenty of Linux software developers at LinuxWorld who try to prove otherwise. Meanwhile, the money chasers are trying to figure out how to one day make money with Linux; it's an atmosphere analogous to the pre dotcom days in the early 1990s when programmers speculated what would happen when business interests tried to wrap their tentacles around the Web. The result now, as then, is a lot of hype and excitement, and fun for some of us, who watched the commercial rise and subsequent crash of the dotcom era.