Wikipedia

For those of you who have been stuck under a rock for the last few years, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia run by volunteers. It is active in 25 languages and just the English language site has 470,000 articles. The articles can be instantly updated by their authors, so you no longer have to wait for new information. The content is absolutely free, forever.

Wikipedia representatives said the organization will soon publish more online textbooks and manuals, some of which are already on Wikipedia, under Wikibooks.

FreeBSD

Even though FreeBSD is not technically Linux, its booth was still welcomed by show attendees. FreeBSD is an operating system, that is derived from BSD, a version of UNIX which was developed at the University of California, Berkeley. The operating system has many fans, especially among network administrators who want a stable server platform, without the bells and whistles of other bloated operating systems.

FreeBSD is free in every sense of the word. DVD sets were given away at the booth. A donation, although not necessary, was appreciated.

Conclusion

The best exhibit had to be Flightgear, with its authentically-reproduced 747 cockpit and instrument panel. A close runner up was the Linux Terminal Server project, which transformed junk computers into useful PCs.

The rooftop police snipers and cheerleaders, were interesting distractions for attendees, but in the end it was Linux that excited fans during SCALE.