Registration and More

The building where Google NYC is located requires all visitors to be pre-registered with security, so make sure to register on the RSVP page. Registration is free of charge and all are welcome to attend, but we'll need you to register by 5 PM Eastern time on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 to get you on the guest list. If you've already registered, take another look at the page, as a great deal of additional detail has been added.

We've also added a section for proposed session topics to the conference schedule page, including hours for the Ubucon NY. If you'd so like to give a talk at the Ubucon NY, add your thoughts to this page. In true unconference style, we'll finalize the agenda following the opening remarks.

For folks hoping to share a ride from the airport, find housing or organize another activity around the Ubucon, we've added a meetups page. Subscribe to this page for updates and use this page to organize anything you want before or after the conference; we'll use the mailing list for planning any activities during the day.

See you tomorrow at 6 PM Eastern for the first Ubucon NY IRC planning meeting - #ubucon on irc.freenode.net.

Cheers,
Leslie Hawthorn, wearing both my Ubuntu and Google hat

The UbuCon New York Wiki

The wiki is coming along. There is now the beginnings of an RSVP list. If you'd like to attend, please add your name to the RSVP.

Moving Ahead With the UbuCon New York - February 16

I'm happy to say that things are moving forward on the ubucon planned for February 16 at Google's offices in Manhattan. It will be a mixture of un-conference, installfest and user group meeting for Ubuntu users, developers and the simply curious.

Visit the wiki
Join the mailing list

And stop by #ubucon on irc.freenode.net. We will have the first IRC get-together for anyone interested on Friday, January 26 at 6pm ET.

Misunderstandings of Mark Shuttleworth

Matt Asay had a mild critique of Mark Shuttleworth to which I responded in the comments. Read Matt's critique first, and then I'll repost below what I wrote there:

I think his [Mark's] main point is that it's difficult to get a polished, end-user friendly product out of the other guys. I agree that the "going from shrink-wrap to shrink-wrap" is a bogus comment, but I don't think that was the real point. The real point is that he's slamming other community editions and stating that Ubuntu is a better supported and more polished community distro.

I happen to agree - not because Ubuntu is perfect, which it certainly is not, but because I'm a former Fedora user who was ultimately frustrated by the lack of devotion to something that actually worked for end-users.

I agree that Red Hat has every right to charge for services and must do that in order to survive. I think Mark is just trying to position Ubuntu favorably against the other guys. Whether he's successful at that is another question. IMHO, Linux supporters and distros will have to work very very hard to offer a compelling reason for Windows users and sysadmins to switch, and I don't feel that the current tactics of either Red Hat or Novell do that. In my mind, they have to have a compelling community edition in order to seed the earth in preparation for enterprise upselling.

I have long been a proponent of Ubuntu's community-based approach, mostly because I feel that the larger distributions get it wrong and aren't really helping win more market share for Linux.

Viva la Ubuntu!