[Scale-planning] SCALE 4x Wrap-up

[Dennis Drexler]

“SCALE Rocks” - Jono Bacon from his blog.  Others: “This is great!”  “Wow!”  “We'll be back next year ... and the year after that.”

Those were just some of the comments from attendees and exhibitors at the SCALE 4x event this weekend in Los Angeles.  The expo drew the faithful from such diverse locations as Sacramento, Baton Rouge and Cincinnati in addition to more major metropolitan areas across the U.S. and, of course, So Cal.

The growth in exhibits and sessions was obvious from the first day.  Exciting keynotes kicked off each day, leaving SCALErs having to choose which of the four concurrent tracks to join.

Chris DiBona packed the room with his entertaining look into the amazing journey Google has taken from a quasi-random pile of hardware at Stanford in 1997 to its position as one of the most recognized names on the Internet.

No small amount of the day one buzz centered around Adam Leventhal's dtrace demonstration.  Overheard: “I've never owned a Sun box, but I want to get one just to use dtrace.”

Who says that geeks don't have fun?  Saturday night, SCALE hosted some fun & games in the form of The Weakest Geek trivia contest.  A reception followed, with everyone rubbing elbows and recapping the day over a cold one or two.

Alex Perry delivered a delightful and artfully-presented session on Debian – the foundation for a plethora of new-comers to the list of Linux distributions as well as being a solid and stable favorite in its own right.

Charles Edge presented practical network security advice to a well-attended session and drew a lot of interactive discussion from the audience.

The much-anticipated talk by Hans Reiser was filled with details about the Reiser4 file system.  Hans let the group set the depth gauge as he brought them into the inner circle, sharing his thoughts and motivations about his work in addition to covering the features and explored concepts such as dancing trees and global namespace.

One of my favorite sessions on day two was enthusiastically offered by Steve Friedl on being a consultant.  A roomful of both current and hopeful consultants listened intently as Steve brought a mix of humor and pragmatic advice gleaned from his 20 years in business as an independent consultant.  After the organizers finally had to cut off questions in the overtime session to make room for the next speaker, Steve was mobbed by those wanting to hear more.

Exhibit highlights included IBM and their partitioned iSeries server running Linux, Novell (their stuffed Tux was probably the most coveted show schwag, right behind the flashing LED Google pins) and LFS Technologies (and their flight simulator which has become a perennial favorite).  I never got to talk to the Debian devs; the throng around their booth was usually three deep.  KnoppMyth once again showed beautiful graphics with their packaged PVR solution.  XIOtech and Qualstar provided some eye candy for the hardware junkies among the crowd.  Meanwhile, in the email garden, those seductive Shuttle boxes running Knoppix drew as much attention as the content they were there to connect to.

The LUG area always seemed to be packed with Linux zealots, curious noobs and many in between.  A friendly welcome was always ready for anyone who stopped by to chat.

By the time the show wound down Sunday afternoon, it seemed clear that attendance had also exceeded previous events.  The fourth Southern California Linux Expo had accomplished its mission of bringing users, businesses and developers together to share their unique knowledge and experiences.  How will they top all of this for SCALE 5x?  Look for more big names in the speaking sessions, expanded exhibits and a larger venue.  Or, join in the effort at scale-planning and help us build a bigger and better SCALE for next year.

A closing quote from Michael Perry:  "What I do know is that without a place for the community of users to cuss and discuss, we lose sight of the mission.  I'll continue to come to SCALE when its 5x better. :)”

See you at 5x.