For my money, SCALE (Southern California Linux Expo) is the best linux event out there. I'll be attending this Feb.

Currently the website is just a convenient place to post and collaborate on models used in fundamental equity research. Right now you can find versions of a LVLT model I am developing in the "Project" folder of that website.

All of the trade shows I have received postal mail about have been in San Francisco.
I wouldnt go to San Francisco with your money.

Trade shows? "Trade" usually refers to "selling a product", Isn't Linux "FREE"? So what products would be offered at Trade Shows?
Seminars would be better....How To Fix.....How to write your own drivers....How to Network Mac and Windows with Linux.....etc. Since most Linux distro's come with basic office, browsing, entertainment, game software, what would a Trade Show be of benefit to a Everyday Linux user? Even an Admin or Sysop would have little use for a Trade Show, unless you had some sort of Seminar offered.
Also, survey Linux users around the world and find out where most of us live. There is not point of having a Linux Trade Show in Los Angels if most of your Linux users live in Boston.....just good marketing sense.

Richard

I would really like to attend a linux trade show, however there is never one close. So the $1000+ dollars to attend is too steap a price at the moment.

It would be nice to see a trade show come to the Cleveland area, but I doubt that will happen.

I'm not aware of any that have happened closer than 2500 miles to where I live here in Alaska

We don't have any in Australia. Unfortunately.

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I was a business reporter based in Asia for many years, and I had the misfortune of attending dozens of trade shows every year.

These shows had a well-defined food chain.

On the top, the celebrity speakers who attend to promote themselves.

Next came the exhibitors who pay money [show fees, salaries, hotel, travel] in the hope of generating post-show sales.

Then there were the buyers who were trying to save money by contacting scores of vendors

Last were everyday folk, who paid a small admission fee to be allowed entry on the last day of the event. They would come aplundering, searching for swag as the long gone celebrities sipped martinis in the first-class at 30,000 feet, as exhibitors crated up their booths, and the buyers stood at curbside, haggling with taxi drivers for a ride to the airport.

+ + +

Does the linux world need trade shows? Where is all of the money going to come from?

Maybe instead all of the commercial vendors of linux based software and services should band together and buy blocks of exhibition space at the PC and B2B IT shows. Make a show of open source solidarity, and woo the crowd away from the MS and Apple driven product options. Governments do this all the time to promote their exporters.

This way there would be a linux show at every major PC exhibition and we could all tag along.

I would very much like to...but few Linux-related trade shows make it to the Miramichi in NB.

As the family IT (not just for home but for family in several states) I'd love to go to these shows. Unfortunately what assistance I give out to them to solve their "emergencies" doesn't translate into the price of admission. Accolades, but nothing for tickets. Living on a fixed income means that even $50 is more than I can afford.

What can I say, family first.

Would like to but never in right place at right time.

Well, I'm a Mac user who is in a family where Windows needs to be on a system for a particular accounting software program to work for my husband. He knows nothing of computers and could care less; he just wants it to work when it's on. So I have been our IT person for many years (though that does not mean I know a lot, but have spent many hours sweating). With the new OSX, I have become very interested in Linux/Unix. I love Linux and belong to our local LUG. Here in Western Washington State (in the Pacific NW of USA) we have an event called Linux Fest. It has been held in Bellingham, WA for at least two years and I think will be again this year. It's usually around April. In October of 2005 we held a User Group Conference (Raincoast) and made it truely platform neutral and had Linux breakout sessions as well as Windows and Macintosh. It was a challange to put it on, but the people were fairly responsive. It was $50 for Friday night, Sat. and Sun. morning. We had a general gathering on Friday night where folks showed off their systems; Sat. was break out sessions of 70min. on a variety of topics and Sat. night was a vendor faire; Sunday was a computer build (where we put a machine together from the mother board up and it was won by someone in attendance (this year it was a great gaming machine). As fate would have it, I won it! So I am putting Linux on it and want to have my husband migrate to that machine for his accounting; now to get OrrTax to be Linux compatible.
In our area I would say that user group conferences are attended and anticipated by many in the user group community. Perhaps 30% of the membership in our group attends.
If you wish there was a Fest near you, talk it up with your friends, get a space to hold it and advertise it. It is some work, but if it is meant to be it will be. I really believe that the things that are meant to happen will, but you have to put in some of the effort. Good luck to anyone who wants to try. I'd be happy to answer questions about our past experiences with Raincoast.

I really would have liked to,but I have never heard of anything of that kind in Norway.

There's never a Linux trade show over here, you insensitive clod!

I never knew Linux had any trade shows. If they did, they should publicize it. Of course, less than 1% of the world's population uses Linux. I don't know the fool who came up with this question, but it's plain to me some people are not living in reality.

There's never a Linux trade show over here, you insensitive clod!

ummm i would go to a linux-relate trade show if there ever was one near me to go to. i have never seen one advertised anywhere.

I am in probably the same boat as most other people. Most of the time when there is a show within a 100 mile distance it conflicts with something else of more importance. The other problem is distance of a show from where I live. I live in rural Iowa in the middle of the state. Yup, Algona, Iowa, just another whole in the ground. A whole whopping 7000 people. Give or take 50 people. I live outside what is called a 50 mile town. This town is 50 miles from any other major town. I haven't heard of alot of Linux shows in my neck of the woods. I am sure there are probably a few in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but that is about a 4 hours drive north one way just to get there. Someday maybe, but not on this day or in the near future. Which is to bad. There are alot of us in the rural Midwest just starving for Linux and can't get enough. Windoze or Windblows, however you say it, Microsoft just sucks!

ByTech

I have yet to attend one for a variety of reasons: work, location, and cost. If there were a Linux trade show here around Nashville, I might be able to go if the event were held at a time that did not conflict with all the other things I have to do, like pay bills. On the other hand, there are Linux users' groups all over the place (just not one near where I live). Maybe we need an article in TUX about how to find these groups and/or how to start one ourselves. I am pretty much a newbie using SUSE, though I am not new to computers.
I do think it is a waste of time complaining because someone isn't doing something convenient for me, though. It is my own decision to not attend and to not (yet) start a LUG where I live.

First of all, I would like to take exception at the negative portrayal of "sales types" by people who certainly must be "technical types" or perhaps "thinker types." Second, I have a confession--I am a sales type that attends Linux trade shows. I have a couple more revelations about myself, I am also a technical type and I have been known to think from time to time. Some of my thoughts are big thoughts too, like, "how can I give Linux users multi-terabyte storage servers at prices lower than the typical enterprise vendors?" or "how can I give Linux users disaster recovery solutions that they can both afford and manage?"

Of course thinking thoughts are one thing and implementing them are another. Fortunately, over the years I have implemented many affordable hardware solutions for Linux users. So how do I expose these affordable and usable solutions to the Linux public? Well, for starters I have spent a great deal of money advertising in great publications like Linux Journal (the parent of TUX Magazine). While, pictures are nice to look at, how nice would it be to see, touch and operate these solutions in person? Short of inviting all of you to my headquarters, I decided that trade shows would be a better method of reaching people that want high quality, affordable and reliable hardware for their Linux environments.

So, for years now, me and some of the other sales types at my company; leave our current duties, travel half-way around the country (and back), sleep away from our families, and try to expalin to as many people as possible that buying our product over the competition is synonymous to using Linux instead of M$ Windoze. More often than not, those trips are successful and IT managers all over the country are happy to discover an alternative to high-priced and partially Linux compatible hardware that is sold by the competition. Sometimes I meet people that do not like salespeople, but I just smile and accept it as part of the job. I am still going to attend trade shows and I am still going to sell this equipment and hopefully I can help some companies maximize their hardware budgets.

--David

I live in India (Rajkot - Gujarat) and there is no linux related shows. :((

I've never been to any computer-oriented trade show because they just don't come to my area; or if they do, I don't hear about them. I might attend a Linux trade show if it had offerings for consumers/end users in addition to businesses and the media.

Most of the trade-shows are very commercial, I think the reason why I am in linux is to gt what I want without an advertiser shoving his proposal on my face.

Once said that I have welcomed a lot of the commercial houses that have taken linux in account like Skype, or Flash Player.

I attended Linux related trade shows in the past as an individual user. I live near Atlanta, GA, and there have been several Linux related shows here.
Now, the company I work for participates in Linux related shows, and I go as a participant, which also gives me an opportunity to visit the show and hear the presentations.
I know that I'm one of the fortunate ones, but in reality there are more Linux shows to attend now than there were a few years ago. Hopefully, these shows will become widespread enough so that there will be more localized shows for all users to attend.

I would go but none in my erea !

I'd attend them if there were any within a 2 hundred kilometre radius, but I don't know of any. Pity.

isn't the internet the best trade show?
- a coke for $5
- feed pain in the evening
- people who think they are importand
- lots of trees but no wood
- where did I park the car...
having a nice cup of coffee, in an armchair at home, the notebook in front, listening nice jazz music and talking to your family while reading "tux" magazine - I really don't need trade shows.
;-)

I have been a Linux user since 1997 and an exclusive Linux user since 1999. I used to attend Linux World Expo in Tokyo every year up until 2000. Around that time, the whole character of Linux trade shows changed, to the point where they weren't fun anymore. Where a high percentage of the attendees were formerly sysadmins, programmers, etc, and the people at most of the booths were also from a technical background, that changed in the late 1990s. The last time I attended a Linux trade show, the staffers at the booths were mostly sales and marketing types, and a lot of the attendees were actually in business suits (so were a lot of the people in the booths). There were sound systems blasting out mindless disco, dumb surveys, really crappy, swag, and small armies of Japanese "companion" girls at some of the booths. OK, that part wasn't necessarily entirely a bad thing, but on the other hand, it contributed nothing of substance, either.

That's all a long way of saying Linux shows had become just like Windows shows and all the rest. If you were serious about Linux, it was a case of "Nothing to see here, folks. Move along."

The last trade show I attended, in 2000, was not at all useful, except as a way to leave the office at noon and go down to Odaiba for the rest of the day instead of working. It was sufficiently bogus that I actually more than half wished I'd stayed in the office and worked.

I would love to attend. However, proximity and cost are prohibitive. I live in upstate NY, USA and there is very little that is not more than a 4 hour drive and an exspensive nights stay away. I look and I hope to make the one in San Francisco someday...one in Montreal, Canada would be GREAT (only an hour away)!

My answer is not yet,but I hope to someday help out with the Desktop Linux Consortium!

More apt would be to ask what distros. If I say SuSE 9.3 on 3 boxes), I'd be leaving out Mandriva LE 2005 (on 2 boxes), gentoo 2005.1 (on one box) and Astaro on the firewall box. I have no pressing issues or dislikes with any of them. I use KDE, but some Gnome apps are a must and definitely no MS-Windows. Yep, and as almost an afterthought, 1 Solaris 10 SPARC box.

What's that? I vaguely remember hearing something about those things. They happen in countries other than New Zealand don't they.
:-)

I would definitely attend Linux trade shows, but I am unaware of any in my area. Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio or their surrounding areas would be show sites convient for me to attend. I would appreciate information on the location and dates of shows in my area along with shows elsewhere in the US.