Edit: was a live blog. I’m logged off now.

Since I paid for my Internet connection out here (shame on you LinuxAsia organizers), I might as well get some mileage out of this.

First off, not a geek/technology event, but rather one focused on suits and so much more business-y. I walked in a half hour late and the programme was just warming up. Caught the end bit of a really gimmicked opening ceremony (Indian-flavor + Projected slides), and then Klaus Knopper got up on stage. A pretty funny guy in an understated kind of way, but sadly unappreciated by the audience. His five predictions for the next 100 years of OpenSource (which included ‘There’ll be no software in the next 20 years, no computers in the next 30 years and no people in the next 50 years’) are kind of original to say the least. Hopefully I’ll catch him later and convince him to upload his slides [ha, couldn’t resist that plug ;-)]

Then a guy from Google came on and started speaking about ICT. I didn’t catch that talk except for the beginning and end because I was getting fed up of no internet and went and bought a card. There was a break then (good free coffee and biscuit) and now some guy is talking about FOSS in Localization and helping colleges and whatnot. Seems to be in the vein of Dr. Srivathsan, and boy have I got experience with that before 🙂

Here’s a tiny preview movie of the LinuxAsia stage. Incidentally, just found out that even though I have a Community pass, but I’m down here with the paying people. Cool.

Dr. Gulshan Rai is again speaking about ICT. Do stop. In retrospect, Rai actually spoke a lot of sense about the whole FOSS scene and I’d rather have a pragmatist deciding company country policy than a fanatic or an idealist.

Just back from lunch, went outside since IHC is very costly for any kind of food. The first post-lunch session is of all the Asian biggies presenting what is being done with FOSS in their country. The Iranian guy said that Windows is much cheaper in their country than Linux [:-)], the Paki guy is talking about piracy and how that must be combated. See projects hosted at foss.ir.

Nicholas Negroponte wired in via videconferencing. Pretty interesting presentation, he’s got a very clear accent and is a very convincing speaker. The whole idea about solving poverty through education is cool. The connection sucked tho, was grainy throughout and broke in many places. Hs slides were not shown either. His answers to intelligent questions were really good. The questions were really funny though: (“what protocol do you use to videoconference, sir?” and “Don’t you think the $100 laptop should have become the $50 laptop by now?”). Whatever the argument might be, it’s a pretty ambitious idea, and just for that it has my thumbs up! [I asked him a question via email, let’s see if/how he responds.]

Now it’s the turn of the OO guy to speak. His voice is definitely putting me to sleep. This guy should’ve been a hypnotist.

As usual, all the regular players in the scene were here. Microsoft too made an appearance as an inter-operability partner. Got some CDs of TurboLinux & Novell’s Enterprise distro, and some more freebies. I’m interested in the OO stall by the Tetra guys and will probably get back in touch with them. And again, as usual the Google stall simply disgusts me completely. Two hotties just to get the geeks to gather around. Maybe it serves their purpose (recruiting) but puh-leez, get your act together and show us something interesting: GWT? Gadgets? Instead you have bimbo-ness. Contradictory maybe, but the geek in me definitely does say ugh. Ah, but at least they have good taste in girls (hint Microsoft, you gotta do way better). Windows Vista pretty much spoke for itself though. If you do chance to use it anytime soon, do let it wow you. </sarcasm>

edit: Kapil has more experiences about LinuxAsia.