Tim O'Reilly writes:
 > In fact, there are dozens of IMPORTANT free/open source
 > software traditions with a remarkably small amount
 > of overlap.  I think it's really important for these
 > traditions to start sharing ideas and becoming more
 > aware of each other.

To that end, I'll bet that it's time for a Free Software Business
trade show.  People are starting to recognize that there are good
financial reasons for pursuing free software solutions.  With interest
from businesses comes money.  The FSF ran one Freely-Redistributable
Software Conference, but it seemed (to me) more like an academic
conference than a trade show.  The second one lost money big-time when
attendence was insufficient even to bother running it (I was scheduled
to give a qmail tutorial).

Every summer my family attends the Friends General Conference, a
gathering of Quakers.  Quakers are a minority religion in the US and
we are far-flung.  We leave reconfirmed and refreshed in our beliefs,
ready to face the world.  There's no substitute for face to face time.
I'll bet that a similar effect would result from getting hackers
together.  More than the Linux Expo, more than the Hacker's Conference
(is it still running?), it would be for everyone working on free
software.

-- 
-russ <nelson@crynwr.com>  http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson
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