I spent an enjoyable Saturday at the Ontario GNU/Linux Fest in Toronto. As usual, I wanted to see more of the presentations than was physically possible. Here are my notes on the sessions I did attend.

GPLv3: Better Copyleft for Developers and Users. I wanted to hear this because I dithered some time back about releasing some work of mine under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) or version 3 (GPLv3). I think Bradley Kuhn was inspired to present the revisions, to this audience of programmers, as a "debugging" of the GPLv2. Key "bugs" in GPLv2 that were fixed:

• no Internet distribution
• naive about patents
• USA-centric
• overly nasty termination
• exceptions are clunky
• ignores embedded software
• no web services

All in all, I'm glad I chose to use GPLv3.

Arduino Hardware Hacking. This turned out to be the talk least like what I expected, and also the most entertaining. I was expecting a technical talk about the Arduino microcontroller hardware design. Instead, Leigh Honeywell from Toronto's Hacklab talked about how kids are getting excited about making projects with Arduinos. I was an electronics hobbyist as a kid, and I thought I was a dying breed. It was exciting to hear that hardware hacking is becoming popular again!

Linux Security Tools. This is probably the session I from which I took the most away. Carl Schmidtmann didn't try to tell how to secure an Internet-facing server in one hour. What he did do was provide a long list of security tools, describe them briefly, and say in essence "if you don't know these tools, and understand how to use them, you're not ready to put your server on the 'net." So I now have a long list of programs to learn about. (And I know I'm not yet ready to put a server online!)

BSD for Linux Users. I wanted to hear this almost as much as the GPLv3 talk. I have a friend on the OpenBSD project, so I've been a BSD supporter for some time...even though I don't use it myself. Dru Lavigne gave a detailed talk about how BSD is different from Linux. Most fascinating to me was the difference in the software release process, including a high "bus factor" (the lack of a single "key" individual) and the emphasis on documentation. I also appreciated learning how the different BSDs differ in focus:

• NetBSD - clean design and portability
• FreeBSD - production server stability and application support
• OpenBSD - security and dependable release cycle
• DragonflyBSD - file system architecture
• PC-BSD - anyone can install and use ("the Ubuntu of BSD")

She also spoke at length about the many unique features of BSD. I came away even more strongly convinced that BSD is the operating system of choice for a secure server. (Slides from the talk available here.)

Writing Effective Self-Help Guides for World Domination. I admit, I attended this talk about documentation because the speaker, Emma Jane Hogbin, is an acquaintance. But I was pleasantly surprised to see it so well attended. Techies interested in documentation? What an encouraging development! What I took away from this is that I need to learn more about Project Mallard, the Gnome documentation tool. You may want to visit the Writing Open Source project for more.

Linux for Tough Economic Times. Regular readers of this site will know this is a hobbyhorse of mine. What caught me by surprise was that the speaker, Jim Elliott, works for IBM Canada. He spoke of five initiatives at IBM:

• Project Big Green Linux, IBM's internal project to use Linux. Benefit: lower license costs, and reduced energy costs (!)
  
• Linux for Business-Critical Workloads. Benefits: lower cost, and certified (EAL4+) for secure environments
  
• Linux on the Desktop. Benefits: increased choice, big savings on licenses, and cost savings beyond licenses (e.g. support)
  
• Linux for the Midmarket (in Canada, that's anything smaller than banks and the government). Benefits: lower IT support costs.
  
• Linux for Emerging Workloads (i.e., the "cloud"). Benefits: much better support for virtualization (running multiple "virtual machines" on one server). Big savings on license costs.

Bottom line: Linux saves money, in more ways than even I suspected.

Vendors. The report wouldn't be complete with a mention of the vendors in the common area. I'd say there were as many tables as in previous years, but they were more scantily stocked with goods (either freebies or for purchase). For example, for the first time, the Free Software Foundation had no T-shirts! I did buy the latest release of OpenBSD, 4.6, hot off the press. The BSD folks were particularly generous in that they let me have half a dozen free copies of PC-BSD, for distribution to my local Linux Users Group. I also got free discs of OpenSUSE 11.1 and Fedora 11 (both due to be superseded next month). But the OpenSolaris folks one-upped the competition by giving away not just a free CD, but a free 120-page "Getting Started" book as well.

There's one more exhibitor I want to mention -- CyberEquality -- but I'm saving that for tomorrow.