[TriLUG] demoing F/OSS innovation(s)

[Phillip Rhodes]

For a while now, I've felt the need to suggest we do
something to showcase innovation from the F/OSS world.
This is only a kind vague idea at the moment, so bear
with me if this doesn't seem to make sense.

First of all, there is always a lot of talk from
detractors of F/OSS that all free / open source
software just copies (poorly) commercial software.
They'll usually use something like OpenOffice.org as
an "example" and say that it's just a poor clone of
MS Office.

Second, does anybody remember the Lulu Tech Circus
a few years ago? And specifically, do you recall
Bob Young's comments at the Tri-LUG meeting later?
He said something (I can't quote exactly, because
I wasn't there, but I got the gist of it from
later discussion) to the effect that he was disappointed
in the User's Groups who were present, and that they
didn't do anything "exciting" enough. Er, something roughly
like that.

Anyway, I was thinking that it would be great if we
could do a show / demo / event of some sort, where we
A. show off some of the innovative stuff from the F/OSS world
and
B. try to put together some real "whiz bang" demos of the
technology.  Something with a real "wow" factor. IOW, something
more than just a box sitting around running Linux and OpenOffice.

Possibly something like this could either replace one event
that would normally be an installfest? Or maybe it could
be done in conjunction with an installfest? Or I guess it
could just stand alone (if there's any interest in doing anything
at all).

Anyway, to seed the discussion, let me pose the question: What are
some areas where F/OSS *is* innovative, compared to proprietary 
software? Or at least, what are some areas where it's better as
opposed to just being a clone? What are some things that can be
done with F/OSS which can't (or at least not easily) be done with
proprietary software? Oh, and let me add that I'm thinking in terms
of things you can *show* people.  So while the Linux kernel may have
lots of advantages over, say WinXP, most of those advantages are not
easy to demonstrate (at least I don't think they are. Somebody please
prove me wrong).


TTYL,

Phil
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