[kwlug disc.] Corporate/proprietary presentations

[unsolicited]

Paul Nijjar wrote, On 04/08/2008 9:24 PM:
> In the past, we have had KWLUG presentations from vendors telling us
> about their products. Recently VMWare demoed their stuff, and before
> that Novell and even Microsoft came by to talk about their products. 
> 
> We have also had presentations that were Linux-related but not
> necessarily Open-Source oriented: for example the IOAnywhere
> presentation, and even Lori's demo room talk (which used VMware as the
> underlying technology). 
> 
> How do we feel about commercial product and/or non-FLOSS
> presentations? Did we like them? Did we feel they were appropriate and
> effective for the group? 
> 
> I'm not trying to draft a rulebook, but I am interested in knowing
> what the KWLUG population thinks. From time to time we do get requests
> from organizations (large and small) to do product-oriented
> presentations and/or talk about non-FLOSS stuff. 
> 
> - Paul

I would vote in favour of this. Provided (a) they aren't too 
militaristic about it, (b) a unique solution is being presented, not 
something that is competing with 18 other FOSS projects that do the 
same thing, better, (c) they can show how their solution fits into the 
FOSS environment as a whole [even if there are a few, but not a 
bucketful, of similar FOSS solutions.]

The vmware presentation is an example of where they came close to the 
edge, but not by very much. They admitted they are but one of a few 
solutions, they answered how to run in a FOSS environment (e.g. they 
were clear that Debian, CentOS, and others, could be used to run it), 
there are a number of free aspects to it (e.g. vmserver and vmplayer), 
and they provided context for the quite astonishing depth of their 
entire solution.

All presentations are useful in that they help us over the learning 
curve of 'what is this beastie.'

If they are going to come across as presenting the "one, true way" and 
not show how things fit into the "whole of FOSS", then I have much 
less interest.

FWIW.