There has been a lot of movement in the embedded space lately, especially with respect to Linux. So, let's take a look at where this is going. First, when I see the term "embedded", I think, no moving parts. The two things that typically move inside a computer are fans and drives. Fans are needed for cooling. Cooling is needed because processors generate heat when they process. So, to avoid cooling fans, we need a cooler processor, that can be cooled by air (and maybe a good heat dissipation system), but needs no fans. A processor can keep its cool if the code it processes is efficient. So, there you go. An embedded system needs efficient code and a cool running processor.

I was on my flight back from Portland, Oregon, where I spend a week at UbuntuLive and OSCON 2007. With all that energy on my mind, I put on my headphones and gazed at the western sky. The sun had just set and the sky looked an eerie Ubuntu-orange.  I was listening to Karsh Kale's Realize, a mix of tabla (Indian classical drums) and electronica. While I appreciate the science of pure classical music, I often prefer mixes, where artists attempt to take pieces from here and there and come up with their own interpretation of what art should be.
As I listened to Empty Hands I could feel the nuances of beats and electronica as they provided support to the lyrics (I understand Hindi/Urdu, so your mileage may vary) weaving a fabric that is energetic, and yet adheres to standards of classical music.

The One Laptop Per Child initiative is a project that I have been watching closely for some time.  At least two entities had them on display at OSCON and I certainly took the opportunity to play around with them a little.  While not powerful, they are great gadgets and are certainly history in the making.  I predict these machines will not only be the Rubiks Cubes of our decade, but they will also be a useful learning tool in the hands of children that are living lives not as fortunate as our own.  Please view full story for pics and additional commentary.

It seems that no corner of geekdom is safe from the LOLCats.  Sun has them and it seems that LOLCat-mania has reared its head in the academic world of SFSU.  Here are two posters from OSCON depicting this phenomena.

And from another cool cat trying to make it to Portland for OSCON

While conferences are informative and educational, socializing and relaxing with like-minded people after hours is also essential.  I didn't attend all of the parties  that were offered at Ubuntu Live / OSCON, but I can share some experiences from two of the major after hours get togethers.

*Mozilla & Mozilla Party

Mozilla was front and center at OSCON handing out posters, shirts and other schwag in order to spread the word about Firefox.  There was no mention of Thunderbird at the event, but I scored a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup themed retro style shirt and got to meet many of the Promote Firefox Team.

In the session right after Eben Moglen's we had a panel of folks discussing the role of OSI. We had John Roberts, CEO of SugarCRM who announced that they were moving from SugarCRM's private license (MPL+attributions) to GPL version 3. Slashdot has an article at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/26/1319201

Eben Moglen is quite the speaker. His trademark seems to be a talk without slides. I am glad that someone has the courage to do this because the rest of us are slaves to the F5 of Powerpoint and its progeny, however open they may be. The crowd seems mesmerized although the guy sitting next to me is betting on online poker.

Moglen's talk is centered around the idea of communities in the 21st century. He gives us an example of how a syrup-selling business such as the "cola" industry now relies on web sites and communities of people who congregate around other syrup suckers all the while adding to the value of what really amounts to syrup. Communities make the difference. 

Last year, while attending OSCON, I commented on the use of closed source platforms by people who love to talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk. These are the forbidden fruit eaters, who have taken a bite from the metaphorical apple. Yes, I still see a bunch of Apple laptops at OSCON, but (and pardon me for peeking) I notice that not all are using the Aqua interface. I spy a bunch of folks using the brownish-orange glow of Ubuntu on a Mac. Congratulations to you all, who bit the bullet and  took the plunge.  Some even sport the classic Ubuntu sticker on their Macs.

After a lot of difficulty this morning, I finally convinced myself to get out of bed and go to OSCON 2007 and attend the keynote speeches. It looks like  OSCON this year has crossed over from open source code to a lot of other things that follow the same idea, but in a different context, such as content, creative commons, and even open voting.

Tim O'Reilly goes up first, beating his "Web 2.0" drum. Well, we have to give him some credit.  After all, he coined the term, and there is nothing as gratifying as self-promotion . He quickly moves on to the four freedoms as put forth by FSF. His approach to marrying the two topics is that SaaS ("Software as a Service" to all the unwashed masses out there) is that in the world of SaaS, there is no software redistribution, and the data may be held by the folks who run the service.