A trip to LinuxWorld San Francisco 2003

Posted Aug 11, 2003 11:08 UTC (Mon) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

>> A single person from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service
>> had free (as in beer) CDs with tax preparation software
>> for Windows and Mac.

> This one sailed over my head. Why is the IRS paying somebody
> to go to a Linuxworld convention and hand out tax prep
> software for Windows and Mac?? Did they claim some sort of
> a Linux connection?

That one (as well as the Dell 30% thing) caused me to abruptly pause and go
back and mentally re-parse looking for the error I /must/ have made as well.
One would have thought the article author would have at LEAST answered the
implied question of whether it ran on WINE or not (or that they said they didn't
know, if that was the case, and she hadn't taken one to try on it b4 writing the
article). Knowing whether the IRS spokeperson could directly answer that
question would have said a lot about Linux and the guv-folk's attitude toward it on
its own. As it was, it made a bit of a statement about how far we (still) have to
go, but knowing whether they knew whether it would run on WINE or not -->
when distributing it at a *Linux* convention, even if it wasn't Linux software, would
have made a better statement, one way or the other. At least then, we'd know if
the message was having /any/ effect on the IRS, other than them just sending a
guy there with no product specifically for it.

Duncan

Posted Aug 14, 2003 17:52 UTC (Thu) by gleef (guest, #1004) [Link]

Josh_stern asks:
Why is the IRS paying somebody to go to a Linuxworld convention and hand out tax prep software for Windows and Mac?? Did they claim some sort of a Linux connection?

I talked to the IRS guy at LinuxWorld. Apparently, the IRS feels that many businesses have either poor access to the Internet or restrict access to most of their employees. In response, the IRS has an outreach program, where they send people to business conventions and offer these CD's so that businesses can make the full array of tax forms available to their employees without having to worry about internet connectivity.

It seems that whoever made the list of conventions to set up an IRS booth at had little to no understanding of GNU/Linux or LinuxWorld Expo, and didn't realize that the CD would not be appropriate and would be widely mocked. The guy manning the booth had gotten a lot of people demanding that he justify his presence (I suspect more than Microsoft got last year when they debuted their LinuxWorld booth), many were curious but I got the impression that some were angry and abusive. By the time I talked to him on Wednesday, he was very frustrated, but still in good spirits.

I suspect they won't be back next year, but regardless I wish A) Large organizations put at least some thought into the conventions they attend, and B) That people, and this includes people in the Linux/Free Software/Open Source Software communities, have got to learn some manners. It wasn't the poor guy in the booth's fault that the IRS sent him, or that the CD had no Linux goodies on it.

I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that LinuxWorld Expo is now considered "another business technology convention" by some people, but there certainly was a lot of emphasis on business technology and very little on Free software, or even software development in general.