I didn't go to LinuxWorld this year. People who did go told me I didn't miss anything. Now LinuxWorld itself is being rebranded as the OpenSource World Conference & Expo -- a sign for me that a) Linux is that much more mainstream and b) it's getting subsumed that much more into open source as a whole.

I already had reasons for not going to LinuxWorld. It was a week after OSCON, which was everything I'd hoped it would be and then some; my travel budget was already stretched; and LinuxWorld was right on top of my best friend's wedding, which I'd made ironclad promises to attend. But from word passed on to me by other attendees, LinuxWorld had been remarkably lame.

To me, it sounded like the need for a Linux-specific, industry-oriented expo was on the way out. Linux isn't an oddity anymore; it's a reputable piece of the enterprise. It's that much less necessary to sell people on Linux per se, since it's one of open source's most prominent success stories. But there's still a need to wake people up to open source as a whole, and Linux is again only one slice of that pie.

Another possible reason for LinuxWorld being re-thought: because Linux is that much less of an oddity, there's that much less need for a sales-oriented expo. (By contrast, the Linux Foundation's recently announced LinuxCon is long on tech and short on sales.)

On the whole, though, I see this as good news. If we need that many less Linux-specific conferences because Linux is now just part of the air we breathe, that's a step -- shilling for leap -- in the right direction.