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Robots will be hunting penguins at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo this week.
The robots aren't part of some nefarious plot to replace Linux's cuddly mascot, Tux, with a fiercer emblem. The bots will be conducting demonstration search-and-rescue missions.
"No penguins will be hurt during the demos," program head Regis Vincent promised.
During the demos at LinuxWorld, the Linux-running Centibots, developed by SRI International and funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will be shown a stuffed penguin, which will then be hidden within an obstacle course.
The first team, composed of mapping robots with laser-range finders, will scan and chart the maze-like course and attempt to locate the hidden penguin. They will then issue orders over a wireless command center network to the team of tracking robots.
The tracker team will then be set loose to search for and, hopefully, rescue the beleaguered penguin.
Running a Debian distribution of Linux and a software-control system developed at SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center on a miniature mainboard from VIA technologies, the Centibots can "see" and "hear" as well as speak though an integrated digital audio system.
"The coolest aspect of this project is the challenge," said Vincent. "Our robots are completely autonomous. From an unknown environment they make a map and then figure out how to handle the mission among themselves, all on their own."
The demonstrations will feature a team of 100 Centibots. Only one operator is needed to manage 50 Centibots, as opposed to the usual ratio of one handler per robot, Vincent said.
Besides robots and penguins playing hide and seek, the LinuxWorld at San Francisco's Moscone Center Aug. 4 through Aug. 7 will feature dozens of new Linux and open-source product launches. More than 150 companies will be exhibiting at the trade show.
Workshops will include the CIO Agenda, covering concerns of new corporate users of Linux, or those who are considering making the switch to an open-source system.
The Linux Financial Summit, wildly popular when it made its debut in New York City last January, is also on the schedule. These sessions will focus on how Linux and open source can be used by financial services institutions such as brokerages and banks.
Open-source advocate Bruce Perens will deliver a keynote address on the State of Open Source, which will no doubt include references to the SCO Group's recent legal actions.
SCO filed a billion dollar lawsuit in March, accusing IBM of "extracting and using the confidential and proprietary information it acquired from Unix and dumping that information into the open-source community."
On July 21, the SCO Group said in a statement that all commercial Linux users are software pirates, and announced it was offering all commercial Linux users a license that will protect them from forthcoming legal action by SCO.
On Wednesday, the Open Source Development Lab released a position paper (PDF) raising "very severe questions" about the SCO Group's threatened litigation against end users of Linux.
The paper was authored by one of the world's leading legal experts on software copyright law, professor Eben Moglen of Columbia University.
OSDL released the position paper pre-LinuxWorld to address any SCO-related issues that may concern corporate Linux customers and other users of the open-source system.
Craig Oda, an OSDL spokesman said SCO is trying to use the U.S. legal system to "get money from the Linux community with baseless claims and litigation threats. Though most people know it, few organizations have had the gumption to point out that the emperor has no clothes."
The legal wrangling between IBM and SCO hasn't slowed Big Blue's forward motion -- the company will announce a new Linux server, a DB2 Linux integrated clustering environment, extended Linux support for the Lotus client and server, and three key Tivoli offerings at LinuxWorld on Wednesday.
Oracle will announce the launch of a Web-based center for Linux application developers working with the Perl, PHP and Python programming languages.
Sun will preview its Project Orion software/hardware bundle of Solaris and Linux on a common Java runtime environment, and its Mad Hatter desktop bundle, both due to launch this fall.
Microsoft, who swears it is not the wicked wizard behind SCO's lawsuit as some in the Linux development community have alleged, will also be in attendance at LinuxWorld, talking up the company's "shared source" offerings.
"For once, Microsoft won't be the embodiment of all that is evil at LinuxWorld," said open-source coder Keith Carroll. "Despite the fact that SCO is too scared to attend LinuxWorld, Microsoft has still lost its spot as the chief big, bad thing in Linuxland this year."
And for geeks who just want to have fun, the popular Golden Penguin Bowl will also return to LinuxWorld once again.
During the Penguin Bowl contestants are divided into two teams, the Geeks and the Nerds, who battle for the honor of proving that people who attend LinuxWorld know the strangest things, like what encryption technology was patented on Sept. 20, 1983; and what species of penguin calls Phillip Island, at the southern tip of Australia, its home.
