[wplug-plan] LUG Presentation...

Tue May 4 10:52:04 EDT 2004

Larry/Zach,

It seems that you sent this message to your group mailing list that is on
the public Internet regarding what appears to be a response from one
person's take on the presentation I gave at LUG of Davis.

-->8
Zach,

I just want to be sure that Evan told you about the email I received from
LUGOD about R. Wehrli.

It seems they were less than pleased with him.  He is sponsored by Hitachi
and is promoting an H8 CPU board he is developing that uses his port of
uCLinux.  He does deliver everything he promises and unfortunately a lot
more.  They say they could not handle his personality.  They indicated
that he was smug, boorish, arrogant, etc.  They say they will never have
him back and wish they had never had him there at all.

-laweber
-->8

It seems to me that one guy's response (Pete Salzman) is somewhat less
than "they," but I would appreciate it if you would contact Bill Kendrick
like my original message asked.

bill at newbreedsoftware.com

...and get his take on it.  He invited me and indicated to me that he felt
that the presentation went very well.  I'm sure that not everyone
appreciates my sense of humor, but my recollection of the "bootloader"
incident was one of comical jest, not an insulting attack.  Of course,
comedy is not pretty.  It must, in order to obtain laughter, poke fun at
someone or something whether stereotypical or individualistic.  In a LUG,
there is usually a wide variety of personalities and I certainly can't
make everyone happy.

On your concerns of selling/promoting crap, like I said.  That ain't me.
I don't make money on these trips and I don't do it to promote some
product.  I do tell people about the availability of the Hitachi reference
platforms, but I also GIVE AWAY two of them at every meeting I attend.
They cost $199 each.  I spent at least $200 on pizzas/drinks and more at
an "after party" with LUGOD...plus my travel expenses less taxi fare to
the airport (as Bill gave me a ride).

Now maybe I was a bit out of touch with Pete Salzman's needs as part of
traveling in from Phoenix earlier that day to give that presentation,
which was the first in its series of 14 other cities that followed it.
Perhaps I wasn't as fluid or spectacular as I might have been on that
first one as I was perhaps on the 14th one.  But, I certainly was not
given any impression that the meeting didn't go over very well.

It is also possible that Salzman, their coordinator or similar, wanted me
to give away the items I brought according to his methods, rather than
mine.  I prefer to hand out items to those who are interacting with the
presentation through its delivery.  People asking questions, people
offering comments, people answering my questions to the group.  Maybe I
just pissed Salzman off in someway.

My entire "sales pitch" was in trying to find people to give away a few
boards to so that they could be a part of contributing to the expansion
and growth of uClinux.

It has never ceased to amaze me how the best intentions can end up so
negatively propagated.

Perhaps you could ask a few other LUGs for their opinion on my
presentation (I have not talked to any of these people about the topic of
this message):

Moshe Jacobson bramoshe at runslinux.net  (at Georgia Tech LUG)

Jerry Feldman gaf at blu.org (at BLU, MIT/Boston)

David Mandel dmandel at pdxLinux.org (Portland, OR)

I also presented at: University of Cincinatti, Virginia Tech, CalTech,
Salt Lake City, UT and many others.

I never got any comments regarding anything but positive experiences, but
that doesn't mean that everyone enjoyed what I said.  I think that Peter
Salzman simply has given me a bad review as a direct reflection of a
personality conflict that was possibly derived from me "trying to run the
show" my way when I'm doing "the show."  Again, ZERO infomercial.  I do
not even recommend that people buy something.  People ask me, and I'll
answer them with my recommendations, but I don't offer it.  I did explain
Hitachi's interest in it, and that is because they want more people using
and learning about their microcontrollers, but also because Hitachi (now
Renesas) has a long history of supporting open source (through Cygnus).

I first ported Linux kernel v1.2.13 to their SH-3 in 1995-6.

Now I can promise you that I don't know everything about Linux, but I've
been fairly deeply involved with it since 1992.

I'm writing this because your messages are a part of the public Internet
that basically propagate what sounds like one guy's opinions of me.

"smug, boorish, arrogant, etc.  They say they will never have him back
and wish they had never had him there at all."

Larry, your comment that was responded to by Pete:

"I know he wants to promote some sort of embedded Linux product he plans
to sell but beyond that we don't know much about him."

...is simply erroneous.  I do not and did not promote anything that I
wanted to sell nor did I ever plan to do it and I have not during the
course of a LUG presentation.  In fact, the software is FREE and Hitachi
sells the boards at a loss.  I am definitely not Hitachi and other than
the obvious connection between the PORT of uClinux to that microcontroller
platform, Hitachi isn't even mentioned, which is yet another reason why
Salzman is so unclear about the relationship.  Let me tell you the
relationship, I ported the Linux kernel to it and Hitachi built custom
hardware to my specification so that others in the Linux Community could
participate in developing more cool embedded Linux stuff.  I gave away two
boards at each of the events that I attended.  I don't know how much
further from the truth it can be when I go way out of my way to support
the Linux Community and basically get CRAP all over me because of one
guy's comments?  I flew to 14 cities on my own dime, bought them free
pizza and drinks (soda or beer, depending on venue) all to hopefully
encourage others to participate in writing code for the embedded Linux
world to share.  I must be some kind of pathetic loser to even want to
actually do something to contribute back to the LC, but instead all I've
gotten (in terms of search engine results) are insults and skepticism.

The SuperH-based project that I designed was also a failed attempt at
trying to contribute something back to the community.  The design cost me
over $160K out of my personal pocket to build a Linux hand held
workstation featuring a 200MHz microprocessor, 128MB of SDRAM, 64MB of
flash, 2-PCMCIA slots, 1 CompactFlash slot, USB, IrDA, Stereo Audio, Touch
Screen, LED Front Lighted High-Reflective Transflective TFT LCD panel with
a dedicated hacker's debug port all for whatever they cost me to actually
build plus $20.  When I showed the MyLinux PLW at the Embedded Systems
Conference, I was LAUGHED at by people in the industry who said "You can't
make any money only charging COST+20" ...and I told them that I wasn't in
it to make money, but to contribute something back to the community and
because the thing was released on August 20th 2001, which we all know was
promptly followed by September 11th, we only received a total of 10 orders
on a minimum of 200 needed to go through with processing them.  Nobody's
credit cards were EVER charged, as we would NOT pull a "Tucker" or
otherwise use their money to finance production.  Now it may sound like I
have some kind of chip on my shoulder after losing so much money on it,
but what kind of chip is it that finds me going right back in with a port
of uClinux to the H8 and traveling around the US to promote open source
development in the embedded Linux space?  I didn't even bring copies of my
book and/or plug it on these trips!  I don't know how much more
"non-sales" oriented I can be, but no one was ever "spammed" or even
contacted as a result of it, except as in natural follow-ups to email
questions originating from LUG members I visited and my responses to them.
A few even asked if they could buy boards from me to which I answered that
I don't sell them, but that I would call Hitachi on their behalf to see if
they wouldn't mind sending them one for free.

The goal in all of these trips was to get more Linux people hacking on
embedded systems.  I believe that it failed miserably, too.  Maybe it is
my presentation skills?  Over the years I've addressed thousands of people
in public speaking engagements.  I am a confident speaker, and that may
come off as arrogance to some.

My goal in this message is to get you to do a bit more research of various
people and other LUGs to see if Salzman's sentiments are shared by others.
It is invaluable "survey data" to me if they really do feel this way, but
I find it exceptionally hard to believe.  In this research, if you find
that his opinion is somewhat exclusive, I'd like for you to "print" a
"retraction" in public Internet content as a follow-up reply to the thread
that is shown:

http://www.wplug.org/pipermail/wplug-plan/2002-March/000811.html

Larry, I'd also appreciate it if you would modify your statements of what
you "know" about what I'm planning to do or not do.  In fact, my original
message to your LUG contained:

"Be quite certain that this is definitely NOT an infomercial or other
"sales" pitch at all."

I don't know how you can say:

"I know he wants to promote some sort of embedded Linux product he plans
to sell but beyond that we don't know much about him."

I believe that you owe me an apology for stating your beliefs as fact when
the truth was nothing even close.  I'd appreciate it if the apology came
in the form of some kind of public disclosure of what you discover during
your research of this issue.  My reputation as a public speaker is on
trial here as well as my credibility in addressing LUGs with valuable
technical content.  Forget about any "giving back" to the community that
I'm trying to do here, but damn, drag me through the mud on my own dime
without even a chance to vindicate myself?  Just because the "setup"
smells like a sales-snow job, doesn't mean it is one.  I paid a lot of
money, well over $1,500.00 in just buying pizzas/drinks, for the LUGs I've
visited all to help draw a bigger crowd for the LUGs and my topic and
because I wanted people to have a good time.

I'm the speaker at our own LUG (Developer's Special Interest Group portion
of it anyway) here this week and I am presenting on the topic of Design
Patterns.  I'm also providing pizza and drinks simply to make it a nice
evening out for those attending.  I don't make anything from it but good
karma.  I'd like a little from you and your LUG if that's possible.  I can
assure you that I'm not trying to push something that I want to sell at
this event, either.

Just so that you know, not a single LUG member to whom I gave a board to
ever sent me an email thanking me for it and/or the pizza/drinks.  I never
got an email of a patch or new code from a single person receiving one of
the boards I handed out.  My entire "embedded Linux evangelization"
campaign was, as I've stated, a complete failure and I'm sure that you
don't want to know how much I spent on airlines and hotels.  I gave away
dozens of my business cards so that people could contact me if they had
any questions on anything Linux-related at all...not a single response.
If I sound a bit "butt hurt" over it, maybe I am, but I sincerely doubt
that it came out during any of my presentations, especially before the
results of it were known!

> hi larry,
>
> i can certainly understand your skepticism.  i have good and bad news.
>
> the good news is that rob is for real.  he's either a real kernel hacker
> or a knowledgable person who employs real kernel hackers.  he's
> sponsored somehow by hitachi (i never got the relationship between him
> and hitachi down straight) and he wrote muclinux(sp?) which is a port of
> linux to the embedded linux processor.  he brought with him an
> incredible amount of swag, the talk was interesting and we haven't been
> spammed yet (that i can see).
>
> now for the bad news.  rob is, and let me put it bluntly so there's no
> misunderstanding here, a real fuck-wipe.  he's offensive, insulting and
> a general boor.  i'm not sure i'd ever let him talk to our group again,
> even for the swag he brought (and it was damn good swag too.  every
> member got a copy of an o'reilly book on writing embedded C
> applications).  he insulted just about everyone he came in contact with.
> not by calling them names, but just little things like making a snide
> comment that our secretary (a non-technical linux user) didn't know what
> a bootloader was.  that doesn't sound quite that bad, but the sheer
> number of incidents made his gaffes unbearable to me.  it was a pretty
> constant stream.
>
> that being said, i might be sensitive to that sort of thing, and i'm
> sure some people didn't think it was quite as bad as i'm making it out
> to be (although i'm sure everyone noticed).  i would recommend having
> him come talk if you're prepared for his caustic nature.  he brings alot
> of good stuff with him, and the talk IS interesting to embedded people.
>
> hth!
> pete

Boorishly interesting to some group members?  The topic was specifically
on my port of uClinux to the H8S-2148AF microcontroller made by Hitachi.
I'm guessing that the announcements to that effect would have made it
clear that the topic was targeting embedded people.

Salzman never gives an example of what I said that he characterizes so
negatively.  All I've seen in this message is his opinion without any
reinforcement devoid of factual/situational information.

I think, best of my recollection, is that (my presentation style asks
questions of the audience and those answering get a bit of response, yes,
no, kinda, sorta, not really--depending on their answers) their secretary
had a response for a "what does a bootloader do?" question.  The response
was something along the lines of "boot the system."  To which I answered
something like "Well that's a bit simply put!"  With a big grin.  Some
people may take it as a rejection of the person making the input, but it
was certainly meant to be taken as one of those "well you can't use the
word you're defining in the definition of it" kind of situations.  The
grin is to indicate friendship/fellowship and to expand on the response by
seeking other input.  The thing that I think Salzman is not used to is the
level of interaction I receive during my presentations.  I get the entire
group into the presentation and I believe that everyone kinda laughed a
bit at the bootloader response, which may have been taken as being laughed
at by the asker and interpreted by Salzman as being incited by me and my
presentation style.  I don't control people's minds and I don't control
their responses, whether to a question or as an effect of a response
whether it makes them happy or sad or whatever.  I definitely do not
attack "silly answers."  I usually say something along the lines of "not
quite" and point to the next person raising their hand in response.

I do try to lead the audience from one place to another and some choose to
follow and some do not follow along as well.  It isn't because they're
stupid or incapable, rather they're not as experienced in an area or
they're not as willing to go into places where they have less comfort...I
don't know.  Again, my goal is to put information out there AND try to
find a few people capable of contributing back to the community.  After
spending several thousand dollars on the attempt, and meeting dozens of
LUG members from around the US, I can certainly say that I gave it a good
try.

Take Care.

Rob
-- 
Rob Wehrli
Arizona Cooperative Power
20280 N. 59th Avenue Suite 115-150
Glendale, AZ 85308
(602) 547-1475 tel
(602) 547-5902 fax
(602) 418-0959 cel