I do not often do this, but old friend is in trouble. Please stay with me as I tell this story. It was around the year 2002, and I was in Brazil. I met two young college students who were very interested in Linux, and who impressed me with their enthusiasm and willingness to help others.
I asked them what they would really like to do, and their answer was to attend the Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) in Ottawa, Canada and to meet Linus Torvalds. I was not surprised about either desire. OLS had been going on for a number of years, taking the place of the Raleigh Linux Expo that had been run by Red Hat. But while the last Linux Expo was more like a hippie be-in, with people in bare feet throwing Frisbees on the lawn of Duke University, OLS was a conference that required papers to be written about the presentations being done.

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