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We're still a few steps away from shedding Doubleclick, and it appears we'll be proceeding with an in-house ad serving system. This solves two problems: we'll have complete control over the kind of data collected (and we'll stick with our usual privacy policy, collecting aggregate data and not matching people's addresses like that Abacus scheme) and we won't be at Doubleclick's mercy with regards to their policy changes.

It's taken some time to get to this point because we really wanted to be sure of our decision; all of the advisory e-mails we've received regarding alternate ad serving software was very much appreciated, and our thanks to all of you who took the time to write. It really helped.

So over the next few weeks we'll be getting the new system into place. We'll keep everyone advised as to when all of this is happening. Thanks for your patience!

The reason for this move is to assist in combatting Amazon's ridiculous patenting policies. You can find the latest item about it over on Slashdot.

To top this all off, I personally urge everyone to sign the open letter to Jeff Bezos that was written by Tim O'Reilly. This is the 'Net, after all. Let's use it to communicate our concerns to the folks at Amazon.

As a side note, I am still collecting pictures of other shows UF has been at. If you have any, shoot an email to me!

Firstly, the show was an exposition of some of the coolest new technology available (and some of the dullest IMO -- I mean, come on, banking technology?) and there's a summary of it here (click on Products/Solutions).

Secondly, the show is the largest computer technology exposition in the world. The numbers positively put Comdex, the North American computer tech flagship, to shame: roughly a million visitors from over 100 countries in 26 exhibit halls on 10.8 million square feet.

Thirdly, of particular interest to the Linux community is the impact that the SuSE presence had at the show. The main booth, a two-storey 160m² structure, was constantly packed wall-to-wall with visitors. The presentations they offered every hour caused the aisle to clog with people; the booth across from SuSE (a business solution company) was partly filled with attendees who needed room to watch the presentation.

IBM and Microsoft of course dominated a large part of the show; each of them took up an entire exhibition hall as well as having smaller (heh) booths in some of the auxilary halls. Not a big surprise, but impressive nonetheless.

A noteworthy point is the astonishing lack of mindshare that CeBIT has in North America. As a computer technology show it has no peer in the American market, yet we hear so little about it over here that I wonder at the reasons. CeBIT's size and impact is positively staggering; I'm unsure why there isn't more of a North American presence there.

Finally, my sincerest thanks to the fine folks at SuSE for inviting me over. I'm sure I'll forget some folks, so I apologize in advance, but here goes: thank you to Stefan, Jurgen, Hubert, Christian, Christian, and Christian, Chris, Miachala, Jan, Kyong Ae, Nicolaus, Roland and Jasmin (without the bloody "e"). Oooh. I know for sure I forgot to mention a few people.

So that's it in brief. I have some photos of the show that Kethryvis should be putting up in the community section fairly soon. Now I have over a thousand e-mails and a couple dozen voicemails to handle, so between that and jet lag, I'll be a little incoherent for a while. Should make for some great cartoons.