From the 'Make an Impression' files:



PARIS - Every tech conference has evening events and most of them are the same. Some kind of restaurant or bar, with food and maybe music. At the OpenStack Summit in Paris tonight, Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor behind Ubuntu Linux, actually held their event at the world famous Musée d'Orsay, home to object de art from Monet, Renoir, Rodin and other famous artists.

It was an exquisite event.

Instead of standing around, the event, which was co-hosted by Juniper Networks, there were guided tours of the museum. I had the good fortune to see Mark Shuttleworth at the event, instead of just schmoozing, Shuttleworth joined the guided tours and along with the 700 or so guests, also marveled at the various works of art.

The event was billed as an evening of culture and that it was. After a day of technical sessions on OpenStack, it was the perfect counter-balance.

One area of the museum and the guided tour that struck me as particularly profound was our guide's description of the artistic movement known as impressionism, which was visually on display by works from Monet among others. The guide said that Impressionism is about trying make an impression, an impression of happyness.

It got me to thinking about open-source software and what type of impression it makes. Does open-source make people happy? (sometimes).

Shuttleworth sometimes refers to himself as the Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) of Ubuntu. Tonight in Paris his benevolence was profound.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist