I flew into San Antonio on the afternoon of August 3rd. Due the late scheduling of some of the activities on Friday I was too late to organize a Fedora BoF which I would really have enjoyed doing. I also unfortunately arrived in town just a little too late to attend the speaker's dinner. So I got checked into the hotel, touched base with Andrew Ward to make sure he made it to town and everything was in good shape for the booth the next day, worked a bit on my talk, then headed to the hotel lobby in the hope of bumping into someone I knew.
And in walks Adam Miller (maxamillion), a friend of several years. We met in #rhel what seems a long time ago now, roomed together at the Toronto FUDCon, and generally bump into each other online. After a short dinner break we sat and talked about a variety of current issues well past my bedtime. Time well spent. Headed back to my room for a bit more preparation and then to bed.
Morning came early but mercifully the event did not begin at the crack of dawn. The expo was supposed to open around 10:00 so I found my way to the venue, got registered, and headed to the expo hall in time for the opening. Or so I thought. When I arrived Andrew already had the booth completely set up and it was humming with activity well before 10:00. Since my talk wasn't until mid-afternoon I spent most of the morning hanging around the expo hall.
It was nice to run into old friends like Carl Thompson from Rackspace (thanks Carl for the Rackspace swag), David Nalley from Citrix (thanks David for the tasty Angus beef and cheddar sandwich), and Thomas Cameron from Red Hat.
The Fedora booth was absolutely insane all morning. I believe the official attendance at the event was a bit under 500 people but the Fedora booth was hopping most of the day. There were lots of questions about new features in Fedora 17, about what the heck is this Beefy Miracle name, about how to get involved with Fedora (we have several new contributors already doing things who got started at the event), and a lot of positive feedback along with a little negative.
I wandered off to lunch with David Nalley where we chatted mostly about Fedora related things, then a little more preparation for my afternoon talk about demoggification. My talk was a slightly reworked version of the talk I gave at the Southeast LinuxFest earlier this summer in Charlotte, NC. The room was much larger and so was the audience. Had the chance to briefly meet Nate Willis from LWN right before the talk. The talk went really well and again I got a lot of feedback from people who attended it throughout the rest of the event.
After handing the reins of the projector over to Thomas Cameron I headed back to the booth. In the afternoon things slowed down a bit during talks but that gave us a chance to speak more in depth to those who stopped by. I want to give a quick shout out to Aaron Marshall, Chris Caillouet, and Stuart Yarus. It was really great talking to each of you and the others who I sadly can't remember by name since I'm an old guy with questionable ability to recall names. The expo closed down around 6:00 and Andrew did all the work cleaning up after the event. Fedora is lucky to have had two superstars spending most of the day at the Fedora booth. A big thank you to both Andrew and Adam for all their help.
If you get the chance next year go to the Texas Linux Fest. It is a growing young event with really great people. Tons of positive energy and enthusiasm everywhere. I hope I am lucky enough to get invited again because I had a great time this year and this appears to be a very receptive crowd for Fedora to draw new contributors from in the future.
John
Hello Everyone,
Greetings. :)
After handing the reins of the projector over to Thomas Cameron I headed back to the booth. In the afternoon things slowed down a bit during talks but that gave us a chance to speak more in depth to those who stopped by. I want to give a quick shout out to Aaron Marshall, Chris Caillouet, and Stuart Yarus. It was really great talking to each of you and the others who I sadly can't remember by name since I'm an old guy with questionable ability to recall names. The expo closed down around 6:00 and Andrew did all the work cleaning up after the event. Fedora is lucky to have had two superstars spending most of the day at the Fedora booth. A big thank you to both Andrew and Adam for all their help.
Cool! :)
If you get the chance next year go to the Texas Linux Fest. It is a growing young event with really great people. Tons of positive energy and enthusiasm everywhere. I hope I am lucky enough to get invited again because I had a great time this year and this appears to be a> very receptive crowd for Fedora to draw new contributors from in the future.
The baton has been in the hand for passing and your words are admirable indeed. :)
inode0, a great report man. I read and I truly understand your words. :v) Everyone, please have a Great Fedora day and/or evening! :~)
Thank You Sincerely =-=-=-=-= - David - =-=-=-=-= David Ramsey --------------------------------- 一石二鳥 いっせきにちょう One stone; two birds. To kill 2 birds with 1 stone. = Fedora Project's Japan & Maryland Ambassador dramsey@fedoraproject.org * http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Dramsey With sixteen (16) x86_64 computing cores, 80 GB of RAM and eight SATA Seagate 7200.12 - 500 GB harddisks. The system definitions are at the following URL: * https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Dramsey#Using_embedded_code_have_updates... =
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