Having just returned home from FOSDEM in Brussels, several things are very clear to me:
- Fedora is lucky to have such a large base of dedicated and motivated Ambassadors in EMEA. Their enthusiasm showed throughout the entire weekend, from the handmade stickers and pins, to the beautiful high quality posters, and the matching ambassador polo shirts. I am truly proud to be a part of the Fedora community, and specifically, a member of the Fedora Ambassadors.
- FOSDEM is an extremely popular, well attended event. However, it really needs to find a new home, as it has significantly outgrown the space at the ULB Campus. It was truly 10 pounds of awesome in a 5 pound sack, people literally in gridlock throughout the entire event. We gave out hundreds of Fedora 8 DVDs, and ran out several hours before the event was over on Sunday.
- It was good to see the CentOS folks come out again as our partner. Even though I may strongly disagree with some of their "community" participants, I support their mission wholeheartedly.
- I have high hopes for RPMFusion in the Fedora 9 time frame. Even though they cannot solve any problems in the patent encumbered, DMCA'd United States, they provide a useful service to the rest of the Free World.
- Steak Americain is not American. French Fries are not French. Ukrainian dessert wine is AWESOME (thank you again kad, that was such a nice gift).
- Tam Tam (one of the OLPC activities) makes animal noises. Somehow, I ended up making an incredibly filthy joke about that which made most of the ambassadors near by blush and laugh out loud. I apologize again.
- For 1 Euro, the BSD dominatrix will spank you. For 2 Euro, she will do it properly.
I spent most of my time at FOSDEM at the Fedora booth, talking with people about the technical details around Fedora, and generally feeling bad for only speaking American (I believe I was the only Fedoran who only spoke a single language)! The OLPC and the Asus EEE were huge attention draws, and posters seemed to be the "swag" most in demand (many people were disappointed that we had no posters for sale). A lot of the attendees were relatively new to Linux, but there were also a lot of experienced Fedora users who stopped by to thank us and ask about Fedora 9. I spent some time talking about the next RHEL, and how Fedora can help shape that direction, which was very interesting to the CentOS folks.
This was my second year at FOSDEM, and I felt very welcomed by the locals. With the NPO established, it can only get better from here!
Thanks,
~spot
That's a great trip report, Spot. I'm glad you were there, and I'm glad you dodged the Steak Tartare bullet, though I can't remember if you were one of the unlucky who got hit by it last year.
Thanks for writing it up.
Just so everyone knows, I've collected up all the FOSDEM blog posts
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/FOSDEM/FOSDEM2008#reports
And I'm going to try to find some time this week or next to write an article for Red Hat Magazine about FOSDEM... unless there's an enterprising Ambassador who would like to be published? In which case, I'm happy to be a co-writer/editor/helper.
--Max
On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
Having just returned home from FOSDEM in Brussels, several things are very clear to me:
- Fedora is lucky to have such a large base of dedicated and motivated
Ambassadors in EMEA. Their enthusiasm showed throughout the entire weekend, from the handmade stickers and pins, to the beautiful high quality posters, and the matching ambassador polo shirts. I am truly proud to be a part of the Fedora community, and specifically, a member of the Fedora Ambassadors.
- FOSDEM is an extremely popular, well attended event. However, it
really needs to find a new home, as it has significantly outgrown the space at the ULB Campus. It was truly 10 pounds of awesome in a 5 pound sack, people literally in gridlock throughout the entire event. We gave out hundreds of Fedora 8 DVDs, and ran out several hours before the event was over on Sunday.
- It was good to see the CentOS folks come out again as our partner.
Even though I may strongly disagree with some of their "community" participants, I support their mission wholeheartedly.
- I have high hopes for RPMFusion in the Fedora 9 time frame. Even
though they cannot solve any problems in the patent encumbered, DMCA'd United States, they provide a useful service to the rest of the Free World.
- Steak Americain is not American. French Fries are not French.
Ukrainian dessert wine is AWESOME (thank you again kad, that was such a nice gift).
- Tam Tam (one of the OLPC activities) makes animal noises. Somehow, I
ended up making an incredibly filthy joke about that which made most of the ambassadors near by blush and laugh out loud. I apologize again.
- For 1 Euro, the BSD dominatrix will spank you. For 2 Euro, she will do
it properly.
I spent most of my time at FOSDEM at the Fedora booth, talking with people about the technical details around Fedora, and generally feeling bad for only speaking American (I believe I was the only Fedoran who only spoke a single language)! The OLPC and the Asus EEE were huge attention draws, and posters seemed to be the "swag" most in demand (many people were disappointed that we had no posters for sale). A lot of the attendees were relatively new to Linux, but there were also a lot of experienced Fedora users who stopped by to thank us and ask about Fedora 9. I spent some time talking about the next RHEL, and how Fedora can help shape that direction, which was very interesting to the CentOS folks.
This was my second year at FOSDEM, and I felt very welcomed by the locals. With the NPO established, it can only get better from here!
Thanks,
~spot
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