Planet LCA 2005
April 27, 2005
Steven Hanley
[lca] My lca photos online
To add to the collection (Michael Davies, Marc Merlin, and for a list) of photos from lca online. I have just uploaded a few also.
Chris Yeoh
Hackfest Addendum
I mentioned to a few people at the conference that I was thinking of using the same codebase for the Hackfest at next years Linux.conf.au. So to be fair I thought I should mention it more publically as well.
I'm still thinking about different ways we could run the competition - perhaps a cyborg type competition where humans play against each other with the help of AI programs. I'd welcome any ideas that people may have. In the meantime there is quite a lot of work to be done on the server. It really needs a test suite and given the experience of running the competition this year there are quite a few features that I want to add in addition to the standard spellcast rules.
April 25, 2005
Chris Yeoh
Hackfest Competition Results
As announced at the conference close, the winner of the GUI section is Russell Steicke and the winner of the AI section is Stephen Thorne. The version of the server which contained a couple of server side bug fixes as well as the entries which were submitted are available at the usual place
April 24, 2005
Andrew Pollock
[lca] Well, that happened... (or reflections on the conference from a delegate's point of view)
Okay, now that I've braindumped about organisation stuff, I'll braindump about the conference in general (what I experienced of it).
The (warm body) networking was the best part for me (again). It was terrific that so many overseas Debian and Canonical/Ubuntu people were here this year (or was it just that since LCA 2004, and probably more importantly, Planet Debian, I recognise more names?). It was great to meet for the first time Scott James Remnant, Colin Watson (who has a totally awesome accent), the much maligned James Troup (who I didn't get an opportunity to buy a beer), Mako, Matthew Garrett, Matt Zimmerman, and probably a whole bunch of other people that I've forgotten to mention.
One of the definite highlights for me was the opportunity to have a one-on-one chat with Mark Shuttleworth. He is one exceptional person. He's got himself one metric spankload of money, but he's doing some really good stuff with it, rather than just pissing it up against the wall being an uber-rich dude.
He laid out his vision (and it really is visionary stuff) for where he wants to take Ubuntu and what he wants to do, and I was really impressed with the breadth, depth and clarity of what he had to say for himself. He knows exactly what he wants to do and how he wants to do it, and he's got the money to make it happen. Totally inspirational stuff. As I have said before, I think I need to jump on the Ubuntu bandwagon.
I also made his talk about going to space, and that was truly amazing. Again, here was a guy with a metric spankload of cash, and rather than just paying his way into it (granted, he did part with a wad of cash to get in) he went through all the rigorous training, and really became a cosmonaut, complete with a mission to accomplish while he was up there. I really don't think "space tourist" is a terribly accurate definition for him. From the sounds of it, it took some real determination on his behalf to get to where he got. He told his story really well, and you can tell he really enjoys talking about it. I hope that one got video recorded successfully, as I really want Sarah to see it.
I didn't catch a lot of Eben's talk, which was one I really wanted to catch, because I was running around trying to deal with drinks for lunch, which had been overlooked. Everyone was raving about him and his talk though, so that's another one I hope I can catch on video.
Unfortunately I didn't see a lot of what I really wanted to catch, which was the Debian Miniconf. I came in the tail-end of Mark Shuttleworth talking about Ubuntu and Debian. I suspect it was a similiar spiel to what I'd had when I spoke to him earlier, so hopefully I didn't miss too much. There was just too much initial registration stuff and general firefighting to do to allow me to have the first two days totally not doing organisational stuff. Oh well. I should have seen that coming.
I caught bits and pieces of Ted Ts'o's Recovering from Hard Drive Disasters tutorial, and what I caught was pretty cool. I missed the Bitkeeper part of Tridge's keynote, which was right towards the end, because I was doing morning tea preparation stuff, but based on some of the media coverage, it sounded interesting. Hopefully that one was recorded okay as well. I think I caught bits and pieces of Jeremy Allison's CIFS to the UNIX Desktop talk, but kept getting dragged out to attempt to deal with the issue whereby some flog was running a rogue wireless access point, and doing all sorts of nasty man-in-the-middle attacks on people. That really pissed me off (the fact that someone came to the conference and did that). Unfortunately due to the nature of wireless LANs, we really couldn't do a lot about it, but there was a small lynch mob of geeks (myself included) running around for the remainder of the day running iwlist scan on their laptops non-stop, attempting to get a whiff of the bastard again.
I was really looking forward to JB's talk about Asterisk. As it turned out, I had done my RHCE course with him last year in Brisbane (small world). The talk was disappointing. JB was an inexperienced speaker (but it is good to give those types an opportunity to improve) and his talk wasn't technical enough, and a lot of people actually thought he was trying to sell Asterisk, and it was perceived as being too salesy.
I successfully caught all of Martin Pool's talk about Bazaar-NG, and it was really excellent. (I still don't have the whole GNU/Arch, tla/baz/Bazaar/Bazaar-NG thing 100% clear in my head though, not being a really big user of revision control systems).
I also caught all of the OzTivo talk, unfortunately not realising it was on at the same time as Marc MERLIN's talk about spam evasion with Exim. Fortunately I did have a bit of a chat with him at the Professional Delegate's Networking Session, and he's convinced me that I need to give Exim a thorough investigation.
Andrew Morton's keynote on Friday was good. I was really interested to hear what he had to say, but was having a bit of trouble catching everything from right up the back. Fingers crossed the audio was recorded successfully. He didn't use any slides so that's all I really need.
I caught all of Elizabeth Garbee's talk on Tuxracer. I was really impressed by her speaking ability. She was really confident, spoken extremely well, and was humorous. The content probably wasn't technical enough for LCA, but it was great to see a young woman presenting, and it was a really enjoyable presentation nevertheless. I'm glad the CFP guys selected it.
That was about the extent of the talks that I made it to.
I'm really looking forward to Dunedin, where I can socialise more and
generally be a normal delegate again. In the meantime, I can get back to
having a lifestudying.
Oh yeah, shutterbug Michael Davies took a whole heap of photos, which I'm currently hosting for him, and are proving quite popular.
[lca] Well, that happened... (or reflections on the conference from an organiser's point of view)
Phew! LCA 2005 is done, and I have to say that I'm personally fairly happy with how things went. There were a few things that we could have done better, but overall, I think it was a pretty rocking conference, which was Steven's main objective.
I figure now is a good time for a braindump, so stand back, here goes...
From an organiser's perspective (in the order they occur to me):
Waaaay too much pizza. The CLUG pizza guestimating algorithm clearly does not scale. We had something like 150 pizzas surplus to our requirements. The final batch of 100 that arrived went straight to Ainslie Village, where they were gratefully received, and about another 50 left over from the preceding 300 where dispersed around the campus of the ANU to random resident students and anyone else who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Oh, and we really didn't do a terribly good job of catering for the people with special dietary requirements. We went to the trouble of asking delegates if they had any when they registered, but didn't plan appropriate alternatives for the Saturday conference-provided pizza lunch, hence me making a rushed trip to the nearest kebab shop for half a dozen felafel kebabs for the vegans and the food^Wdairy intolerants.
Lightning talks fell off the radar. I think Steve thought that I was looking after them, and I certainly didn't think I was. They didn't even make the program, so they really got overlooked. We managed to shoehorn them into the program on the last day with me nominally coordinating them, but it was a bit too disorganised for my liking. I think they are a very important part of the conference, so they need to get factored in. Perhaps half an hour of them a day (first up, prior to the keynote?) would be a good way to do it in future.
Speaking of keynotes, giving away a laptop was certainly a great way to ensure attendance. Rob did a fantastic job of defragmenting the audience every day. I did find the latecomers, who insisted on clustering around the back rather than finding a seat, mildly annoying. The back rows of the theatres were also popular because the wireless coverage was better there. I had mixed opinions on whether people should be availing themselves to the wireless LAN during presentations, but everyone seemed to be doing it, so I guess go with the flow...
The birds of a feather sessions could have been advertised better. This was my responsibility. I had one delegate have a bit of a bitch to me at the Professional Delegates Networking Session about the sessions being too late and poorly advertised. I hope he email[ed|s] the feedback through to us so we get it straight from the horses mouth. I don't really know how we could have done that a lot better, scheduling-wise. I was keen on having 2 hour (maybe 1.5 hour would have been better?) BOFs, and with a pretty jam-packed program, this meant things had to stretch into the evening. The problem with this was that once people shot through for dinner, they didn't tend to come back again, so that realistically really leaves you with 9am until about 6 or 7pm at the latest, before people are going to want to run away and have dinner. I had 12 BOF slots, of which I think 7 I'd filled before the conference started by people emailing us. I wanted to preferably keep half the slots available for people to suggest topics during the conference, but I allocated the vacant slots to the later 2 hours, which I suspect is what the delegate I spoke to at the PDNS was pissed about. In hindsight, perhaps having them later in the week would have been better, however that would have required some serious rejiggery, because most other nights had something on, between the Penguin Dinner, and the PDNS. There was just a lot of stuff to try and cram in, and something had to give. Maybe running more BOFs in conflict with stuff would have worked.
The quiz show was a late addition to the program, and seemed very popular. It was a shame that it was up against the keysigning, with so many well-connected foreigners chosing to attend it over the keysigning.
The venue for the Penguin Dinner was a bit ordinary (mainly with respect to open space and audibility from the back of the room). We were a bit limited with where we could seat 500-odd people, within walking distance of the conference venue. I still think it was a fairly good night, even if I didn't manage to blow $2005 on a signed t-shirt :-) The food was pretty good in my opinion.
I think the conference venue itself rocked extremely hard (damn, that phrase is infectious). Having all the theatres in close proxmity worked well. Having it all in the one building was a definite bonus. The foyer ended up being big enough, even with the couches (and the couches were a brilliant idea).
The (data) networking was really good. I don't think anyone found the static IP addressing requirement humungously onerous. The proxy ARP problem that was bouncing MacOS X and Windows clients off the wireless LAN was a bit of a pain, but the fact that we could piggyback on the ANU's excellent wireless LAN was a real bonus. Bob did a fantastic job of getting a lot out of the ANU's networking guys. I think the terminal room was sufficiently good as well. Throwing a few PCs in there seemed to be well received, as they seemed to be in use most times I poked my head in the room.
I found the organisers' room was too far away from the action. It was good to go and chill out there, but the registration concession booth seemed to become the de facto organiser's room instead. That didn't seem to be a major problem though. I'm not sure how well patronised the speakers' and media rooms were. They appeared vacant the majority of the times I walked past them to go to the organisers' room (which wasn't that often).
Having ready access to a laser printer and laminator was bloody brilliant. I spent so much of the first couple of days just knocking up signage as the requirements popped up.
The slideshow in the theatres worked really well as an information dissemination technique (if I do say so myself). The technology we used to implement it was a little bit flakey (the theatre PCs were netbooted with a minimal Linux installation, and all ran svncviewer back to a central server, which had the desktop shared with rfb. If I'd had a bit more time, and done a bit more testing, I probably wouldn't have gone with something that shared the normal X desktop (or maybe a different VNC server that did), as it did some weird shit with what was exported via VNC if you switched to another virtual terminal. But it worked well enough. I had a lot of trouble finding a GNOME-based slideshow displaying app. I ended up using gqview, which was okay, but not great.
Some delegates seemed to be a bit grotty. Mikal lamented about finding apples cores under all the couches, to which I think Chris or Jeremy responded "those damn Apple users!". That was an amusing comment today. I think bins were in sufficient supply that there shouldn't have been as much mess as there was.
I think we overcatered morning and afternoon teas. I dare say LCA2005 will be forever known as the LCA where the delegates were stuffed with food to the point of popping. The coffee was good, and one of our main concerns (that we wouldn't be able to caffeinate enough people in the time alloted) was unfounded.
The cowbell worked well as an indication that the talks were restarting after the breaks.
Umm, I think my brain is starting to run out of things now...
But please, if you have some feedback, (positive or negative, but preferably constructive if it's negative) please email it to us.
I'm looking forward to attending LCA 2006 as a mere delegate again.
April 23, 2005
Michael Still
On feedback about the conference
Davyd has some more feedback to go along with his incredibly helpful commentary on why it is a vital part of the conference to be allowed to float coke cans bearing liquid in a lecture theatre instead of say, outside.
I'll comment a little more generally than is justified by Davyd's comments, as he is actually an extreme member of an entire class of comments we have recieved this week. I suspect this is because people with negative opinions always feel that they're more important to express than those with positive opinions. I'm going to assume that the 490 people who haven't expressed an opinion are largely happy with the conference.
Well, I was going to say nice things about linux.conf.au, as really there was only a few tiny problems that I had issue with in what was otherwise a great conference. However, it seems that one particular organiser (who I will not link to) who I had not made a personal attack at (I was referring to someone else) has decided to get a little petty.
Let's go back and look at what Davys actually said:
"So, as well as the class of geek I have classed as the Adrians, there is a class of geek we will now refer to as the Alexes. These are the anally retentive geeks who won't let you experiment and play with things because it might possibly be a little silly. Commonly identified as stick in the muds. They spend so long thinking something through, that they never actually get to do it. They like to populate positions of pseudo-power, like being conference organisers. Resultantly, when you have developed a neutrally buoyant helium balloon and aluminium can rig, they sulk when you try to test it out. It seems that this species of geek has either been burnt in the past, and refuses to get back on the horse, or lacks the lateral problem solving skills to work out how to undo any unforseen side effects."
That's the entire first paragraph of his previous blog post which is linked above. I take that as a personal attack. He didn't focus on the one issue at hand, adequately describe the circumstances, and then drew conclusions as to the entire organizational setup of the conference based on that flawed foundation.
In rebuttal
It seems that doctored IRC conversations (I can't find this conversation, verbatim, in the channel logs, if it did exist, someone mail it to me) are the order of the day. I mean, what the fuck? This is no way to prove that you're not a moron yourself now, is it? The doctor recommends a chill pill, a skin thickener and perhaps a nice lie down.
The IRC log was not doctored, as comments from others in Davyd's blog has pointed out. It was a simple cut and paste from my Gaim session. Now, Davyd should either show the diffs between his logs and the one I posted, and therefore prove his case, or shut up. You'll note that both of Davyd's posts on this issue have involved making wild assumptions about the situation without verifying facts.
Sure, perhaps floating things off balloons got a bit out of control (however, floating a wineglass got pretty classy) but I think perhaps you're reading much too much into this. This particular organiser is not an Alex (Alex doesn't act like a tool) and in general only proves something I've long thought about a large part of the free software community.
The wine glass being in a room which wasn't 20 feet tall, full of electronics, and clearly marked as "no food or drink".
For the record, I was on the lca '03 committee as a shit monkey, keeping the attendees, network and vendors happy. A job that I did so well, that Sun gave me one of their internal-issue linux.conf.au polo shirts (James Andrewartha got the other one). As a result, I was manning the desk in the network room and didn't manage to get into the group photo. As you might expect, someone has to be seated behind a desk, but your desk was a barrier in which all the organisers were located, all the time. It was rare to see an organiser out on the floor, with the community, except when running an errand.
Whereas I am on the 2005 committee as someone who has actually organized things, and donated pretty much all my spare time for the last year to the conference. I object to after all that effort being labelled as a power hungry maniac because one little child couldn't play with his silly toy.
It's disappointing to see this sort of reaction from an organiser, I can only hope that it doesn't reflect too badly on the event in retrospect or on your LUG.
I'm not too concerned. I know that the opinion on PLUG and the computing club has decreased here because of your behaviour. I think people recognise that the organizers had a legitimate concern with your behaviour, that's certainly the feedback I've recieved. This is where the comments get a little more general... People seem to associate free software with the freedom to complain about, and the right to consultation about everything to do with events such as the conference. Why is having too much food at lunch such a big issue for example? It's not like the Pizza was made from clubbed baby seal or something...
What was good about linux.conf.au 2005
The venue was fantastic, this is by far the nicest facility that's been used. The addition of couches with power, wired and wireless access was a brilliant addition creating a vibrant atmosphere, although it did kill the terminal room.
The selection of speakers was quite good. Although some of the talks I went to did turn out to be brouchureware, or were ruined by the loud-obnoxious geeks having an argument and the talk having to be rushed through. There was a slight fuckup with the scheduling on the Friday, and I admit that would have been hard to resolve at the time, but I was disappointed to see two of the talks I wanted to go to scheduled against one another at the last moment. Hopefully the Theora streams turn out pretty good.
Both of the replaced speakers went home ill. As you say, there wasn't much we could do about it.
The giveaways were also a nice addition. USB keys (big ones) were given away at the end of each talk. This could have been slightly improved if the speakers had prepared a method for handing them out earlier (some speakers did this, some were very creative about it). The additional giveaway of an IBM X40 every day also made sure that people made it to the keynotes, something I know that Bernard didn't manage last year.
The professional networking session was a lot of fun. That was also an excellent choice of venue, the CSIRO Discovery Centre (kinda like Scitech, but with a Government name) did manage to accomodate enough people once they spread out, and there was more then enough to eat and drink.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but the network ran fairly smoothly, and was available through the entire venue (even the GNOME miniconf, once we figured it out). Significantly less crack, and associated breakage then we had in Perth, and no routing the college through an 11mbit 802.11b connection, like I suspect was the case in Adelaide.
I alluded to the Ogg Theora streams. Flumotion powered streaming allowed us to watch the Debian Miniconf from GNOME.conf.au. It proved significantly more exciting then my talk. I am told they are going to be combined with Annodex, and all sorts of things. This could be the most exciting LCA cd-rom yet.
Eben Moglen received a literal standing ovation. Everyone in the theatre was standing and applauding at the end of his keynote. I've never seen anything quite like it. He actually seems rather brilliant, but possibly might fanboy RMS just a little too much.
Things that were bad about linux.conf.au 2005
The registration desk created a barrier between the conveners and the delegates that I don't feel gave a suitable opinion. Especially as at any one time, there would be four of them in there, simply using their laptops. Much too high a number. In my opinion it is the duty of the organisers to interact with the community, to really get a feel for how the conference is going, not to palm this duty off onto a number of sherriffs.
I saw one talk during the conference (Mark Shuttleworth's). I know what happened behind that desk. That was us making sure that everything was organized, that people had a chance to ask their questions, that the catering was sorted out, and that the feedback email et cetera was being dealt with. For example, much of my sitting behind that desk was booking and organizing free hot air balloon rides for speakers. That took hours, but a delegate wouldn't even know if they didn't make the time to find out why people were behind the desk instead of just making assumptions.
I also fail to understand how the Penguin Dinner cost $60 (need to check the price). The lack of a bar tab, and the fact that I didn't eat very much food does not make me feel like I really got my money's worth. The venue (the ANU Union Refectory) was no comparison to last year, but then again that was organised by a gay man, and as such, pretty swanky.
We felt that people felt uncomfortable in 2004's dinner venue and that the serves were too small. The buffet was therefore an attempt to make sure people got what they wanted, and there was enough food. The lack of a bar tab is because we got significant feedback from the non-drinkers that subsidizing a few people to get off their faces is unfair, and I agree. There was food left over after the event, so I can only assume that everyone had enough to eat.
The dinner was cheaper than last year, with a lot more food. I was one of many who went out for pizza after 2004's dinner because I was still hungry.
I think the lack of free alcohol really showed in the lack of enthusiasm when bidding for the T-shirt. Sober people don't do as many stupid things unfortunately. While on the shirt, there seemed to be little interest in the charity, even though it is a great charity, and incredibly relevant and a very noble act on behalf of Steve. I think had some people known why he chose it, there would have been a lot more interest, the lady they got to talk up the charity (it was SidsForKids, incidently) did not do a fantastic job.
We got $450 less for the shirt than last year. The auction was not a failure. Additionally, you do need to remember that it was just a 100% cotton made in Haiti fabric garment. How much money do you want for it? I think there are also ethical issues with taking large amounts of money from drunk people.
Free tip for giving exciting public speeches, don't lean down on the lecturn when you speak, and don't just stare at your laptop screen. You need to stand straight, look confident, and make eye contact with people around the room, find the ones who are nodding. It also helps if you don't put all your jokes on the slides where everyone has already read them by the time you get to them. (NB. I'm not the world's best public speaker, but this seemed like a strong contention around the con).
Oh, and I appear to have lost my favourite jumper (sweater), but this is hardly the fault of the conference organisers.
Did you check with lost property?
In summary
I don't want to appear to overly negative, because I think the organisation of this conference was actually incredibly good. Especially as those of us embittered enough were making sideline commentry about whether or not this conference would be a success or a failure. I do tip my hats to you and your organisational, regardless of what you think of me and my commentry. I look forward to 2006 in Dunedin, in the newly aquired Australian State of South Zealand.
By the way, the IRC thing was Tony's idea.
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Notice how all the organisers looked glassy eyed?
Well, it turns out we all had the flu. I could hold posters up with what has been coming out of my sinuses the last couple of days. I have a theory that it's all Tim Potters fault, but I could be wrong.
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Speakers return home from LCA
Via Bruce Schneier.
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- Linux.conf.au 2005 Registrations Open (January 15th, 2005): 1717 + 3098 = 4815 hits
- Linux.conf.au Coming Soon (February 28th, 2005): 4835 + 81154 = 85989 hits
- Tridgell Reveals Bitkeeper Secrets (April 21st, 2005): 18113 hits
- Lack of Testing Threatening the Stability of Linux (April 22nd, 2005): 42414 hits
A tale of several Slashdottings
One of the things I do occasionally is have a it of a look see at my web traffic logs. It's useful to know why people come here, what they're looking for, and where they're coming from. It is of course also an ego boost to know that a least a couple of people come here every now and then.
So, in chronological order let's look at some Slashdottings I have data for...
In December 2003, on Christmas day in fact, my Linux penguin made out of fairy lights was Slashdotted. unfortunately the only data which survives from the machine that hosted this site at that time is the webalizer log output:
You can see that one metric December 2003 Slashdotting is around 290,000 hits. Ignoring the fact that the box gets traffic on other days, and that therefore not all of that traffic can be attributed to the Slashdotting.
Next, the linux.conf.au 2005 box was Slashdotted several times. Here's the traffic log for the box from when it first went online to that last day of the conference. I'll try to remember to update the graphs a few months after the conference when we decommission the machine.
Herm. Are Slashdottings getting more pathetic?
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(13:56:08) davyd [~davyd@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (13:58:14) redcliffe [~david@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (13:59:19) BillShovel_ [~BillShove@CPE-144-133-95-213.vic.bigpond.net.au] entered the room. (13:59:59) mikal: Heh (14:00:07) Magni is now known as Alex_1 (14:00:26) sjh is now known as Alex_0 (14:00:27) You are now known as Alex_3 (14:00:30) jk- is now known as Alex_2 (14:02:50) interalia_ [~ubuntu@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:04:23) alli [~alison@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:04:39) alli is now known as Alex_4 (14:05:02) chris___ is now known as Alex_5 (14:05:06) terminus [~terminus@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:05:25) Alex_2: teehee (14:06:05) TBBle: Uhhh...? (14:06:34) mithro [~tim@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:07:38) pizzathief [~ilikepizz@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:08:32) mithro: so where are people atm? (14:08:40) mithro: still eating pizza or in talks? (14:08:50) yaknob [~tim@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:08:55) pigeon: i'm at t2 about gameboy advance (14:09:43) sch [~shemminge@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:10:13) mithro: pigeon: hows it going? (14:10:42) pigeon: so far so good... going thru the hardware spec atm, some introduction stuff (14:11:50) kimlca [~kim@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:13:23) pigeon: mithro: u? (14:13:46) Keybuk left the room (quit: Remote closed the connection). (14:15:27) pizzathief: daniel stone only write his talk last night while suffering from the flu , I hope he's ok in there (14:15:33) pizzathief: wrote (14:16:25) bernard__ [~bernard@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:17:09) LapTop006: pizzathief: you've been to a danny talk before (14:17:15) sch left the room (quit: "Leaving"). (14:17:18) LapTop006: this is probably the most prepared he's ever been (14:17:23) LapTop006: and it's not bad (14:18:19) mithro: i'm in the floppy disc block driver talk (14:18:53) pizzathief: suspend2 got cancelled? (14:19:07) davyd: it was yesterday, I think (14:19:11) mtearle_ [~mtearle@150.203.247.9] entered the room. (14:19:12) davyd: didn't it get moved to yesterday? (14:19:26) pizzathief: doh (14:19:29) Alex_3: It's on now in MCC1 (14:19:38) Lathiat: according to #lca1 its on now (14:20:04) pizzathief: so there's 4 talks on now (14:20:06) pizzathief: cool (14:20:07) mithro: no (14:20:09) Alex_3: No! (14:20:24) mithro: everyone called freedesktop.org, fd.o (14:20:33) pizzathief: oic (14:20:33) Alex_3: Suspend2, gameboy, Desktop Linux (14:20:35) mithro: fd.o is the floopy disk block driver :P (14:20:43) pizzathief: yes, just got that (14:20:45) pizzathief: sorry (14:20:58) Alex_3: pizzathief: we have a job for you... (14:21:06) Alex_3: pizzathief: go steal some pizza? (14:21:28) pizzathief: unfortunately my stomach is full , so I can't really steal any more (14:22:12) pizzathief: plus I've paid for it , so i can't really "steal" it (14:22:31) Alex_3: Well, you could assume that a sponsor paid for it (14:22:42) pizzathief: true (14:22:46) ***mtearle_ burps (14:22:50) ***mtearle_ was full too (14:22:52) Alex_2: or steal pieces that someone else paid for (14:22:53) Alex_3: The rego price is subsidised by them after all. (14:23:06) Alex_3: mtearle: take some pizza back to perth with you? It's a long flight (14:23:20) pizzathief: I could stick some in my pockets (14:23:21) Lathiat: heh (14:23:26) ***Lathiat grins at pizzathief (14:23:26) ***mtearle_ shudders (14:23:38) ***Alex_2 suggests some kind of pizza sculpture (14:23:47) Alex_3: Heh (14:24:15) pizzathief: massive tux made out of pizza (14:24:21) pizzathief: it won't melt this time (14:24:29) pizzathief: er , pizza boxes (14:24:31) Alex_1: I can see a larger than life mosaic of "tridge the saint" (14:24:41) yaknob left the room (quit: "leaving"). (14:25:37) pizzathief: my laptop's name is "pizzabox" (14:25:46) davyd left the room (quit: Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer)). (14:26:03) Alex_2: ok, back to normal (14:26:03) Alex_1 is now known as Magni (14:26:07) Alex_2 is now known as jk- (14:26:11) Alex_5 is now known as __chris (14:26:12) You are now known as Mikal (14:26:23) Alex_0 is now known as sjh (14:26:51) Alex_4 is now known as alli
I am so in the Alex zone.
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April 22, 2005
Michael Still
Why does a Free Software...
...culture mean that people feel they have the right to do moronic things like try to fly half full coke cans tied to helium balloons through lecture theatres clearly marked as not allowing food and drink? Why is it that a couple of people acting like three year olds can put such a downer on all the hard work that a bunch of people have put in? Why is it that these people characterise a reasonable request as coming from "the anally retentive geeks" who "like to populate positions of pseudo-power, like being conference organisers"? Are you a moron, or do you not understand how much work goes into a conference?
Oh, and while I'm on the topic, which is it that people feel they shouldn't put their rubbish in the bin... The organisers are trying to run a conference. Do they really have the time to clean up after people as well?
Rant over, and I'm off to bed. Last day of the conference tomorrow.
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Journalists at LCA say the dardest things
Rift divides FOSS community, says Linux body, Bugs threaten Linux stability, Morton warns, IP Australia: the weakest link, Malcolm flays Aust patent authorities, Tridgell speaks out in BitKeeper war.
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LA people say the darndest things
LCA has ROCKED WAY HARD according to Pia. I would like to think we've at the very least wobbled a little, bit it's really hard to tell as an organiser... Heck, I haven't seen any talks yet.
What do other people think of the conference? Are we doing ok? Is there anything next year can do better?
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April 21, 2005
Michael Still
Friends say the darndest things
Doug seems to think that running LCA is a little like having small children. I think it's a little different personally... I would describe myself as very tired (I gave myself an early mark today to go home and sleep), and in urgent only mode.
It's a bit different from small kids -- there is a lot less crying. I don't feel harassed or stressed per se. Just tired.
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Tridge demonstrates BitKeeper hack
And the associated Register article. I wonder who at LCA works for the Register?
Via: Lindsay.
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April 20, 2005
Michael Still
Who was that guy?
Who was that masked Debian guy? his name is Bdale Garbee, and he's a long time Debian hacker. He is HP's Linux CTO.
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Thanks Grant
Hey Grant you could have said no to running the Open Computing in Government co-conference. I merely recommended you as a lean, mean, conference organisational machine. Thanks for doing such a good job though.
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Steven not Andrew
Simon say "Steven not Andrew" three times please.
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Andrew Pollock
Michael Still
Tired
So, another late night last night... We got home at midnight after dropping speakers home after the speakers dinner, and I was up a six AM... This is the fourth late night in a row for me, which is quite out of character as I am much more of a morning person than anything else. If you see me looking like I might die or something, please be gentle.
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Organiser quote of the day
"My groove thing is broken" -- Tony Breeds
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April 19, 2005
Chris Yeoh
Hackfest Conference Server
Made a new release for the Spellcast server today. This should be the final release before the end of the competition.
Anton has done a great job again this year of setting up a server for the conference (a 4 CPU p630). Anyone should be able to connect to hackfest.conference.linux.conf.au using the sample QT client to play a game against other people and AI's.
Michael Still
BuilderAU now reports on the conference
Another reporter mentioning the conference. You can never have too much reporty goodness...
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Steven Hanley
[lca] Another new talk
We had another speaker pull out, Wim Coekaerts was told by his doctor it would not be safe to fly to Australia at the moment so was unable to come over to speak. Fortunately Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell has offered to do a conference presentation on top of his Thursday morning keynote.
Tridge will be talking on Friday afternoon in MCCT1 following Mark Shuttleworth's talk from 14:30 to 15:15. The topic will be on some cool thing Tridge has been doing recently and will be a great presentation.
At the moment it appears the Friday afternoon MCCT1 stream is cursed, I just hope Jon Corbet stays in the country until Friday afternoon...
April 18, 2005
Jeremy Kerr
information overload
Tony has now done an iCal version of the linux.conf.au 2005 program, after much pestering from me. Korganiser can read (and refresh) the iCal directly from the web. Go technology!
linux.conf.au day one
The first (full) day of linux.conf.au has just finished, it's now just the organisers left here, along with a few delegates hanging around for the free bandwidth.
Everything went well, there were only a few minor problems and alterations required. Most of the delgates have registered now, so things shouldn't be as hectic tomorrow morning. I haven't been able to see any of the talks, except for about 5 minutes of Bdale at the Embedded Miniconf. It'd be great to see a keynote or two, but that depends how busy things are in the next few days
There's now a lca wiki, set up by Ryan Verner - I'm hoping there'll be lots of activity on this while we have around 500 talented Linux hackers in the same city!
linux.conf.au 2005 is full!
Today we sold the last registration for linux.conf.au 2005!
The plans are all starting to take shape, and it looks like it'll be a great conference. A few minor bumps aside, the registration process has gone really well. If you didn't make it in this year, then make sure you get in early for linux.conf.au 2006 to be held in Dunedin, New Zealand.
linux.conf.au 2005 Registration System
The linux.conf.au registration system is now live!
Michael Still
LHS' reaction to the first day of his first open source conference
"I'm going to let you go, and then I'm going to have a coronary. See you later!". I would so never have said that...
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Steven Hanley
[lca] A speaker replacement
One of our speakers had to return to the US, Jimi Xenidis, we have been able to find a replacement speaker for his session in MCC T1 on Friday at 13:30 to 14:15. Mark Shutleworth has agreed to speak about his space flight experiences and Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu Linux) on Friday afternoon. I hope you all enjoy this talk as much as the other really cool stuff we have happening a the conference.
The conference program will be updated later tonight (in all supported formats including LaTeX, html, and the new iCal version for people to use in their personal organisers or Korganiser or similar)
[lca] linux.conf.au secret wmd business
 Organisers moving something? (full size) |
I managed to take this photo late last night of a few of the lca crew (Jeremy, Tony and Andrew) moving something that may be the secret lca plutonium stash, or it may be something harmless, who knows? |
Chris Yeoh
Hackfest SC 1.0 Available!
The 1.0 version of the code for the Hackfest is now available. Entries close Thursday midnight, so if you haven't started already, getting coding for you chance to win a couple of great prizes!
You can register for the competition here.
Michael Still
More press
More press on the Open Computing in Government Co-conference specifically about the Open Source procurement policy.
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The first press coverage of the actual conference?
I think this might be the first article actually published about the conference proceedings. I'm willing to be wrong though.
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Andrew Pollock
[lca] Twas the night before lca2005, and all through Manning Clark, nobody was stirring, not even a conference organiser
I started the day with a couple of airport pickup runs, picking up some Debian developers and dropping them at their accomodation. I also introduced Mako to Vegemite and Tim Tams, which I'm sure he'll be blogging about...
I'm really pleased with how things have gone today. We did our first batch of earlybird registrations (guestimates are about 20% of delegates registered this afternoon). The wireless LAN appears to be working, excluding a gratuitous ARP problem with MacOS X (it's a Linux conference, use Linux, dammit!) which I will Google for a solution shortly.
The slideshow is up and running in the theatres, and I have managed to get svncviewer playing ball with init, so I can remotely PXE boot the theatre machines and have them automatically VNC into the main server with the slideshow running on it (I can drive the whole gig from the couches in the foyer, very cool).
I think the couches in the foyer should be a big hit. They were certainly well patronised this afternoon by the delegates that turned up to register.
Bring it on, I can't wait. (But I'm glad to be at home getting ready for bed at a sane hour, rather than doing a million last-minute things).
Michael Still
On delegation and event running
When I was in year 12, an disconcerting decade ago, I ran the year 12 revue theatrical thingie. Being young and fairly dump, I didn't delegate much to anyone, which was mainly a combination of trust (or lack thereof) and a commensurate lack of experience.
It's interesting to look at LCA this year, where basically everything is delegated... I'm in fact not aware of anything that Steven is directly responsible for. He's more the connector who holds the rest of us together.
It works well. The secret is to have a group of people you trust running the event, which is of course the hard part. I must say that Steven seems to have lucked out with the group of people he has helping him this year... There's no one on the committee I don't trust, and we all appear to be doing our jobs.
Anyways, what's my point? Management lesson 101 -- find people to delegate to that you trust, and then delegate everything you possibly can. then sit back and take the glory like a good manager.
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It's all good
Apparently it's all good. We've had most people registered now, and we've certainly handed out the vast majority of the bags. Mini conferences are running at the moment, and people seem generally happy. I can't say that anything is broken.
There are certainly lots of people floating around taking pictures. Hopefully these will appear sometime on the web, which will mean I can link to them. I really can't think of anything else to say at the moment, so I wont...
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April 17, 2005
Michael Still
Up six hours later, and let's do it all again
Today is the first day of mini conferences, and the day we're expecting most people to register. So, Up I get after my six hours sleep (I'm an 8 hour a night kinda guy), shower, shave, and off I go in the L1n000ks P4rt44444y Buz once more.
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It's leaking captain!
Herm. Information about the LCA video stuff seems to be leaking out... I don't think that's a big problem, but it hasn't been officially announced yet. I assume that happens sometime tomorrow.
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Chris' conference bag
Chris seems to have registered as a concession or hobbyist -- he's missing the professional schwag, which is one of the extra perks you get for the money. Good luck with the seminar by the way...
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Tired
After driving people to Yass for Jeff and Pia's wedding party. The trip was good, although as a Debian victim (as opposed to developer) it was odd to be driving a bus full of Debian developers. No one died though, so it must have gone well.
Lots of people already registered for the conference, which is good. Signage up on campus, and people seem to like the schwag. I've put some photos I took the other day online if you're interested.
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Steven Hanley
[lca] linux.conf.au 2005 is go
No one else on the ground at lca has talked about the conference yet, I guess because the rest of the crew are too busy and the delegates are too excited.
Anyway all is cool, people are here and doing early sign in, vibe is happening. I am eating lunch (yes at 5:30pm) and in a few minutes will drive to the airport to pick up some cool speakers.
I hope everyone else is having fun here too. Oh and happy wedding day Jeff and Pia.
April 16, 2005
Andrew Pollock
[lca] Holy bags of schwag, Batman!
Have we got some cool schwag... We've just spent this morning doing the bag brigade thing and packed 500 bags with some very cool schwag if I do say so myself.
I'm impressed that we've managed to have the whole lot done before midday...
Now I just need to organise the printing of some signage, make sure all the lecture theatre slideshow stuff works, and I'll be feeling pretty happy with things.
Michael Still
Hey! I'm a champion!
Or so Pia claims. Yes. Hurrah for me.
I still have a half empty bus. It's going to be party city as we sign merry songs, scream in fear, and work out where the heck in Yass we're going (I've got a map, but real men don't need those). Remember to email me if you want to come...
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Conference schwag?
Andrew is confused... There is no schwag. It's all mine I tell you!
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April 15, 2005
Chris Yeoh
SC 0.9 Release
Just released 0.9 of the Spellcast code. Had a test game with Rusty today, and although the test gui is pretty dodgy (hopefully contestants will come up with something much better!), the server held up really well and we only discovered a couple of minor bugs. I think we're going to get some quite interesting entries for the competition. Am really quite tired, and the conference hasn't even started yet, so hopefully will be able to survive the next week. At least Pipe is happy and healthy again.
Michael Still
LCA kernel hacking tutorial homework
Michael Davies is excited about the kernel hacking tutorial at LCA... Hopefully he'll have done his homework:
Please do some preparation if you are attending the Kernel Hacking Tutorial
If you are planning on attending the Linux Kernel Hacking Tutorial, you will need to bring a laptop, which has been prepared with the source code, and emulator. These are available at http://linux.conf.au/kernel-tute/ . The preparation depends on some Linux experience: if you have trouble with the preparations, you will have even more trouble in the tutorial, so I suggest Rasmus' excellent session next door.
If you have not done the preparation, we will not wait for you!
So yes there is some homework, however this should make the tutorial more interesting and rewarding for you, if you do the preparation for the tutorial you will get a lot more out of the day. Anyone whining in the tutorial that they are not ready or do not know how to use 'make' will be ignored or possibly even made fun of (Rusty likes a good scapegoat for the easy humour points that can be accrued)
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Andrew Pollock
[lca] Twas the week before linux.conf.au, and all was busy
I've had my own personal hackfest this week, and it's been fun.
First, I tried to get Debian going on an E450 for use as a desktop in the terminal room (as you do). This worked, but I ran into some unpleasant video problems. So I tried taking dilinger's Sargeified Ubuntu xorg packages and building them, which worked, but presented a whole bunch of keymap problems, so I wrote that off as a failure.
Next, I dicked around with the slideshow presenting solution for the theatres when there isn't a presentation on. We've hijacked the PCs that are part of the theatres, and are netbooting them with Linux, and then they're going to VNC back into a central server using svncviewer (so they're pretty minimal), which will run a set of slides (which I must create tomorrow).
The piece de resistance was the access point I helped Bob with today for the backpackers hostel to provide delegates staying there with some wireless Internet access (we're hoping more than one person is actually going to stay there so they can avail themselves of this).
It's a small cased mini-ITX box, with a PCI wireless card and an iBurst modem hooked up to it, running a bit of NoCatSplash (just because I could) (I can't believe this isn't in Debian?). It's doing transparent proxying. It's not that exciting, but I think it's cool because we've essentially made our own bit fat access point with extra functionality to suit our requirements.
Tomorrow I need to make the aforementioned slides up, figure out how to make up a BOF sheet in LATEX that doesn't suck, and do some general gophering. Probably thoroughtly test the backpacker's access point too.
[lca] Perfect weather for a conference
I took this week off work to help do finishing touches to linux.conf.au and the weather has been fantastic. I really hope it keeps it up for next week. If it does, the decision to hold the conference in April will have really paid off.
Michael Still
Going to Jeff and Pia's wedding after party? So am I and I've got a minibus
So, I've run out of LCA things to be stressed out about, so I've created some extra things to worry about. After the LCA early registration slot on Sunday (Manning Clarke Center 3pm to 5pm), I'm going to drive straight to Yass for the party. I'll be leaving Yass and coming back to the ANU via Burgmann College at around 11pm, which should get us into Canberra at about midnight.
I'll be doing this in the LCA minibus, which seats 12 including the driver. If you'd like to scam a ride, then email me or give me a call on 0419 286 329.
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April 14, 2005
Michael Still
'Twas the night before the conference
As far as I am concerned LCA 2005 really starts today. That makes the last organisers meeting we had last night the night before the conference. The meeting was boring. There was nothing to discuss really, which I suspect is a very good sign. Everything that actually mattered is sorted out, so we ended up talking about little things for about two hours.
Anyways, next step for the conference for me: make some announcements today (remember those guys in N101?) and help the removalists move a billion boxes of merchandising from my garage to the conference venue.
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LCA weather
Andrew, it's raining this morning. I like rain. I guess that makes it the perfect weather too?
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April 13, 2005
Andrew Pollock
[lca] In the interests of timely information dissemination
This email should have gone out sooner, but it still going through the works, so to get the information out before delegates start unplugging and getting on planes and getting out of contact, here's a sneak preview:
Hi! With the conference less than a week away, we thought we should give you some orientation information for when you get here, to help you find your way to the Manning Clark Centre. Once you've registered, you will receive your bag of schwag, which will include the conference handbook, which will answer any further questions you may have. This email contains: * Directions to the Manning Clark Centre from all over the place * Emergency contact telephone number * Important note regarding delegate badges * A reminder about the keysigning * Current weather conditions ------------------------------------ > Where is the Manning Clark Centre? ------------------------------------ The MCC is building 26a, and can be found at http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/displaymap.asp?grid=gh32 How do I get to the Manning Clark Center from Burgmann College? Burgman College is building 52 on http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/displaymap.asp?grid=cd54 Walk out of the college onto Daley Road and turn left. Take the right fork onto Sullivan's Creek Road. Keep walking. You should pass the Hancock Library on your left and there will be a zebra crossing across Sullivan's Creek road to a bridge over Sullivan's Creek. Walk over this bridge and follow the path along the rear of the Chifley Library (with Fellows Oval on your right). Take a left turn past the entrance to the Chifley Library, keeping the A.D. Hope building to your right and you should see a ramp leading up to the Manning Clark Center. How do I get to the Manning Clark Center from the City (a.k.a. Civic)? Assuming you will be entering the campus via University Avenue, walk down the pathway keeping the Copland Building (building 24 on http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/displaymap.asp?grid=ef32) on your right, until you reach the University Union Building (building 20) and hang a right up the ramp to the Manning Clark Centre. How do I get to the Manning Clark Center from University House? University House is building 1 on http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/displaymap.asp?grid=cd32 Walk along Liversidge Street until you come to Ellery Crescent. Follow it to the left, until it reaches a cul de sac outside Melville Hall (on your left). This will lead you onto the same path beside the Copland Building referred to in the directions from Civic above. ----------------------------- > Emergency telephone contact ----------------------------- If you get completely, utterly and hopelessly lost, ring 6125 8186 (that's +61 2 6125 8186) and it will divert to an organiser, who will try their best to direct you to the Manning Clark Centre. ------------------------------------------ > Delegate badges, more precious than gold ------------------------------------------ As you may have already learned, linux.conf.au has sold out quite a few weeks before the conference. Because of venue restrictions, numbers are strictly limited to 500. To ensure this, we will be checking delegate badges throughout the conference. Make sure you wear yours at all times and do not lose it. We will be charging a replacement fee of $50 to replace delegate badges (after sighting satisfactory identification). Anyone found not wearing a badge at the venue will be asked to leave. Your badge is also your ticket to the conference dinner and the professional delegates networking session (if you your registration includes these). ------------ > Keysigning ------------ If you are interested in taking part in the GPG keysigning party at LCA make sure you submit your public key prior to Friday 15th. More information and instructions on how to submit your key can be found at http://www.keysigning.org/event/lca2005 --------- > Weather --------- If you're wondering what to pack, currently it is a bit unseasonably warm, with maximums in the mid to high 20 degrees (Celcius). There is rain forecast for Friday, which may drop the temperature back a bit next week, so you might want to bring a mixture of summer-type clothes (i.e. shorts and t-shirt type stuff) and slightly warmer clothes (i.e. jeans).
See you soon!
April 12, 2005
Steven Hanley
[lca] A whole lot more information for linux.conf.au just went out
I just sent an email to the various linux.conf.au forum with more details people attending linux.conf.au need to know. Read it here if you did not receive it by email.
April 11, 2005
Chris Yeoh
Adds dodgy qt based gui client
Implements summoning of ice elementals
Implements Charm Person
Implements Paralysis
Implements Charm Monster
Server never exits - waits for start game timeout time before restarting NB. For clients, state information from previous game is invalidated once a MSG_SEND_START_GAME is received.
Only live players cast spells
Adds Protocol version on game start
Adds StartGame message
sends own id and turn timeout
Handle player disconnects gracefully. Disconnecting during the game results in losing
If no gestures are sent from a player within the timeout, GST_NOTHING is used for both hands
Fixes bug in winnerID code sent
Remove SPL_STAB1 as redundant
Filtering of gestures for Fear and dual stab were not working
because network byte conversion was not done on gestures first
Fixed bug introduced in 0.6 where many enchantments were not removed or processed at end of round
Fixes calculation of visibility of gestures
Implements Fear (was really done in 0.6). Note that SC_EVT_PLAYER_FEAR is received by a player if they will be restricted as to what gestures they can do. If they send a gesture that cannot be used it is converted to a GST_NOTHING
Hackfest 0.7 Release
0.7 version of Hackfest code is available. A simple GUI client to get better testing of the server before the conference is now available. Please try it out with some friends if you have the time and report any bugs.
Been rather busy and pipe has been a little sick, so haven't had a lot of time to work on the hackfest code. Thanks to Kelly for keeping me well supplied with food and wine. All bugs in the code are due to the latter.
Michael Still
The guys in N101...
So, there are these guys in N101 of the Computing Science department at ANU doing stuff which hasn't been announced yet. It's going to be cool though... I believe we'll be ready to announce something in the next day or so. So why this post? Just trying to encourage you to get psyched up for LCA.
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April 05, 2005
Michael Still
- A laptop with wireless (we have lots of wireless happening).
- A jumper (Canberra is normally quite mild in April, for Canberra. I would expect things to get down to 10 degrees Celsius.)
- Bring a rain coat (in case the three year drought breaks).
- Bring a camera.
- Get ready to have a great time...
Thinking about packing a bag for LCA 2005 soon? Pack a jumper.
So, I know that a lot of you come from warmer climes than are offered by Canberra. My big bit of advice for a good LCA to to pack your bag just right. Here's some of the stuff you'll need:
Seriously, bring a jumper just in case.
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April 03, 2005
Chris Yeoh
Add check so can't stab with both hands
Fix bug where if player was blinded then their gestures weren't visible. Reversed now so blinded player sees no gestures
Invisible player's gestures are not seen
Implements confusion effect on monsters and wizards
Fix bug where state of monsters was not updated (eg counters) at end of round
Send messages about events, eg "Amnesia", elementals merging etc. (protocol addition)
Implement Amnesia effect
Fix amnesia not timing out
Support games which end in draws (required protocol change)
Removes use of getline, replaced with fgets for portability
Fixes gestures for SPL_REMOVE_ENCHANTMENT and SPL_CAUSE_HEAVY_WOUNDS
Adds Ice Storms and Fire Storms
Adds Ice and Fire elementals
Fixes gestures for SPL_DISEASE
Hackfest 0.6 Release
0.6 version of Hackfest code is available. I think I'll have to write a simple GUI client to get better testing of the server before the conference. Time to swap in that QT knowledge.
April 01, 2005
Michael Still
Why allow Microsoft to present at a linux.conf.au co-conference?
There has been some discussion on a mailing list I have subscribed to for some time as to the presence of a Microsoft employee speaking at the Open Computing in Government linux.conf.au co-conference. Whilst the linux.conf.au committee wasn't consulted per se on the decision, we were certainly made aware that it was likely to occur. The gentleman running the Open Computing in Government co-conference is a good friend I mine, and I'm entirely comfortable with what's occurred. Here's why...
Note: The linux.conf.au 2005 committee is not running the Open Computing in Government co-conference. AUUG is. It's their gig, and they make up their mind about stuff. I'm just explaining why I think they made the right decision. I should also point out that I have a possible perception of bias here as well, as I am a member of the AUUG Committee as well.
Open and informed debate
I don't know about the rest of you, but I care a lot about open source (although I suspect I'm a little more pragmatic than a few of you). I've spent a lot of time using it, administering it, and I released my first open source code in July of 2000. I also care about people choosing open source because it's actually the right decision for them. I personally believe that the world is probably more complex than any one operating system, and it would be a mistake to try and shoehorn everything into one. People can't make an informed decision without having the information from both sides of the table being presented fairly and accurately. Having a Microsoft speaker at an event like this gives delegates a rare chance to see an actual debate on the issues at hand in real time, with people having to actually justify their stances, instead of hiding behind PR companies. I like that.
I don't want people to chose Linux because we FUD them into the ground. I want them to chose it because we're right.
Censorship is bad, mmmmkay?
Ummm. I can't think of any more to say than that. I don't have to agree with someone to agree that they have a right to express their opinion.
You have to assume that the attendees have their own brain cells
Why hold peoples hands? Is there something we're embarrassed about that no one has mentioned to me?
Conclusion
Come on guys. Let's win on a level playing field. It's what we've been fighting for for so long, and we shouldn't lose the moral high ground.
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March 31, 2005
Michael Still
Second last linux.conf.au 2005 organisers meeting
We're nearly there now. Just the last few issues to sort out. It's nice to work with such a dedicated, organised, and intelligent team.
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Open Computing in Government Co-Conference
The best blog entry title of the week has to go to Grant for his announcement of some government stuff. The title? "Oz government gets a clue about Open Source"...
And today, after much behind the scenes negotiating, I got the news that the Australian Government is finally ... after much promising ... going to release the official guide to how government departments should do open source. Everything from assessing its merits against proprietary software, through to comparing TCO, examples of previous open source projects, etc. What's even better, is they've agreed to do the launch at the conference! Cool!
Go to his site to read more.
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March 30, 2005
Michael Still
Winners (well, most of them) for the Sun Regional Delegate Programme announced
(Sorry this took so long. We've actually had the list of winners for a while, but there were procedural stuff which held up an earlier
release)
Linux.conf.au 2005 is pleased to announce the winners of the 2005 Sun Regional Delegate Program (RDP). As always, linux.conf.au would like to that Sun for their kind support for this programme, without which it would not be possible for the following 9 people to attend linux.conf.au.
Read http://lca2005.linux.org.au/rdp.php for details about the RDP.
Also another lucky person who submitted to the Regional Delegates Program will be announced as the National winner at the conference opening and be presented with a fantastic prize by Sun. This is above and beyond their seat at linux.conf.au 2005.
The winners are:
ACT
The ACT winner is Burn Alting, who has been working with Unix and open source since 1978, including contributions to many open source projects and initiatives over the years, Burn is an active member of the Canberra Linux community.
NT
Our winner from the Northern Territory is Anthony Hornby, who is the secretary of DARLUG. Not only does Anthony use FOSS at work, but he is also actively promoting open access publishing and the creative commons amongst his librarian colleagues. Anthony is currently working on an honours degree project to implement a database to help enable indigenous Australians to preserve some of their culture electronically for future generations. This project when complete will be released under an OSS licence.
NSW
The winner from New South Wales is Darryl Lynch. Darryl is a member of OSIA (Open Source Industry Australia http://www.osia.net.au/) living in regional NSW. He has been working with his local community on ways to adopt open source in the local community, and seeks to make more contacts at the conference to assist with this.
Queensland
The Queensland winner is Ben Martin. He is the author of the libferris virtual file system project, which has recently had desktop search capabilities added as detailed in the February 2005 Linux Journal. The file system talks at linux.conf.au are especially of interest to Ben.
SA
The South Australian winner Kylie Willison is passionate about teaching computing and have been teaching for six years. She is a volunteer using Linux in the workplace, training people to use Linux, giving away open source software and advocating Linux for other local community organisations. The better equipped she is to teach, maintain systems and run networks the better profile Linux will gain in the community.
Tasmania
Ben Powell is the Tasmanian winner. As TasLUG's Southern coordinator, he has worked to improve TasLUG's profile as a focal point for learning and advocacy for the FOSS community. After working in technology roles where he advocated FOSS solutions (for example Tasmania's eGovernment unit and consulting), he began studying IP law to give back to FOSS in areas where he believes his skills to best contribute to the Linux community as a whole.
Victoria
Gordon Heydon, the Victorian winner is a contributor to Drupal and Debian, and other projects. He has been active within the Linux community for the last 9 years, both in the assisting of other people with open source and helping businesses adopt open source.
WA
The Western Australian winner, Trent Lloyd, is an excellent opportunity to encourage a younger member of the community. Over the last year or two he has been making small contributions to GNOME related projects (mostly evolution), as well as working on a multi cast DNS library. As he is a student living away from home, having Sun provide an opportunity for him to attend the conference is a significant boon.
New Zealand
For the first time this year we're offering a RDP slot to a New Zealander. This year's winner is Vik Olliver, who has introduced Linux and open source to a variety of companies in New Zealand. Attending linux.conf.au 2005 will improve his ability to guide these companies and others, in turn spreading open source among more clients and enlarging the base of potential developers.
Sun were also keen to involve people from New Zealand as linux.conf.au will be held in Dunedin, New Zealand next year.
Less than three weeks to go to linux.conf.au. See you all there.
Steve and the linux.conf.au 2005 Crew.
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Steven Hanley
[lca] Mindless linux.conf.au 2005 flickr fun
So I have been seeing these spell with flickr links for a week or two now, I guess repeated exposure eventually became too much and I felt the need to type this one in.
#flickrWords .flickrImg { float: left; }
Sourced from here.
Michael Still
The rationale behind charging for admission and turning people away from linux.conf.au 2005
There have been a couple of comments made on my previous posts about linux.conf.au 2005 about how Free Software events shouldn't turn people away. I thought that I'd take the time to explain the rationale behind the current situation. It should be noted that the current status is the consensus of the linux.conf.au 2005 organising team, of which I am just one part.
Let's break the basic objections I've heard down into their individual elements and address each in turn:
Why are we charging for admission to linux.conf.au?
Modern conferences are generally large, complicated, expensive beasts. It is possible to run a conference for free, but what you get is a very different beast from what people expect from a linux.conf.au. The current style of conference has been the same as every linux.conf.au I've been to (my first was Sydney), and I suspect that changing the mix too much would change the people who attended the event, which is something we explicitly didn't want to do.
Why are they expensive to run? They have invited speakers and other speakers we pay for the transport for (we don't fund all speakers, just those who couldn't make it to the event otherwise), there is a regional delegates program (although Sun kindly sponsors it), there is a conference dinner and a networking session for professional attendees. Speakers partners get complimentary attendance at the partner's programme for having donated their partner's time.
There are venue hire costs (a five digit number), sundry costs such as signage, transport for equipment, some equipment rental. There is the cost of merchandising such as a conference bag, and t-shirt. There are some other really cool merchandising things this year which I can't mention yet, but totally rock. If I was a delegate I'd feel pretty happy with what's in the conference bag this year. Those merchandising items are an opportunity for people to start conversations about open source in their workplaces, homes, and elsewhere, so are a valuable part of the conference mix.
There's lots of other elements of the conference I have forgotten so far, but you get the idea.
Remember in all this that the organisers haven't been paid. Heck, organising the conference has cost us money personally (many Thursday nights, dinners at meetings, time of other forms, a lot of fuel for some of us, some of us have even paid to attend the conference ourselves). I guess we're hoping that by donating our time, we'll end up with a cool conference. I think that anyone who thinks that they're doing this because they'll have a higher profile in the community, or be hired by a multinational, or something like that is somewhat confused to be honest. We're running the conference for the love of it.
One final monetary aspect needs mentioning. Linux.conf.au is the major funding source for Linux Australia at this time. Without this funding, LA wouldn't be able to have their meetings, do the lobby work they do, or fund open source projects in the community. The linux.conf.au committee is a subcommittee of LA, and this needs to be remembered.
Why limit the number of attendees?
Linux.conf.au has always been a smaller conference compared with some others. This gives the conference a more intimate feel, and keeps the conference from turning into a monster that eats organisers for breakfast. Then again, the main reason the current conference is the size it has become is that the venue's largest room can only hold 500 people, and because of fire regulations we have to assume that all attendees are in the room for conference keynotes. In fact, organisers have volunteered to not attend keynotes if the space is needed for delegates, thus letting us sneak another few people in.
Then why not change to a bigger venue?
Because it's two weeks out from the conference. If we had sold out weeks ago, then we would have moved, but it wasn't clear that we were going to sell out back then... It's simply too late now to book a bigger venue. Even if we could, we wouldn't have enough t-shirts, bags, catering et cetera organised for a larger number of people, and the production deadline for those items was weeks ago.
Ok, so why not video cast to another room in the venue for overflow?
If you had paid $600 to go to a conference, not including travel and accommodation costs, plus time off work and being away from your loved ones, would you be happy being lumped into an overflow room? I wouldn't be, and imagine neither would a lot of other people. I honestly think that's not really an acceptable solution to the problem.
Why not let people drop in for random lectures without paying?
Again, if I'd paid to attend and someone else was dropping in I'd be upset. Why should I be subsidising them? That might be an uncharitable view of things, but if someone genuinely couldn't afford to go to the conference, and deserved to come, then they should have entered the regional delegate program. Perhaps they would have won.
Where to from here?
As with the last few linux.conf.au's there will be speex audio of the talks made available after the event along with the slide decks used. There is also some work going on to deal with video, but it hasn't been officially announced yet (more on that later). If you're genuinely only interested in one talk, then you can listen to it online later.
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March 29, 2005
Steven Hanley
[lca] Sold Out
I really need to go to bed, and I still have a TODO list for lca stuff for today that is unfinished, however I feel the need to mention this (even though both Mikal (with countdown) and Jeremy have already done so).
linux.conf.au 2005 sold out earlier today, we have a limit of 500 delegates imposed upon us by the largest theatre in the complex we are using for the conference. We had an alternative plan available to allow for more people we could have implemented 8-10 weeks ago, however registration numbers at the time suggested we should not, thus we stuck with our original limit of 500 delegates.
It is a good feeling to reach this point, though once more I am sure there is still a fairly large amount of work in front of us, all of you coming to the conference, are going to have a great time, if you missed out, book and pay early next year for Dunedin, New Zealand in January 2006.
Michael Still
Linux.conf.au 2005 is now sold out
Thanks for your attention.
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The registration count down continues
There have been exciting developments in the LCA registration extravaganza! So far today we've sold 18 registrations, which is odd when you consider that I originally said we had 14 places free. What happened was that there was some conservative rounding happening in the database layer to ensure we didn't oversell, and that allowed us to release a few more seats.
There are currently six seats remaining. To the best of my knowledge that number is real and a hard limit. Pay now!
Oh, on a technical note, the Linux Australia DNS server has been unreliable today. If you're having troubles getting to the linux.conf.au website and are worried about missing out, then try these URLs, which are all the same site:
Hopefully not too many people will be disappointed.
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