Adventures at FOSDEM 2015
It is strange that nobody writes about this in the Russian-language media, but a few days ago the largest European event FOSDEM 2015 was successfully held in Brussels.
I have visited it before (in 2007 I gave a talk about ReactOS , in 2009 - the ReactOS stand ).
And, compared to what it was before, FOSDEM's popularity grows from year to year.
According to official statistics, in 2014, 8 thousand unique MAC addresses were connected to the FOSDEM network, and in 2015 - about 15 thousand!
You can choose your device ratio per person, as an option:
1.5 devices per person: 10 thousand people .
0.8 devices per person: 18 thousand people.
')
And it really felt.
For example, getting on the tram (yes, I sometimes use public transport! :-)) in the center of Brussels (and this is far from the venue - ULB University), in each car there were several people traveling on a Saturday or Sunday FOSDEM. Not to mention that all hotels, hostels, bed & breakfasts, shelters were completely sold out.
The number of visitors is sometimes stunning and in the literal sense of the word. I hardly managed to get through the crowd in the exhibition corridors of FOSDEM to at least somehow show what is happening there:
The event itself is quite unique in its own way:
And at the same time:
Most of the rooms in which the reports were held were fully occupied. To some lined up in order to get to the vacant empty seats.
Our neighbors in this building are:
Quite a famous project, located on the left side of us. Previously called LinuxBIOS. During the exhibition itself there was no time to communicate with them, but then we made up for lost time on Sunday evening.
Relatively new project, located on our right. It is a fork of ChromeOS, each application runs inside a Docker-like container. I think that it is most popular and well known thanks to the distributed configuration storage etcd developed in it.
On Sunday, their table was empty, and visitors asked me if I knew what had happened to them. Receiving a negative answer, some said "likely a hangover from saturday night".
Where now without 3D-printers? The guys printed without a break for all two days. We agreed that they print out our ReactOS logo, but unfortunately, we could not draw a three-dimensional model so quickly. It would be great!
A life-size puppet walked around the territory - an elephant and lured everyone to the PostgreSQL booth. During the breaks, she approached the stand and made wonderful photo shoots with geeks.
The last time we participated with ReactOS at this event five years ago, and here we are again!
From our team came:
Colin came first to the scene at about 11:00 am on Saturday morning and discovered the absence of the ReactOS table. I searched on the left, searched on the right andsat down in a snowdrift. I found out that our colleagues from the Coreboot project at the next table decided to take a little more space by chance :-) The guys from Coreboot quickly restored justice and at that very moment I came, brought all the attributes made in Moscow - a banner and flags.
Having posted and arranged all this - laptops, flyers, flags, banner, our stand is ready to receive visitors! And we are ready to tellon which version of the Linux kernel ReactOS is based on our successes.
Janis and Pierre came up later during the day, and the four of us were already talking with visitors. On the left-to-right selfie: I, Janis, Colin.
Our banner was clearly visible from the inside (it was illuminated with light from the street) ...
And outside the building:
A hundred CDs carefully made by Hermès Bélusca-Maito and Colin Finck sold out before it was dark outside on the first day of FOSDEM. It was completely unexpected, from the experience of previous exhibitions and conferences, and indeed the fact that CDs are already out of circulation.
Apparently, working Microsoft Excel in ReactOS attracted too much attention:
But, ReactOS would not be ReactOS if we couldn’t come up with a way out! That evening, Colin and Pierre went to the center of Brussels in search of a store that worked on the weekend and sold blanks and stickers on them. And after all found! Having bought 100 more blanks, we used all the notebook writing drives that we had at our disposal (Pierre and Colin partially recorded at night, and all day on Sunday already with me). And the FOSDEM staff helped us a lot by giving us a printer on which we were able to print stickers on the discs. So, in the end, we distributed a little less than 200 discs.
Pierre sticks a sticker on a freshly written LiveCD ...
... puts it in an envelope, meanwhile Janis writes the next disc, and Colin with German punctuality answers the visitors' questions:
We send a separate hello to the Kolibri project, it’s a pity that this time they didn’t have a booth at FOSDEM, but we met their representative yogev_ezra and had a nice chat.
On Saturday evening, we planned to meet with comrade Nuno Brito, who graciously ordered us a table in a beautiful tavern at the Grand Place. I also met Harish Pillay (Global Head of Arch and Leadership at RedHat). Once again I was convinced that nationality, preferences for Linux / BSD / ReactOS do not affect the friendly atmosphere. Although we talked a lot on the topic of national color - about stereotypes of perception of different nations, about languages, life in different countries, and other interesting things.
Friday was Friday Beer Event, but reports from it are somehow not accepted :-)
I am pleased to answer your questions!
I have visited it before (in 2007 I gave a talk about ReactOS , in 2009 - the ReactOS stand ).
And, compared to what it was before, FOSDEM's popularity grows from year to year.
According to official statistics, in 2014, 8 thousand unique MAC addresses were connected to the FOSDEM network, and in 2015 - about 15 thousand!
You can choose your device ratio per person, as an option:
1.5 devices per person: 10 thousand people .
0.8 devices per person: 18 thousand people.
')
And it really felt.
For example, getting on the tram (yes, I sometimes use public transport! :-)) in the center of Brussels (and this is far from the venue - ULB University), in each car there were several people traveling on a Saturday or Sunday FOSDEM. Not to mention that all hotels, hostels, bed & breakfasts, shelters were completely sold out.
The number of visitors is sometimes stunning and in the literal sense of the word. I hardly managed to get through the crowd in the exhibition corridors of FOSDEM to at least somehow show what is happening there:
The event itself is quite unique in its own way:
- Free participation for all (and the speakers are even compensated for the cost of living and travel)
- No registration required for visitors
- ULB University provides FOSDEM with most of its area for free.
- 551 different events (reports, certification, etc.)
- Live broadcast of all reports is organized.
And at the same time:
- Volunteers everywhere, help, friendly
- Clean rooms
- Not a single incident - everything is peaceful, no shouting “Down with Pottering!” Or “Waste!”
- Free buses to help thousands of people quietly go home
- IPv6-only WiFi :-)
Most of the rooms in which the reports were held were fully occupied. To some lined up in order to get to the vacant empty seats.
Exhibition
Our neighbors in this building are:
Coreboot
Quite a famous project, located on the left side of us. Previously called LinuxBIOS. During the exhibition itself there was no time to communicate with them, but then we made up for lost time on Sunday evening.
CoreOS
Relatively new project, located on our right. It is a fork of ChromeOS, each application runs inside a Docker-like container. I think that it is most popular and well known thanks to the distributed configuration storage etcd developed in it.
On Sunday, their table was empty, and visitors asked me if I knew what had happened to them. Receiving a negative answer, some said "likely a hangover from saturday night".
Ultimaker
Where now without 3D-printers? The guys printed without a break for all two days. We agreed that they print out our ReactOS logo, but unfortunately, we could not draw a three-dimensional model so quickly. It would be great!
PostgreSQL
A life-size puppet walked around the territory - an elephant and lured everyone to the PostgreSQL booth. During the breaks, she approached the stand and made wonderful photo shoots with geeks.
Our booth
The last time we participated with ReactOS at this event five years ago, and here we are again!
From our team came:
- Giannis "smiley" Adamopoulos (Janis)
- Aleksey "Fireball" Bragin (i)
- Colin Finck (Colin)
- Pierre "HeisSpiter" Schweitzer (Pierre)
Colin came first to the scene at about 11:00 am on Saturday morning and discovered the absence of the ReactOS table. I searched on the left, searched on the right and
Having posted and arranged all this - laptops, flyers, flags, banner, our stand is ready to receive visitors! And we are ready to tell
Janis and Pierre came up later during the day, and the four of us were already talking with visitors. On the left-to-right selfie: I, Janis, Colin.
Our banner was clearly visible from the inside (it was illuminated with light from the street) ...
And outside the building:
A hundred CDs carefully made by Hermès Bélusca-Maito and Colin Finck sold out before it was dark outside on the first day of FOSDEM. It was completely unexpected, from the experience of previous exhibitions and conferences, and indeed the fact that CDs are already out of circulation.
Apparently, working Microsoft Excel in ReactOS attracted too much attention:
But, ReactOS would not be ReactOS if we couldn’t come up with a way out! That evening, Colin and Pierre went to the center of Brussels in search of a store that worked on the weekend and sold blanks and stickers on them. And after all found! Having bought 100 more blanks, we used all the notebook writing drives that we had at our disposal (Pierre and Colin partially recorded at night, and all day on Sunday already with me). And the FOSDEM staff helped us a lot by giving us a printer on which we were able to print stickers on the discs. So, in the end, we distributed a little less than 200 discs.
Pierre sticks a sticker on a freshly written LiveCD ...
... puts it in an envelope, meanwhile Janis writes the next disc, and Colin with German punctuality answers the visitors' questions:
We send a separate hello to the Kolibri project, it’s a pity that this time they didn’t have a booth at FOSDEM, but we met their representative yogev_ezra and had a nice chat.
Somehow they gathered Russian, German, French, Portuguese and Singaporean ...
On Saturday evening, we planned to meet with comrade Nuno Brito, who graciously ordered us a table in a beautiful tavern at the Grand Place. I also met Harish Pillay (Global Head of Arch and Leadership at RedHat). Once again I was convinced that nationality, preferences for Linux / BSD / ReactOS do not affect the friendly atmosphere. Although we talked a lot on the topic of national color - about stereotypes of perception of different nations, about languages, life in different countries, and other interesting things.
Friday was Friday Beer Event, but reports from it are somehow not accepted :-)
I am pleased to answer your questions!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/249917/
All Articles