Fantastic recap Sharan. And very close to my observations.(I had no idea about the rain though and I kinda hoped it was "exceptionally wet" this year, so I might get better prepared next year in anticipation of how it **really** can look like:D.
Some comments from my side now after I recovered a bit (actually it took me quite some time to even wrap my head around what happened there - it's easier now to recap after a few days). It was my first time at FOSDEM. I had no idea what to expect (I've heard stories but I decided not to prepare too much and treat it as an exploratory visit so when I come next year (HInt! I will definitely go next year no matter what). I usually try to speak at the conferences I am going to, but since I did not know what to expect I decided not to submit one and. I am in general pretty new to the OSS movement and for me that was the first time I had a chance to interact with many people including those who are focused on the true and sometimes idealistic view on Open Source. And by no means this "idealistic" is bad - it was kinda refreshing actually. There are many conferences where doing business and networking to make more of it is the main focus. FOSDEM is definitely not one of those events and I think part of this is the way how distributed and chaotic it is - there is simply no way to do "business" there. But yes - networking was great, bouncing-off ideas even exchanged at the pavement when bumping on a group of people you vaguely (due to pandemic) remember a face of one person but not the name of - was great. I spent the vast majority of my time at the Apache booth and meeting friends. Even if I planned to see some talks, I ended up not doing so - there were quite a few talks various people mentioned as worth seeing, so I will watch them online instead. what happened at the "hallway track" was way more interesting. This is why I think it was great that FOSDEM managed not only live-stream pretty much all the tracks (that must have been hell of an undertaking from technical point of view) but that - I believe all the talks will be available to watch. But I think for many people who just want to learn something and are less of a networking and hallway - there were some excellent talks there to watch live and get inspired on the spot. So both "sides" of FOSDEM seem to "do the job well". I've learned a lot about how Apache is perceived from both - outside and inside. I had many conversations - both short talks and long ramblings from people who look at the Foundation from outside as well from long and short-time members and people who were there at the beginning and came to just say hello. But also random people from various organizations, companies, students etc. This is food for thoughts that will keep coming back in the coming months. Coming back to the "idealistic" part - I think FOSDEM is very unique in the way that diversity of people you could meet was amazing - there were both - young people who just start their career as well as people who have tens of years of experience, freelancers and people who run multi-billion companies. OSS was the common theme - and it democratised a lot who you could interact with. I do not have yet clear formulated thoughts for next year (and what and how to prepare better myself) and how to encourage even more participation from the ASF/PMC members - It will likely come closer to when we start thinking of the 2024 one, but I think it's an event worth attending to understand better the different vibes that are present in the OSS community. J. On Tue, Feb 7, 2023 at 7:31 PM sharanf <sha...@apache.org> wrote: > > Hi Everyone > > I am back and still in the process of recovering from FOSDEM last > weekend so wanted to post a quick update. After two years of being an > online conference due to the pandemic it was great to get back to an in > person event...and FOSDEM excels at being an in person event. I can't > begin to describe how great it felt to be back behind the booth talking > to people about the foundation and our projects. I saw so many familiar > faces of people who keep coming back to say Hello! One guy showed me an > ASF branded USB extender that I gave him a few years ago at FOSDEM for > helping me out with a Kibble demo...:-) > > Now normally it rains in February. If there's one thing that seems > assured - it's rain at FOSDEM... well this time it was a little > different. I won't say it didn't rain (because it did) but not that > much. And even more unexpected was the sunshine ..Maybe the city > Brussels was happy to have an in person FOSDEM again too so put on some > good weather for us:-) > > Our booth has usually been on the first floor of K block right at the > top of the stairs but this time we were given a new location. We were on > the ground floor on the left hand side along by the windows. We were > also near to one the entry / exit doors. Our position meant that people > had to pass by us to get in or out - so we got a lot of foot traffic. > The FOSDEM team grouped foundations linked to Community Advocacy > together so we were alongside OpenUK, FOSSASIA, Software Freedom > Conservancy. FSFE, FOSSASIA, Ecliipse Foundation etc. > > On Saturday I arrived with the bag of swag to find a few people ready > and waiting to help out with setup. We quickly put up the banner (it > definitely needed two people!), blew up some balloons and got the booth > table covered in stickers (So much so that during the event people came > to take photos of our display). We kept telling people that this was > only a small selection of ASF projects. Even so - we did have requests > for stickers we didn't have (so they are on my list for next time). Also > we ran out of the HTTP Server stickers (everyone wanted a sticker of the > first ASF project). We ran out of stickers for Apache Maven, Apache > Kafka this time. > > As well as stickers we gave away some balloons for the children (and > some adults too), cleaning cloths for glasses and screens, mugs, head > tubes, pens, small cable bags, key rings and mask extenders (as there > were a few people with masks). The cleaning cloths were very popular - > everyone wearing glasses seemed to want one. > > For the things that we had limited supply of - we told people that to > get one would cost 'a good conversation' :-) So we had some really good > conversations - about projects, technology and I think even open source > software for space technology! This is one of the reasons that having a > booth presence is so good for outreach and general community building. > > People also came to talk to us about other open source events that were > being organised that they hoped we or our communities might be > interested in participating in. One of these was the Open System Days > Croation Linux Users Conference who have a CFP open > https://www.dorscluc.org/call-for-speakers/. We also offered a free > meeting room for community meetups for any developers based in and > around Portugal. > > We had people from different projects spend some time on the booth - so > special shoutout and huge thanks to Claude Warren, Matthew de > Detrich, Arnout Engelen, Myrle Krantz, Jarek Potiuk, Gilles Sadowski, > Johan Corveleyn, Jean-Frederic Clere, Herve Boutemy for helping out on > the booth. Thanks also to everyone that dropped by to say Hi and chat > -it was all fun. > > There were rumours of 10000 attending people but nothing concrete. > Usually FOSDEM attracts over 8000 developers. Whatever the number there > seemed to be an endless stream of people, there were lots of people at > the foodcarts, on the first and second floors, walking to and from the > other buildings and going in and out of the talks. I understand that > many of the talks have been recorded so if you didn't make it then you > will still get a chance to see it. If you have never experienced FOSDEM > then I would encourage you to keep it on your radar and see if you can > make it to the next one. > > Once again I would like to sincerely thank everyone that was involved in > helping out to make our participation at FOSDEM a success. Am already > looking forward to doing it all again next year if we get the chance. > > Please feel free to respond with any of your FOSDEM experiences, > feedback, thoughts or general comments! > > Thanks > Sharan > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
