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James McDonald
2019-02-12 21:28:28 +01:00
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@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ which talks to attend.
People come to FOSDEM from everywhere. I don't think I've ever heard such a
wide selection of languages at the same place. It really brings home just how
big FOSS is, and how many people care about it.
massive FOSS is, and how many people care about it.
# Venue
@@ -24,10 +24,11 @@ I certainly will be again.
Also, the beer. Oh my, the beer.
FOSDEM itself is hosted by [Université Libre de Bruxelles
(ULB)](http://www.ulb.ac.be/). The event takes up a
[fair chunk](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/rooms/) of the campus. This was again quite daunting, but the organisers
took a lot of effort to make it easy to navigate from place to place with a lot
of clear signage and timetable information.
(ULB)](http://www.ulb.ac.be/). The event takes up a [fair
chunk](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/rooms/) of the campus. This was again
quite daunting, but the organisers took a lot of effort to make it easy to
navigate from place to place with a lot of clear signage and timetable
information.
PGDay (see below) was at the Marriott Grand Place, which was pretty much a
regular conference venue as far as the event was concerned. Free running coffee
@@ -38,20 +39,27 @@ and a chair is all I require. I can recommend their steak, though.
There were many stands run by all the FOSS projects we know and love. The
stands were an odd experience compared to a "normal" conference.
Generally speaking at conferences you have a few big corporations and a bunch
of smaller companies. Everyone wants to sell you something you've never heard
of and get your details so they can send you <s>spam</s>marketing information.
Generally at conferences you have a few big corporations and a bunch of smaller
companies. Everyone wants to sell you something you've never heard of and get
your details so they can send you <s>spam</s>marketing information.
Not at FOSDEM. Most of the time I found myself going up to these fantastic
projects like Debian, GitLab or Apache and the conversation was mostly limited
to "you guys are amazing, thanks for doing what you do".
to "you guys are amazing, thanks for doing what you do". It was a good chance
to find out what teams were working on in the FOSS world. In some cases, like
with Matrix in my case, it was handy to be able to go and chat to them after
seeing a talk about their project to get some more detail. They also provided
the opportunity to donate to projects by buying a wide array of merchandise.
# Talks
I managed to select a good few talks in the end. Sadly, some of them (looking at you,
[HTTP/3](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/http3/)) were so popular they weren't possible to get in to. Luckily, all of them are recorded and available to view on [the FOSDEM site](https://fosdem.org/2019/).
I managed to select a good few talks in the end. Sadly, some of them (looking
at you, [HTTP/3](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/http3/)) were so
popular they weren't possible to get in to. Luckily, all of them are recorded
and available to view on [the FOSDEM site](https://fosdem.org/2019/).
Here's a sample of those I attended.
Here's a sample of those I attended. I recommend you follow the links and check
out the videos yourself if you find them interesting.
## [Java 4..12, Kotlin, Code Coverage and their best friend — bytecode: scandals, intrigues, investigations](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/kotlin_code_coverage_bytecode/) --- Evgeny Mandrikov
@@ -71,8 +79,8 @@ My colleague Magnus presented what's new and magical in PostgreSQL 11.
## Netflix
This was a slightly disappointing talk. He focussed a lot on the advantages of working
closely with upstream FreeBSD and of publishing their improvements. That's all very
This was a slightly disappointing talk. IT focussed a lot on the advantages of working
closely with upstream FreeBSD and of publishing their improvements. That's very
true, but it's an odd pitch to a room full of people at an open source conference.
There were some interesting details about the hardware Netflix use in their CDN
@@ -83,7 +91,7 @@ caches and the areas they have to focus on for performance.
## [2019 - Fifty years of Unix and Linux advances](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/keynote_fifty_years_unix/) --- Jon 'maddog' Hall
It was great to have an opportunity to see maddog talk. He was engaging and
enthusiastic as he talked about his experiences living through the turbulent
enthusiastic as he talked about his experiences living through the entire
history of Unix and Linux. He ran out of time in the end, but luckily a riot
was prevented when he was allowed to finish.
@@ -104,6 +112,6 @@ Also I got a fluffy Slonik.
I'd like to thank the fantastic people who take the time and effort to organise
this event. Having been marginally involved in running conventions, I've seen
how hard it can be to wrangle these things. And this event is *ridiculously huge*
(the statistics in the closing talk had us eating 200kg of waffles *alone*).
The effort involved must be herculean. So, yeah, thanks!
how hard it can be to wrangle these things. And this event is *ridiculously
huge* --- the statistics in the closing talk had us eating 200kg of waffles
*alone*! The effort involved must be herculean. So, yeah, thanks!