diff --git a/content/posts/2019-02-04-fosdem.md b/content/posts/2019-02-04-fosdem.md index cb83c66..a3d8579 100644 --- a/content/posts/2019-02-04-fosdem.md +++ b/content/posts/2019-02-04-fosdem.md @@ -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 spammarketing 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 spammarketing 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!