Report: FLOSSCamp 2009

The power of the community is amazing: no money, no sponsors, no corporate baking but this year's FLOSSCamp was a success (so I think): almost 50 people (only 41 in the group photo, but some were too shy or sleeping ...patches needed), a large number of tents, plenty of food and drinks, good talks. Everything was organized by the power of local communities.

A special mention for Alex, who made the difference and made all this happen: from initial planning on the list, pools to select the date and location, announcement and website to printed banners, going for food and drink supplies, transporting people and taking photos to cooking food, moderating the BarCamp and making the finances and other things I forgot to list here. Thumbs up!

We had a lot of interesting people: well known members of the FLOSS scene, old friends, newbies trying to find their place, a few people talking about their companies and significant others, dragged more or less at the conference. The highlight was a BarCamp, where we talked about some important stuff but in a friendly environment (a big circle in the grass with beers in hands)

The "open" barbecue, the camp fires and bottles with essential liquids were vital ingredients of the success, even if we had to wait a bit for them... arguably the wait made them taste better, but I also have a theory: the first day, when still raining, a pair of used socks was put in the fire :p

Being surrounded by beautiful scenery in the nature with grass, trees, flowers, butterflies and a nearby creek (oh! what an amazing night sky, with tons of start, with a visible Milky Way and shooting stars!) was also part of the "secret sauce"

I am well known as a shill, so obviously I pushed Fedora as much as I could, from hanging the self-made (Alex printed it) banner in a "strategic" position to handling CDs, stickers and tattoos. Of course I didn't manage to evade the classic question about how is different Fedora from Ubuntu, but the question is more palatable when coming from a nice geek girl genuinely interested and positive about the answer (bonus points: even before asking, she is convinced Fedora looks better and you are with the Design Team).

Speaking of promo stuff, I made an observation which probably needs more in-depth study to understand why: it shows the girls are much prone to wear our tattoos. The guys are more reluctant and usually they need to be convinced by a girl.

Literally, a ton of photos are available in our (Fedora Romania) gallery. Enjoy!

Now, for the next year... I guess it will be a real challenge to make it bigger, better and friendlier.