Post FOSDEM

FOSDEM 2008 is over, and what a pity! Choosing among 200+ talks turned out to be a sweet puzzle which required thoughtful planning. It’s been two days jumping from room to room with a broad variety of topics and a common characteristic: quality content and crowded rooms, this FOSDEM thing is really a big event… the problem now is to get time to review all the notes.

I liked specially the Mozilla developer room (it was too small the first day, great decision to exchange spaces with openSUSE on Sunday). The Mozilla people are developing really interesting things, not only Firefox 3, also Prism, the Calendar, Songbird… and I love their “please don’t hurt the web” campaign.

The Drupal room was also pretty cool; finally I could put some faces to the names I’ve been reading these last months. I’m really looking forward to pushing Drupal contributions, it’s a pity I can’t make the Boston conference.

Not surprisingly, Pieter and Benjamin have launched a new wikisite on patents.

I’m glad to see that GNOME is plenty of activity (and glad to see people like Rodrigo and Ismael around). I saw a strong web component and I liked it. On the other hand the new desktop effects are neat, I hope to see this stuff soon mainstream.

The lightning talks (15 min max) are a great idea, however I think I had bad luck with the ones I tried (like Alfresco). Or maybe I was too tired on Sunday afternoon: I didn’t get the sugar in CakePHP, and the idea of managing forum flames with Greasemonkey + Track was way too much!

The organization was impeccable; everything was well thought and deployed. The timetable was respected, and the stands were informative (and with nice merchandising ;-)) … you FOSDEM people rock!

À la prochaine.

2007 – 2008

2007 is over, and 2008 started without fireworks. We had a terrorist threat in the city and all pyrotechnics were canceled (ops, mum and dad, I forgot to tell you). As today I was planning to put some pictures of the Grand Place full of light I better go for the plan B. I’ll write something instead, something –sorry I’m still sleepy– like the following:

• 2007 was born unachievable, messy, wrong, provoking and full of hope. Finally, it was a step forward about to fail.

• 2007 was love, and troubles d’amour. The new year starts on the right track.

• 2007 was Heroes, CSI, 4400, House, Stargate Atlantis, 24, Prison Break, Criminal Minds and Lost… 2007 was a difficult year.

• 2007 was Granada and Brussels. And Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bruges, Frankfurt, Ghent, Knokke, Madrid, Mainz, Málaga, Marseille, Ostend, Paris, The Hague, Trier and Wageningen.

• 2007 was not Geneva.

• 2007 was learning to let some people go.

• 2007 was ruled by fear. We were scared to admit we don’t have answers for everything. 2008 will be pretty much the same.

• 2007 was ruled by hypocriticals, but it doesn’t mean we have to like it.

• 2008 sera plus Français, und mehr Deutsche.

• 2007 fue Territorio Internacional, 2008 is The German Component.

• 2007 was az at ugr.es. It was magnetism and simulations, a pending task awaiting to be finished.

• 2007 was antonio.zugaldia at ec.europa.eu, this represented the opportunity.

• 2007 was antonio.zugaldia at eabis.org, working with a great team promoting corporate social responsibility.

• 2008 is antonio.zugaldia at uclouvain.be [as Estebán says, we’ll always have gmail…], find a job you like and you’ll never work again.

• 2008 sera plus Français, und mehr Deutsche.

• 2008 will be Normandie, Göttingen, London, Seville, Berlin… and Krakow. And Paris, bien sûr. New York should have to wait. I would love to go to Africa.

• 2008 is the year in which I’ll turn 30. No, I’m not yet ready.

• 2008 started abroad. Rebe, many thanks for the rescue; it was great sharing the time with your Scottish, Belgian (yes, we had Belgians!), French and Italian band. I don’t know yet why the hell I though they were Argentinians.

• 2008 is, holy crap, the 21st century.

1 January 2008