Monthly Archives: November 2008

FOSS.IN Linux Kernel Workout

It’s the end of the first day of FOSS.IN/2008, with people at the speakers hotel continuing to hack on various projects late into the night (11:30pm at this stage).

I’ll provide more detailed observations on the conference after it’s over; for now, some information on the Linux Kernel Workout session scheduled for Saturday.

For people wishing to attend:

There’s now a wiki page for the workout, detailing tasks to be addressed, as well as prerequisites for participation. Please read and follow the latter. You will need a git checked-out kernel tree which has been configured and boot tested on your laptop. Don’t try and do this on the day, as there will not be enough time, nor enough wireless bandwidth.

You should probably also attend the Linux Kernel Hacker Gathering on the Friday, the schedule for which is being finalized, and will help prepare for the workout session.

Harald Welte

Here’s Harald Welte from his GSM hacking workout session today. Note that he’s evolved to the stage where he simply emanates code. Either that, or he’s sitting in front of the projector.

FOSS.IN/2008 next week!

I’m preparing to travel to Bangalore for FOSS.IN, which is happening next week from the 25th to the 29th of November.

It’s looking very much like the deeply developer-focused event the organizers were hoping for. On the schedule is a mix of technical talks and workout sessions. I’ll be involved in the Kernel Quality Improvement Workout headed up by Christoph Hellwig, as well as giving a talk on Fedora Kiosk Mode. This will be expanded a little on the talk I gave at FOSS.MY due to extra time available.

I was going to talk about sVirt at the planned Fudcon, but the Fudcon was unfortunately cancelled. Fedora folk will still be there, though, and if anyone wants to talk about sVirt and get involved in some really cool and innovative hacking, catch up with me.

The main hall has been set aside for an entire day to host a Linux Kernel Hacker Gathering (LKHG), with sessions on Filesystems, Tracing, Power Management and Porting. It seems that this will be something like an open mini kernel summit, with participants to include Suparna Bhattacharya, Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli, Christoph Hellwig, Aneesh Kumar K V, Balbir Singh, Srikanth Srinivasan, Harald Welte, Srivatsa Vaddagiri, Amit Shah, myself, and Dipankar Sarma.

The final slot will be open for lightning talks from the audience, with the kernel hacker panel providing feedback, followed by an open Q&A session. This is somewhat based on the format of the LF symposium BoF day, and will be a great opportunity for people working on kernel projects to bounce their ideas off upstream kernel hackers. This includes people working on drivers and various kernel projects which are not currently upstream (i.e. work projects), who would like to get some advice on how to get their project upstreamed and how to work more effectively with the community.

A CfP will go out for the lightning talks soon, so if you want to participate, keep an eye out for that.

The organizers have made a video to promote and explain the conference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfx8upiFlbY

And yes, you can hack on the roof of the building, or even hold talks: there’s an outdoor auditorium up there.

Currently, there’s over 900 delegates registered, which is a lot for a developer conference. (Linux Plumbers had 300, IIRC).

I think this promotional banner sums up my experience so far:

Not your typical Linux conference, by any means.

FOSS.my was just awesome

I’m on my way back to Sydney from Kuala Lumpur, following FOSS.my, Malaysia’s first major grassroots FOSS conference. Amazingly, Colin Charles and the team managed to organize the event from scratch in six weeks, attracting two full days worth of regional and local speakers.

Whiteboard Masterplan
If ever a whiteboard needed a “do not erase” sign, this would be it.

Based loosely on the formats of similar conferences in India and Australia, this first effort for SE Asia seems to be off to a great start, and I think we can expect an expanded event next year. The keynotes were all very interesting, and I especially appreciated being able to learn about all the various FOSS issues and efforts in Malaysia.

Several side-sessions ran in parallel with the main talks, where rooms were provided for projects including Ubuntu, Fedora and FOSSChix.my, the latter featuring sessions led by Pia Waugh and Pamela Fox. There were quite a lot of lightning talks, which I think were probably the most fun to attend, perhaps apart from the speakers dinner in the nightclub area of KL.

FossChix.my Ad
FOSSChix.my side session.
Jaya Kumar closed out the conference with a thought-provoking keynote, covering some issues he’s faced in his local community, and reminding us to ensure that we need to be vigilant in confronting instances of prejudice in all of our online communities.

Hallway Track
The hallway track, five stories up.
I gave a talk on the Anatomy of Fedora Kiosk Mode, the slides of which can be downloaded here. There’s also more photos.

It was great meeting everyone, and I hope to be back again next year.