Binary Badass

Every year, my friends and I pack up and head to Columbus, Ohio for the annual Ohio Linuxfest Linux and Open Source Convention. This year was no exception. Note: This article has a very broad overview of the entire event. Details will be posted in future articles on here. Without further ado, onward readers!

This year, the following people were there:

Cleric / Shinary
EANx
Agrajag
Rhettigan
PFDegnan

Others were going to join, but they were either unable or unwilling to perform the necessary functions for event participation. Nonetheless, the event proved to be well worth the trip as usual. I’ll break everything down as follows:

Trip To Ohio:

Cleric, PFDegnan and I hopped into the Element for the drive to Ohio. This drive seems to get shorter and shorter every year. Even driving at the relatively conservative speed of 70 mph, we arrived in Columbus approximately 2 hours after we left Pittsburgh. My GPS got us there quickly, didn’t get us lost and cranked out the jams.

Hotel:

As we have done for the second year in a row, we stayed at the Drury Inn and Suites which is physically connected to the convention center. This is the epitome of stress-free travel, especially for an event such as this. Although I thought the parking was a little steep at $12/day, the very reasonable room rate of $109/night more than made up for it; especially considering that my vehicle didn’t move an inch while we were there.

The room was clean and tidy, if a slight bit institutional. The free high-speed Internet was a little slow but considering that the hotel was fully booked with Linux users, this is to be expected. The staff are very friendly and courteous. I will definitely stay here again next year.

Event:

The event itself was great. An opening keynote by Zonker had me reveling in the sense of community that was in that room. The talks I attended were as follows:

Xen - Don Vossburg
iSCSI For The Hobbyist - Jim Wildman
Open AFS:How Becoming Open Source Changed AFS, and Everything you need to know to start Using it Today. - Esther “Moose” Filderman
Linux Robotics - Scott Preston
Managing Your Free Open Source Software Career - Paul Ferris
Sustainable Computing - Jon ‘maddog’ Hall

Without exception, every single talk left me thinking about things that I am going to try to do when I first got home. The hard part about coming home from an event like this is that it is such an eye-opener that you want to try to do everything at once, which is of course not a good idea because you’ll never get everything done. So I am prioritizing my tasks thus: Procure a new computer, install Xen, install different instances, build a robot, write some code, change the world, be merry.

Afterparty:

As usual, the afterparty that the Ohio Linuxfest organizers held was fun, though some of the spirit that I saw at parties gone past seemed to be lacking. I can’t quite put my foot on it, but there didn’t seem to be as many people present, let alone enough people arguing over vi vs. emacs. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t fun to be had. No siree, the spirits flowed freely, many candid discussions were partaken in and there was much geekiness to behold. Entertainment was provided by Notacon and Dual Core. All in all, the afterparty was still lots of fun, but it seemed to have lost a little something.

My Takeaway:

My takeaway on this is that there is nothing that the open source community cannot do. This is as much of a learning event as it is a social networking event. I feel as though I accomplished several goals; made a few contacts and feel empowered to change the future of free open source software. The only question that this leaves me is; where do I start?