Also the party at the disco was good, but (unfortunately) only few girls attended the party (opensource + business = very few girls :-/ ), so my dear friend Kanarip had to “climb” the cube and entertain the audience… (red hat: please, next time in disco invites more girls and keep away Kanarip from alcoholics…)

Jim

Kanarip

Malta bus… crazy cars…

In few days we’ll be able to push online also new Symbolic web site!
Keep in touch and enjoy new symbolic version

http://magazine.redhat.com/2009/02/13/video-fudcon-11/

…download it in Ogg format

As usual the “Fedora Blue Team” was one of the most visible and active community at the event.

Unfortunately Fosdem is very “quick” (only Saturday and Sunday). So I spent just few hours on sessions (I wanted to attend more sessions, but scheduling was a terrible mess…) to dedicate much more time on “networking” activities.

I’ve met lot of people, and we got lot of goals (new events organization, projects roadmap and so on), and I’ve been shocked about how many Italian guys were present!!! For sure we were more then 50 (fifty!) guys. Terrific!

The drawback about this “full-load” scheduling was the impossibility to participate at some events…. for example I totally missed the Friday dinner with fedora team (flight was late), the beer at Churchill’s pub (I got the pud after 11.00 PM… to late to meet nerds… ) and the the activity of Sunday afternoon. But I’m pretty satisfied about Fosdem. It’s probably the most important event concerning “open source communities” all over the Europe.

So, here I am (as usual) with some photos and a little review about the event.

First of all I have to describe my adventure with the Air France flight (Milan-Paris-NYC) during a impressive snow storm… My flight never took off… I changed two different flights in Milan, to get in Paris just in time to miss my flight to New York.

Very good start!

I spent a night in Paris (Air France voucher was for a night+dinner+breakfast in a hotel closed to Euro Disneyland! Very cool! …but pretty useless.. I got to the hotel near 11 PM… to late for a trip in the park…), then a 8 hours flight to New York.

I love New York, and I got the opportunity to spend a night in the Big Apple.

Then I took a bus (4.30 hours), and I got in (a very cold) Boston on Thursday evening.

Friday was dedicated to different hack sessions (puppet, infrastructure team meeting, etc…), and Saturday, as usual, was proposed as Bar Camps event.

In the afternoon I’ve presented a session about FUNC and SYMBOLIC, and I’ve found a couple of guys really interested to be developers of these two very exciting projects (fudcon rocks!!!!!)

On Friday evening I, Kanarip, Sthepan and Jonathan went to a “very-expensive” (discovered when it was to late….) steak house. Very good meat, and probably the best cheese-cake I’ve ever eaten in USA.

On Sunday I left fudcon for a while with Simo Sorce and his wife to visit MIT Museum (a nerd really can’t miss this place!). Next Christmas I want to give as a gift to Lucia’s little nieces the “DNA Lego” series (basically a magnetic Lego that simulates a DNA chains…)

Then, unfortunately, I had to left Boston to get home by Logan Airport (probably the best organized airport I’ve ever seen in my live).

As usual FUDCON is a place where you can feel yourself at home, where you find always new contributors for your projects, and where you see new exciting projects that you want to contribute.

It’s something like work, holiday, training, vacation and social networks mixed all together to create new, exiting method of collaborations.

I’ll surely be present to next fudcon! and I’ll try to get some friends and colleagues with me!

See you then

Here you are some shots taken during last Byte-Code Christmas Dinner (well… it was more or less a “Byte-Code” drinking party actually… too many drinks…)

…he isn’t Catalin, it’s a gift found under the Christmas tree…

We got a “mexican” happy hours with a presentation (thanks Gianluca) about fedora 10 and fedora community.

It was a really good chance to meet other “north-Italian” ambassadors (I, Luca, Gianluca, Andrea and Alex), and some Italian fedora developers (Marco)…. Fedora still rocks

It was in Basel last weekend, and it saw more then 20 Fedora Ambassadors involved into activities planning for next year.

…and, of course, it came out with some very funny social events, like the visit at Botanic Garden and a great city trip.

What do you think if next FAD will be in Italy? Too far?

Last week I was in Rome and Milan to join a couple of “free-as-a-beer” event, and I really enjoyed it! At the end I counted more or less 150 pints of (free) beer. I hope to see new calendar soon for other cities

…and, of course, all beers are provided by Byte-Code for free!!!