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December 17, 2008

The Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) was held last Dec. 5. It happens every six months at changing locations to discuss what will be in the next release of Ubuntu.

The mostly unpublicized FOSScamp always meets the weekend before. The FOSScamp un-conference has no program, no invited speakers and costs nothing.

On its first day, Ubuntu participants started arriving at the recent FOSScamp, held at the Google campus. The large whiteboard in the lobby advertising conference sessions was completely blank. Anyone can pick up a marker and schedule a presentation in one of the five conference rooms. The speakers are self-selected and self-proclaimed.

Soon about 40 minutes later, the whiteboard began to fill in with sessions such as Linux Audio, Easy LDAP Mgmt, Bug Triage in KDE, OpenID, Bootable USB Keys, Bzr/Loggerhead, Handheld Use Cases, encryptfs, Visualizing Digital Media Collections, OSS Writing, and a few more.

A conference like FOSScamp includes surprising open source topics you may not find at a chaired conference. And not every available slot gets filled in with a specific Linux topic. A hot topic may not have much scheduled against it, as speakers are also attendees and don't want to miss it.

Many of the attendees at FOSScamp work for Canonical, which has more than 200 employees in 23 countries. "I got to go because I work for Canonical," says Lars Wirzenius. "I enjoy seeing the variety of different free software projects present. It is always nice to see the kinds of things other people do."

Fostering cooperation between various distributions and FOSS projects is what FOSScamp is all about.

"You can come totally unprepared and create your own talk-topic on the spot if you wish," says Mirco Muller, who traveled to the event from Berlin. "One might have some ideas initially before arriving, but you might also be inspired by the people you meet there on-site and the projects they represent." Muller works with OpenGL, Cairo, GATreamer and real-time computer graphics.

During his session, Muller showed how to install his OpenGL version of GSTreamer, gl-GST-player, which does real-time High-Definition video playback.

"I admit I went to FOSScamp mostly because I was also attending UDS," says Adam Sommer, who works as a Linux sysadmin for a small college in North Carolina. "The great thing about FOSScamp is the laid back attitude. Less regimented meetings make for a great atmosphere for learning about new things. The chance to interact with very smart people is a great opportunity."

The most valuable sessions for most was the OSS Leadership and a session on technical documentation writing.

"Participation is ownership in the open source community," says Open Source Initiative board member Danese Cooper. "If you don't show up for the ongoing conversation, you're not in the game. Most interesting are the edge topics -- not the ones about how to code better Python, but the ones about how to approach documentation, and tech writing generally, from a FOSS perspective. I also appreciated the session about exploring open source business models from the point of view of which have netted monetary success."

"In the writing session it was great to learn some things from people who write technical articles on a professional, or semi-professional basis," Sommer says. "The leadership session was insightful for me because it was my first time to hear about the experiences of an OSS project leader, aside from Ubuntu leaders."

"The most interesting aspect is finding people coming from different experiences and different projects all together sharing their own experiences," says the Ubuntu Italian Translators team administrator Milo Casagrande, who works on the Italian translations for GNOME. "It's my first experience at FOSSCamp. It doesn't have a specific track. In the real spirit of free software, it's free and up to you to create it."

"Overall, FOSScamp is a good opportunity to meet other PackageKit developers, and see how we can solve our problems," says Adrien Bustany. "I was able to go to FOSSCamp because Canonical sponsored my trip. I'm working on the Qt bindings for PackageKit."

"I learned a lot about technical issues that are mobile-specific," says KDE BugSquad co-founder Alex Spehr. "I found myself observing how people used their mobile devices. Discussion about them popped up at the most random times. I also found the OpenSocial session to be very interesting. The combination of mobile computers and social networking is very powerful."

"I think it's important for marketing as well, not just Linux developers, to go into conferences," says Xubuntu marketing lead Pasi Lallinaho. Based in Helsinki, Lallinaho works on Ubuntu Web sites, artwork, and global television advertising.

"FOSScamp is a good place to meet other people and get actual feedback from developers, because the feedback given online, on IRC and forums, is sometimes very fuzzy."

Overall, delivering and installing Linux or open source software isn't enough. You basically want to measure usage and open a channel between the user and the upstream. Ubuntu's role is to enable our community to do good things and to do productive things.

At the end of the day, a stronger Linux and open source community can result in more free software being made and this is what it's all about.

Source: Ubuntu.

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