Created: 01 Mar 2005
I’m back from a thoroughly enjoyable weekend at FOSDEM 2005 in Brussels. I spent my days listening to clever people talk about free software and met some people that I usually only see on IRC. Evenings were dedicated to the consumption of fine Belgian beer and food. Here were the highlights:
Sadly, some things irritated me. Some of the speakers were barely audible. In most of the cases I think this could have been corrected after a sound check beforehand. I was less than impressed that some sections of the audience started chatting, which hardly improved matters. The constant entry and exit of people interupted the flow of speakers and the concentration of the audience. I was late for one lecture, but I made every effort to be as quiet and inobtrusive as possible on entry. I didn’t barge in to a lecture theatre, noisily slam down the folding seats, engage in chit-chat with my friends and then leave a few minutes later, starting a loud conversation outside the lecture theatre before the door had even closed. This is plainly inconsiderate, rude behaviour, especially when considering the hours of preparation that the volunteer, unpaid speakers have put in and the long distances some of them travelled to attend.
There were also some unfortunate delays to the Lightning Talk schedule on Sunday. I did have plans to attend some of the talks in the afternoon, but in the end decided that I couldn’t guarantee to keep to my itinerary if I tried to attend specific Lightning Talks. Hopefully the organisers will find some way to keep to the schedule in future.
But these are minor detractions from what was an interesting and unique event; thanks very much to the FOSDEM organisers. I strongly recommend attendance at future events to anyone with a serious interest in Free and Open Source Software.
The most surprising thing of all – I didn’t buy any geek t-shirts or books, despite the O’Reilly stand and the abundance of stands selling t-shirts!
Some photo galleries, supplied by friends of mine: