FOSDEM is near, and i’m looking forward to it. I’ve only been 4 times, as opposed to real pure-blood open-sourcers who helped organized the first event 8 years ago. But then i only discovered Linux in 2000, much to my everlasting shame.
As a side note, wee article about Linus Torvalds commenting on Mac OS X. I agree with a lot of his remarks
Moreover, the marketing around OS releases such as Vista or Mac OS X Leopard is really mostly about the visual shell around the OS, rather than the core functions themselves, Torvalds said.
And he’s not exactly praising Mac OS X. I was considering buying a MacBook Pro, now i’m hesitating again. Truth be said, i feel quite comfy with my Linux desktop.
Although, i think i might give FreeBSD a shot. I mean, everyone knows Linux now, so it’s time to move on to a new edge. I’ll have to check out what’s on the OS horizon.
Anyway, back to FOSDEM. I’m looking forward to it because this year i’ll know some more people. Last few years i was a lone voice in the wilderness, trying to roust my apathetic colleagues to go and enjoy the variety of open source. No such luck. So i wandered around by my self, chatting at stands, enjoying myself, but in a quite solitary way.
This year, thanks to the geekdinners, i know some of participants (and even organizers !). I’ll go check out the beer event at that utter tourist joint, the Delirium Tremens.
I’ll sign my gpg key at the keysigning party. And I’ll be sure to stop by the Ruby and Rails devroom, where there’ll be some more familiar faces. Sounds like a good week-end to me.
I’m been confronted with FreeBSD a lot lately, as a new customer has different boxes. As I’m learning the ins and outs of it, I must say it really is a well thought out, consistent in design, and thanks to the ports system very much more close to Open Source, as you have more choice over which version you want to install.
It wouldn’t attract me Desktop wize though.
It’s gonna be my first FOSDEM, although I wanted to attend for years. Hope it’s as half interesting as they say!
With my FreeBSD hat on: I highly recommend FreeBSD of course.
Regarding the touristy nature of the Delirium Café: I have to disagree with that gratuitous label. Pretty much everything around the Grand Place in Brussels can be tagged with ‘touristy’ if you’re so inclined.
To make an extreme understatement: organizing ‘a drink’ for a herd of a couple of hundred geeks is not ‘easy’. Finding a bar that can handle a herd like that is also not easy.
@zeta : you will like it ! there’s a good atmosphere.
@philip : it was not meant as a criticism of your excellent organization !!! It’s just that everytime i’ve been (personnally), well, there were a lot of tourists. But the beer list is excellent, and there’s plenty of reasons why it’s a good choice.
@philip & svg : i’ll install freebsd then, just to give it a whirl, if not as a desktop installation.
I agree even more with the sentence before the one you quote: “An OS should never have been something that people really care about… it should be completely invisible.”
I have been using Mac OS X for years, but eventually I returned to my first love, Debian. Mac OS X is really a fine operating system, but for power users, efficiency freaks and on older hardware it isn’t a match for GNU/Linux.
Saw the key signing party today, think it’s fun, but have you ever had any practical use of it?
Well, for sending messages amongst people who’ve got a trusted key i suppose. with enigmail it’s quite easy to use. But i must admit that for now it’s just for fun and practice.