BTW, I'm including here a mail sent by Dann Frazier - It's not concise enough (and it's not done for the right target audience, IMHO) to be incorporated literally, even for whole sections to be scraped from it... But it can surely help whoever wants to add content. As it was directed to our internal working mail alias only, I'm including it here in whole. -- Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244 PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23 Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 11:53:17PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > Hi > > if you attended DebConf6 - how about you send us a little statement > about your impression of it? We are *finally* preparing the Final Report > for it and would want to include a number of impressions attendees got. > > It doesnt need to be much, between 3 lines and a page of text. Only > format needed is that of paragraphs, rest is done by us. Please include > a little information about how we should print your name, ie simple "Joe > Random" or "Joe Random, $YOUR_COMPANIES_NAME". > > Send everything to report@debconf.org please. Here's some stuff taggart and I wrote up for an HP trip report (in mediawiki syntax), w/ various HP-specific things trimmed out. If you can use it, great, if not, that's fine too. == Conference == [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/jj0507/dscn1267.jpg https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/jj0507/dscn1267.sized.jpg]<br> [http://debconf6.debconf.org/ debconf6] - The 7th Annual Debian Conference Oaxtepec, Mexico - May 14-22, 2006 == Location == Oaxtepec is a small town south of Mexico city ([http://debconf6.debconf.org/venue/oaxtepec3.png map] | [http://debconf6.debconf.org/venue/ details]). The conference was held at a "Vacational Center" that is run by the Mexican Institute for Social Security (IMSS). The site has several hotels, dining halls, meeting rooms and lecture halls, and recreational facilities. It had a large olympic-sized [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/dc6_aigarius_best/img_5723_2.sized.jpg pool] and also 1m and 3m diving boards and 5m and 10m [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/bubulle-debconf6/dsc01218.sized.jpg platforms]. taggart even jumped off them (no picture, sorry) == Attendees == 260 people attended (44 from Mexico, the rest from 37 different countries [http://munin.debconf.org/debconf.org/cmburns.debconf.org-comas_country-day.png graph ]). [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/aigars/dc6_group_photo_big.jpg https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/aigars/dc6_group_photo_big.sized.jpg] Attendee photo One of the attendees (Lars) had the neat idea to take pictures of people holding a notebook with their name written on it. You can view those [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots here] HP's [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/Mugshots/CIMG0223.sized.jpg Dann Frazier], [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/anibal/dscf0866.sized.jpg Bdale Garbee], [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/Mugshots/CIMG0226.sized.jpg Troy Heber], [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/Mugshots/CIMG0227.sized.jpg LaMont Jones] and [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/Mugshots/CIMG0318.sized.jpg Matt Taggart] attended the conference. == Schedule == [http://debconf6.debconf.org/about/schedule/ Schedule] There were six days of talks with one day scheduled for sightseeing in the middle. There were two tracks, main talks in the Tower and smaller talks in the Hacklab meeting room. Talks were 45 minutes long and scheduled from 10am to 7pm with 15min breaks between talks and an hour for lunch. Evenings were reserved for Birds Of a Feather sessions (BOFs), meetings, and hacking. == Talks == The main talks were held in the [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/gwolf/dsc01353.sized.jpg "Tower"] building. [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/bubulle-debconf6/dsc00975.sized.jpg Speakers] stood in the center and the audience was seated at fixed tables [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/dc6_aigarius_best/img_4699_2.sized.jpg around] the center. There were two projection [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/bubulle-debconf6/dsc01011.sized.jpg screens] to ensure that everyone could see. The talked were recorded with a Digital Video camera, and streamed to the internet. These recordings are available [http://meetings-archive.debian.net/Public/debian-meetings/2006/debconf6/ online], and are temporarily mirrored [http://linux.fc.hp.com/~dannf/debconf6 on linux.fc.hp.com]. === HP talks === * bdale gave a talk titled "[https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/74 Governance of the Debian Project]" * taggart did a [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/37 lightning talk] titled "[http://wiki.debian.org/DebConf6LightningTalks#head-b3be4a70463989f461de90fcf37ba3163cc71f12 How to get debian-admin to help you]" * dannf ran a Kernel BOF === Talk notes === These are notes from some of the talks attended by HP folks, * [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/77 Optimizing boot time]: Cool work making debian boot faster, with neat boot graphs. * [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/42 GPLv3 and Debian]: Overview of the GPL3 revision process of which the presenter is involved. I (taggart) came away with much better impression of how v3 is being developed. The people involved are doing good work. * [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/41 Let's port together. Debian fun for everyone]: Overview of Debian architecture porting issues and methods. Some neat tricks for finding and fixing problems. * [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/52 Debian and the $100 Laptop]: Jim Gettys now works on the One Laptop for Every Child Project [http://laptop.org http://laptop.org]. He explained the design constraints the project is under and gave project status. Really cool. * [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/32 Debian Installer internals]: Frans Pop, one of the leaders of the d-i team, gave an overview of the d-i architecture and walked the audience through an exercise of building a component to add to the installer (his example was a joke EULA click-through-license module). * [https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/29 Codes of Value: An Anthropological Analysis of Hacker Values]: Gabriella Coleman wrote her Anthropology phD thesis on hackers and studied Debian hackers extensively. This talk was based on one chapter in her thesis (soon to be a book) and it was very interesting to hear and outsiders perspective on Debian/hacker culture. * Lightning Talks: The lightning talks were new this year and were very well received. Each presenter talked for 3-5 minutes and we learned a little bit about a whole bunch of topics. The organizers plan to do this again in future years. == Hacking == There were two identical hacklab buildings, each with a [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/bubulle-debconf6/dsc00988.sized.jpg large room] setup for hacking, a [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/bubulle-debconf6/dsc01033.sized.jpg small room] for BOFs and impromptu meetings, and a covered [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/jj0517/dscn1466.sized.jpg patio] where you could work outside or chill out and talk to people. * [[DannFrazier]] spent most of the time working with [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0285 Moritz Muehlenhoff] to finally release the last set of [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernelWoodyUpdateStatus kernel security updates for woody], and (with the help of Troy Heber) began work on the [http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernelSargeUpdateStatus third round of kernel security updates for sarge]. * Troy Heber helped dannf go through huge lists of CVEs to determine if they apply to particular kernels and if so what fixes were needed. * Matt Taggart ** poked around lintian source for the first time and wrote an enhancement to check that packages that use libX11 include a menu file. ** tracked down a font problem in xdm, related to the X11R6 path change ** found and filed a bug on a bunch of manpage problems due to the XFree86 to Xorg transition == BOFs, Meetings, and Discussions == * I ([[DannFrazier]]) attended the [http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ Debian-Installer (d-i)] BOF and stable-release BOF sessions, and then led a kernel Ad-Hoc BOF that spun off from them. These sessions were incredibly productive - the kernel BOF ended up lasting nearly 3 hours, as I recall, instead of the scheduled one hour because of the amount of progress we were making. I sent [http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/05/msg00322.html notes from this discussion] out to various lists. These discussions were the highlight of DebConf for me, and alone were worth the trip. ** We discussed the idea of a "etch and a half" update where we would '''add''' an additional kernel to the next stable release, thereby removing what is considered the largest problem with Debian stable releases: lack of support for new hardware. [http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/05/msg00250.html debian-kernel thread]. We would then proceed with supporting both kernels throughout the lifetime of etch. ** We also discussed the possibility of adding new hardware support to sarge by backporting updated drivers into a point release - the new stable release team is a lot more flexible here, so this does look possible. ** We determined that the firmware non-free work is one of the riskiest issues with the etch release schedule. There are a number of steps here that need to happen in serial. ** We decided not to try to decide the kernel revision for etch at this time (a [http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/05/msg00130.html discussion] on this topic had started just before debconf); instead, we will take a wait-and-see approach, but start by getting 2.6.16 into etch for the next d-i beta. ** We decided to postpone the next update to sarge in order to include the next round of security updates, since they were scheduled around the same time. This turned out to be problematic, as the kernel update is now blocking the next point release of sarge ([http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2006/06/msg00077.html debian-release thread]). ** We discussed condensing the lkdi udeb builds into a single package (the kernel repackaged into components for the installer). We came up with a set of steps that need to be carried out for this to happen, but decided it isn't a release critical issue. ** We decided that, though we would try not to break userspace support for a 2.4 kernel, we wouldn't provide a 2.4 kernel in etch. [http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/05/msg00249.html debian-kernel thread]. We didn't realize that we still had 2.2 kernels around, so we didn't explicitly decide to remove them. This was [http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/05/msg00324.html reported later]. * dannf and taggart met with Mark Shuttleworth(Canonical), Matt Zimmerman(Canonical), and Michael Jennings(Intel), and talked about the ongoing multiarch/dpkg work, various topics, and had a few drinks :) * taggart ** met with [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0214 Andreas Schuldei] to discuss LSB compliance for etch, multiarch, Debian funding methods, and other stuff. ** met with the Debian Sys-Admin team members elmo, [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0329 neuro], and [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0147_001 fil] and talked about deploying new machines and setting up some monitoring and documentation infrastructure. ** met with [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0134 Lars] to discuss the new server for running piuparts. ** talked to [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0298 Christian] about some l10n ideas ** finally got to meet [https://gallery.debconf.org/Mugshots/CIMG0255 Manoj] who I have known via IRC for years but hadn't met in person We all had countless other interactions with developers that we've worked with online or met at previous debconf's. It's really nice to meet in person some times. == Socializing and Culture == One night there was a formal dinner. When we arrived at the banquet hall we discovered that the organizers had arranged the tables in a large Debian [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/maulkin/img_7440.sized.jpg swirl]. The food was cooked by the local organizers and was great and very well organized. For entertainment a local [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/maulkin/img_7466.sized.jpg mariachi band] played which was amazing. Due to a mix up in registration, we did not get sponsored meals which turned out to be a good thing since we didn't want the organizers spending sponsorship money on us. There was an on site restaurant in the Tower that we ate at and also made the short walk into town for meals. Durning the day there was a really cool food [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/bubulle-debconf6/dsc01020.sized.jpg market] with each [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/dc6_aigarius_best/img_5081_2.sized.jpg vendor] having a small space for their stove and seating around that. We were definitely eating authentic Mexican food and even got to try some interesting local things like cactus and fried crickets (taggart was glad he's vegetarian). ([http://static.flickr.com/44/148431589_c287d874c4.jpg?v=0 taggart] | [http://static.flickr.com/48/148432068_19928e090f.jpg?v=0 dannf and lamont] ). Few of the locals in town spoke much english, so we had to get by on the spanish we knew. It was hard at times, but we did OK. At the end of the trip dannf and taggart took a side trip to Zihuatanejo ([http://www.zihuatanejo.net/images/guerreromap.gif map]) which is a small touristy fishing village north of Acapulco. == Other resources == debconf6 [http://wiki.debian.org/?DebConf6 wiki] Pictures * [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/anibal/dscf1037.sized.jpg dannf] * [https://gallery.debconf.org/albums/anibal/dscf1006.sized.jpg dannf and troyh] -- dann frazier
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