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OpenBSD Hackathon Approaching
BsdFreakZoid writes "OpenBSD developers from all over the world get together once a year at their annual 'hackathon'. This year's hackathon is about to start with around 60 developers, taking place in Calgary, Alberta in Canada from May 21st through May 28th. KernelTrap has spoken with a number of OpenBSD developers about this year's and past hackathons. OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt is quoted saying, "a few hackathons ago we had a slogan of 'shut up and hack', this is because hackathons are not conferences. People don't come to chit-chat, but to do what projects do. Some other projects hold discussion meetings, I would call those talkathons. We don't discuss, we do." Past OpenBSD hackathons have seen the introduction of SMP support, support for the amd64 architecture, and many other significant advances. What big advance will come out of the 2005 hackathon is yet to be seen."
"normally, we have to sit down and write a long explanation email in order to communicate, and people are in different timezones, so the feedback is often less than fast. Being able to go directly up to somebody and perhaps even work together on a task in real-time, is a big plus."
"The reduction in distance and time augments the dialog between developers working in related areas, and some new projects can even spontaneously emerge on their own."
As always, RTFAIt isn't that there is no talking, they do go out drinking and hiking and talk while doing so - it's just that they should have a general idea of what they want to do before they head to Calgary anyways.
They're there for seven days and are given a good chance to plan out what they're doing ahead of time, so although new ideas do pop up there, it's not like it's total chaos.
Things like the rewrite of dhcpd came out of those kinds of discussions.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
That would be St-Catherine Street in Montreal...
It's by invitation only.
Theo and some of his visitors over the years have been very generous about speaking at meetings of the Calgary Unix Users Group.
This year, we cap off our best month in history, in which we have Richard M. Stallman speaking on May 18 at the University Science Theatres (seats 500). Less than a week later, Theo and the entire 50-ish turnout for the Hackathon, invited to the John Dutton Theatre of the main downtown library (seats 400), on May 24th.
The topic is PF, the packet filter; and the scheduled speaker, Ryan McBride - but the rest of the PF team will be there for question & answer. And with the entire Hackathon invited, the topic could wander a bit.
If you can make it, look for details at our web site:
http://www.cuug.ab.ca/
Roy Brander, P.Eng.
Chair, Calgary Unix Users Group
No, Windsor, ON is the strip club capital of Canada.
More strip clubs per capita than any other city.
Disclaimer: I am very involved with CUUG (current President)
That is unusual! I donated a couple of things (a 3com card with onboard encryption and a broadcast card) and was always answered promptly. Keep trying! These guys love getting new toys!