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OpenBSD Hackathon Approaching

Posted by Hemos on from the development-forward dept.

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."

2 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No discussion? by Arbin · · Score: 4, Informative
    Perhaps if you read the article, this snippet might have answered your question:

    "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, RTFA
  2. There will be at least ONE public discussion by rbrander · · Score: 5, Informative

    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