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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."

9 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Suvivor: Calgary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny


    "we have a barbecue at Theo's at the beginning of the hackathon, to get to know the new people." [...] "we go out for food or coffee in small groups."

    ...and at the end of the day they vote someone off the island.

  2. 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
  3. Donations by almeida · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you like OpenBSD or OpenSSH, now might be a good time to donate a little bit to the project. Donations help pay for stuff like this hackathon. Considering buying a CD, t-shirt, or just giving some cash. This can be done at the orders page. They also accept hardware donations.

  4. Re:No discussion? by molnarcs · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Have your read the article? ;) That's one of the questions it answers very clearly:
    I was curious to understand more about what happens at the OpenBSD hackathons, and if there is a goal or focus behind each one. Henning Brauer laughed and explained, "there is no focus for the hackathons. I mean, get real, you can't work on a single thing with over 50 (over 60 this time) developers." Peter Valchev added, "there is no specific focus for any of the events, everyone gets together and works on whatever they want to. Really it all works out by itself, because the developers know what's important to work on - it's not something they need to be told."
    This is a really nice interview - and shows that openbsd is a nicely managed distribution... I mean there is a strong sense of community among their developers, and social events like these serve to enchance that sense. This was funny:
    Bob Beck, who is responsible for making the barbecue happen, notes, "the barbeque has become sort of a tradition, We host it at Theo's house, normally with whatever meat I've managed to bag the previous hunting season. Normally it's moose and/or deer marinated kebabs with raisin rice pilaf. The recipe is recorded for posterity in any openbsd distribution in /usr/share/games/recipes, in hackathon proportions."
  5. Re:big development for this year ... by Bill+Wong · · Score: 4, Funny

    Speaking for myself, I switched to DragonFlyBSD because of one person - Matt Dillon.

    I must assume it works the other way around too.

  6. Calgary? by BioCS.Nerd · · Score: 4, Funny

    Calgary? Isn't that the strip club capitol of Canada? How do they expect geeks to hack when there's readily available naked women geeks can see for the first time? ;) In all seriousness, good luck! May your coding be swift, and may your debugger bless you.

  7. Here's an idea by ninja_assault_kitten · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe they can hack Theos mind to support a personality.

  8. 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

  9. Calgary as hackathon venue by WebCowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Calgary? Isn't that the strip club capitol of Canada?

    I can tell you as a native Calgarian that Calgary is far from being the strip club capitol of Canada. The reason probably has to do with the fact that active members of the OpenBSD community live here more than anything else--that and the fact Calgary is a very well-connected city (among the most-wired cities in North America and maybe the best in Canada along with maybe Ottawa and Vancouver).

    A little OT but maybe interesting to some:

    Although Calgary and Alberta is not nearly as red-neck/socially conservative as people outside the province often make it out to be, Calgary (and indeed all the prarie provinces) have quite a puritan heritage--for example, Alberta was led by a premier nicknamed "Bible Bill" Aberhart for many years, and in Calgary from prohibition well into the 60s men and women couldn't be in mixed company in any venue that served alcohol (in later days--1950's the city relaxed laws allowing establishments to serve alcohol to both genders in the same room during the Exhibition and Stampede).

    Things have changed a lot since then, but Calgary still doesn't have that big an appetite for strip clubs considering the size of the city. If post-hacking peeler-shows is what they were after I think they would pick a venue somewhere in Quebec--it seems that province embraced more socially liberal attitudes than anywhere else in Canada, except for a few interesting exceptions (in terms of equality for women it was opposite--Alberta and the praries were ahead of the game there and Quebec was the last province in Canada with universal sufferage).

    Maybe that is why Ottawa is known for it's Linux activity--it is both a high-tech city AND is closer to the stripper-action as it sits on the Ontario-Quebec border.