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."

Comments

Suvivor: Calgary

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Donations

[almeida]

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.

Re:No discussion?

[molnarcs]

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."

There will be at least ONE public discussion

[rbrander]

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