After an insane two weeks, I am back at home in sunny Wolverhampton. A few weeks back I flew out to Boston, headed to Cambridge and attended FOSSCamp and the Ubuntu Developer Summit. The following week it was then off to nearby Plymouth for Canonical’s week-long Allhands shin-dig. I know that last year the UDS/Allhands combination was a pretty intense few weeks on both the work and social fronts, but with the addition of FOSSCamp and a lot more people at these events, it was one hectic trip, and my liver is keeping me awake at night crying.
FOSSCamp was a great success and very productive for the many participants. It was great to see so many upstreams coming together, and in addition to the attendees that came along, I was also really pleased to meet up with my friends Joe Shaw, Miguel de Icaza, Aaron Bockover, Jon Masters, David Zeuthen and Zaheda Bhorat. One of the aspects of FOSSCamp that I particular enjoyed was that it attracted such a diverse crowd and the discussions were both fun and productive.
UDS was an active, high-paced week and resulted in some particularly interesting specs. We got rid of the drafting sessions at this UDS so it resulted in a lot more time for actual discussions, and this was eagerly utilised to get specs as mature as possible before they went to the drafting phase. We also added a bunch of round-table sessions which were particularly useful for the community track. It was a long, tough week, and by the end, everyone was pretty tired from the amount of work that week – it sounds like we all just sit around talking, but outside the core spec sessions there are lots of additional discussions, plans and meetings that place in the corridors, bars and restaurants where UDS is happening. In the organisational team we felt it was the best UDS yet (this was my third, and I felt like it was by far the best), and I look forward to the event continuing to mature and grow. I will be leading much of the organisation for future Ubuntu Developer Summits as part of my team, so I welcome all comments on how we can improve them to jono AT ubuntuREMOVETHIS DOT com.
I think its safe to say that the UDS is a pretty rock ‘n roll event. At each of three I have been to, the evening social events have been pretty rip roaringly crazy. Well, this one was no different, and we happily took over a local watering hole called the Asgard (an Irish pub, oddly), and spent many evenings there or at another place called The Miracle Of Science. The drink of choice for the trip was the Jager Bomb – a half pint of Red Bull with a shot of Jagermeister in a shot glass inside the pint glass. Ben Collins (leader of the kernel team) and I had a fair few evenings hitting the bombs, with one particular evening netting somewhere in the region of six bombs and three or four beers for good measure. In between the evening sessions at the Asgard we also managed to celebrate Halloween, American style, and the [evidence can be seen here](https://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1219). Oh dear.
It was then over to Plymouth on the Saturday for Allhands. This is where we as a company have discussions, get to know each other and present to others our work in our respective departments. We heard talks from the Ubuntu, business, Launchpad, Landscape, global support/services, community and other teams. It was a great week, lots got done, and it was great to meet a bunch of new faces in the company. On the Thursday we also had CanoniJam07, in which a bunch of musicians in the company got up and played some tunes. A good week. At the end of all this, I flew to Heathrow with a bunch of colleagues and then got the train back to Wolves with Matt Revell.
It was an insane few weeks and consequently, I am shattered. One of the worst things about travel is getting home to the relatively boring and average Wolverhampton after a few weeks of being around smart, entertaining, interesting people and having a great time working and being social. Maybe it is time to move on to new living pastures, particularly as I have a job which means I can work from home.
