So for the second time I attended LCA. This year it was in Wellington, New Zealand. Strange because it’s called Linux Conference “Australia” but I guess New Zealand is close enough to qualify despite needing my passport to attend.
I’ll spare my audience from the nerdly technical details of the talks at the conference but suffice to say that it’s extensively geeky and in all manners all kinds of awesome.
The average day looks something like this:
Get up, note the large amount of beer consumed the night prior.
Seek coffee and acquire a muffin for later decimation.
Attend the Keynote(9AM) before attending Morning Tea which generally consists of sugary treats and conversation about all things geeky but consisting mostly of what should be attended in the next talk block. After the morning talk block of two talks it’s time for Lunch with both new and old friends and is once again spent discussing all things Linux, Free and Tech. From here two more talks are attended before an Afternoon Tea which is reminiscent of Morning Tea before attending the last talks of the day. From here there is either Dinner and Drinks with friends recently acquired like minded individuals or attending one of the organised events. Both official and unofficial events occur and it’s rare not to have a choice of events. Sometimes it’s as simple as playing Risk in the Pub or as technical as wielding a soldering iron and constructing Arduino based hardware in the common area. Suffice to say there is always something to do, someone to talk to, beer to drink and things to be discussed. Everyone is friendly and sociable. It’s strange because Geeks are generally considered anti-social and hard to approach. I guess Geeks rarely have problems with other Geeks.
What I did notice, however is that LCA2010 was more a reminder that I need to continue learning things. My normal day to day life removes me from being exposed to technologies that exists outside my work life. If you only ever work with the LAMP stack then you never really get exposed to much else, unless you make the effort. I think it’s important to renew that vow of being interested in technology, in general. Not just what you have to work with. This year, this is what LCA was to me. The renewal of my vow to continued and everlasting learning of cool stuff.
The other great thing I noticed about LCA was that it’s a reminder that there is actually a strong real life community surrounding Linux. There are actually other people out there that are idealistic, motivated and dedicated to Free Open Source Software. Even some more so than myself. It’s a nice reminder because at times I get the feeling I’m the only one that cares about more than the selfish aspect of what products, technologies or softwares can do for me and me alone. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that there are other people out there that care about more then just how things affect them on a individual level.
With my zealot like position reinforced, I leave with a swag of new like minded friends. I leave refreshed in that I’m not alone and that I need to continue to learn and be interested in New, Free and Open things. And that it is important and we can make a difference by choice. Choose Free. Choose Open. Choose it because it’s better, better for everyone.