ApacheCon North America is right around the corner. Everyone is looking forward to this year’s event May 16-18 in Miami. There’s plenty new to see, hear, and do this year but that’s not the only attraction for developers.
The annual conference of The Apache Software Foundation is where users and contributors meet face-to-face to collaborate on the next generation of cloud, Internet, and Big Data tech. The Apache community is huge and has upwards of 4500 committers. There is ample opportunity to meet MVPs and project heroes plus swap war stories with fellow developers in the trenches.
However, the benefits of attending aren’t left behind at the conference. Here are three developers explaining why they attend ApacheCon and how they continue to benefit long after they’ve returned home.
To connect and network with the big players
“Whether you are looking for support for Hadoop, consultants for the HTTP Server, someone to help you hack on a plugin for Tomcat, have an exciting business proposal to share with others, or just someone to help you debug why CloudStack doesn’t do this or that, you can be pretty sure someone will know about it and be able to help you. It really is the who’s who of Apache software.” — Daniel Gruno, Chief Innovations Officer at Quenda.
Continue the conversation in the flesh
“One of the big reasons I attend is to meet with people I work with remotely year after year. The Apache Software Foundation is a huge network of people, the majority of whom work on Apache projects for love, not money, and from the bottom of their gardens, on trains, or elsewhere. To meet these people in the flesh provides a human aspect that discussions over email lack and helps foster relations for work in the future.” — Tom Barber, NASA JPL, Apache OODT Chair.
And strengthen bonds for real-world payoffs
“By meeting other people in my communities, we’ve been able to strengthen community bonds and work through interpersonal problems that were much more complicated via email. Putting faces to names and email addresses makes future online interaction seems more personal. I learned about features and projects that I hadn’t had time to learn on my own time, in high-bandwidth technical sessions. We also worked on closing bugs in focused hackathon sessions where we could discuss changes quickly and without the time-lag of email.” — Rich Bowen, VP Conferences at The Apache Software Foundation.
Which lead to work opportunities in the future
“ApacheCon got me where I am, professionally — I owe a lot of my life to Apache! It enabled me to meet my personal heroes in the software world and get exposed to the greater Apache community. It also taught me a great deal about how the greater Apache community is held together and how each piece in the machinery works. It created business opportunities and helped launch a ton of ideas I had rummaging around in my head, turning them into either helpful services or in some cases, new Apache projects with all the help and support that comes with being involved in Apache. At ApacheCon, you really get an excellent opportunity to scratch that itch you’ve been having for a while, and get professional and insightful people to help you out — for free!” — Daniel Gruno, Chief Innovations Officer at Quenda.
Plus, it’s just fun to go
“I first attended in 2012, and I’ve been to every ApacheCon since, it’s just that good — and addictive,” said Gruno.
“I’ve been attending ApacheCon since the event in Orlando in 2000, and have only missed one since then. ApacheCon is the highlight of my year, and I hope to be attending it for many years to come,” added Bowen.
And the more the merrier.
“It’s a fantastic event run by dedicated and enthusiastic staff at great locations, if you want to learn about the Apache Software Foundation and a lot of the projects it stewards there is no better place. This year I’m not speaking, instead I’m bringing people along because I think it’s important for them to understand how the ASF works and learn and this is the event to do it at,” said Barber.
Learn first-hand from the largest collection of global Apache communities at ApacheCon 2017 May 16-18 in Miami, Florida. ApacheCon features 120+ sessions including five sub-conferences: Apache: IoT, Apache Traffic Server Control Summit, CloudStack Collaboration Conference, FlexJS Summit and TomcatCon. Secure your spot now! Linux.com readers get $30 off their pass to ApacheCon. Select “attendee” and enter code LINUXRD5. Register now >>
