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LINUX COLLABORATION SUMMIT: Celebrating 20 Years of Linux
On April 6-8, was a memorial event. From all over the world, individuals with marvelous talents came together under one building to share ideas, teach one another and meet for the first time. Most importantly, we all came to celebrate linux’s 20th anniversary.
I was one of the lucky ones to have been honorably invited to sit and chat with some of the greatest minds the world had produced. It was intimidating at first, since I have never been to such a gathering of this caliber. Plus, these gurus knew more about linux than I can ever dream of. To keep pace with these specialists, I said little and kept my ears opened to learned as much as possible.
The atmosphere was peaceful, the people were friendly, and most importantly, they encouraged you to participate, add thoughts, ask questions and just plain mingle. It was almost like a family reunion, reconnecting with long lost relatives.
I met up with three friends who’s skills in linux are very unique. This was the first time we met face-to-face, from constant online chatting, and gotten along very well. One of them, who is actually the “2011 Ultimate linux Guru” on Linux.com, Mathew Fillpot, had been there last year and showed us around. We had the honor of meeting Jennifer Cloer, Director of Communications & Community at The Linux Foundation,and PR Director at linux.com, a site that allowed me to enter the world of linux. It was also through this site that allowed me to meet these fascinating individuals.
After meeting a few special attendees,the four of us, and all the other guests gathered in an auditorium at hotel Kabuki, where Jim Zemblim, Co executive of the Linux foundation, opened with a speech explaining the direction linux was heading. Afterwards, the attention was turned to members of various companies to talk about opensource projects they were engaged in. From these panels, it was made aware of the increasing activities involving linux. And, more is to come.
After the panel speeches were done, we were all invited to a prestigious restaurant that served delicious food all night. This was good to break the ice for newer members. There is nothing better than good food and good conversation with people of the same genre. Have to admit, during this particular time, away from the keyboard and monitor, we were just a bunch of ordinary people having a good time. You wouldn’t notice the difference.
The next 2 days involved workshops sessions for various linux projects, for example, Yocto, Embedded linux, linux standard base, etc. In these sessions, detailed explanation were given regarding project motives and how they function. The audience of these sessions freely gave their opinion about the development of these projects and any concerns and confusion they had. The speakers did a very good job distributing the information and answering questions. This assures the projects are being handed by the most dedicated and skillful professionals. Ok, I will say it, it was like being back in college on the first day.
Yet I’ve saved the best for last. Not only was I invited because I was within the top 5 2011 Linux.com Gurus, but also, I’m one of the 4 moderators of linux.com. As a moderator, you are in-charge of hunting down spam and any kind of site abuse, with the addition of information contribution and consulting. Moderation was voluntary, however, it allowed me to give back to the community that helped so much in my progression of learning GNU/Linux.
linux.comhad a session at the Summit called the “linux.complanning meeting” where the site admins and the moderators got together to discuss any improvements and concerns about the site‘s community section. This was a thrilling experience. In that room, giving input on how the site could perform better on its relation to the community couldn’t feel any better. Even as nervous as I was, there was no hesitation to take advantage of the opportunity to have make an impact, and I;m ready for more.
I wished I picked up on linux a long time ago. One of the important thingsthat I’ve learned is that linux is also a community of collaboration not just people programming and building the latest hardware for maximum optimization, although, a lot of that goes on. Yet we all share ideas and look for opportunities to improve business operations and help one another. Couldn’t be more happier to part of this great organization.
