On Tue, Feb 7, 2023 at 7:31 PM sharanf <sha...@apache.org> wrote: > > Hi Everyone > > I am back and still in the process of recovering from FOSDEM last > weekend so wanted to post a quick update. After two years of being an > online conference due to the pandemic it was great to get back to an in > person event...and FOSDEM excels at being an in person event. I can't > begin to describe how great it felt to be back behind the booth talking > to people about the foundation and our projects. I saw so many familiar > faces of people who keep coming back to say Hello! One guy showed me an > ASF branded USB extender that I gave him a few years ago at FOSDEM for > helping me out with a Kibble demo...:-) > > Now normally it rains in February. If there's one thing that seems > assured - it's rain at FOSDEM... well this time it was a little > different. I won't say it didn't rain (because it did) but not that > much. And even more unexpected was the sunshine ..Maybe the city > Brussels was happy to have an in person FOSDEM again too so put on some > good weather for us:-) > > Our booth has usually been on the first floor of K block right at the > top of the stairs but this time we were given a new location. We were on > the ground floor on the left hand side along by the windows. We were > also near to one the entry / exit doors. Our position meant that people > had to pass by us to get in or out - so we got a lot of foot traffic. > The FOSDEM team grouped foundations linked to Community Advocacy > together so we were alongside OpenUK, FOSSASIA, Software Freedom > Conservancy. FSFE, FOSSASIA, Ecliipse Foundation etc. > > On Saturday I arrived with the bag of swag to find a few people ready > and waiting to help out with setup. We quickly put up the banner (it > definitely needed two people!), blew up some balloons and got the booth > table covered in stickers (So much so that during the event people came > to take photos of our display). We kept telling people that this was > only a small selection of ASF projects. Even so - we did have requests > for stickers we didn't have (so they are on my list for next time). Also > we ran out of the HTTP Server stickers (everyone wanted a sticker of the > first ASF project). We ran out of stickers for Apache Maven, Apache > Kafka this time. > > As well as stickers we gave away some balloons for the children (and > some adults too), cleaning cloths for glasses and screens, mugs, head > tubes, pens, small cable bags, key rings and mask extenders (as there > were a few people with masks). The cleaning cloths were very popular - > everyone wearing glasses seemed to want one. > > For the things that we had limited supply of - we told people that to > get one would cost 'a good conversation' :-) So we had some really good > conversations - about projects, technology and I think even open source > software for space technology! This is one of the reasons that having a > booth presence is so good for outreach and general community building. > > People also came to talk to us about other open source events that were > being organised that they hoped we or our communities might be > interested in participating in. One of these was the Open System Days > Croation Linux Users Conference who have a CFP open > https://www.dorscluc.org/call-for-speakers/. We also offered a free > meeting room for community meetups for any developers based in and > around Portugal. > > We had people from different projects spend some time on the booth - so > special shoutout and huge thanks to Claude Warren, Matthew de > Detrich, Arnout Engelen, Myrle Krantz, Jarek Potiuk, Gilles Sadowski, > Johan Corveleyn, Jean-Frederic Clere, Herve Boutemy for helping out on > the booth. Thanks also to everyone that dropped by to say Hi and chat > -it was all fun. > > There were rumours of 10000 attending people but nothing concrete. > Usually FOSDEM attracts over 8000 developers. Whatever the number there > seemed to be an endless stream of people, there were lots of people at > the foodcarts, on the first and second floors, walking to and from the > other buildings and going in and out of the talks. I understand that > many of the talks have been recorded so if you didn't make it then you > will still get a chance to see it. If you have never experienced FOSDEM > then I would encourage you to keep it on your radar and see if you can > make it to the next one. > > Once again I would like to sincerely thank everyone that was involved in > helping out to make our participation at FOSDEM a success. Am already > looking forward to doing it all again next year if we get the chance. > > Please feel free to respond with any of your FOSDEM experiences, > feedback, thoughts or general comments! > > Thanks > Sharan
Thanks a lot Sharan for all your hard work and dedication. It was my first time at FOSDEM so I was a little overwhelmed by the busy and rather chaotic flow, but it was a lot of fun :-). Especially at the ASF booth! Although I'm an ASF member for more than 10 years, and pretty much "know" the ins and outs of the foundation, I'm not that well versed in explaining these things to random people. So apart from welcoming people and offering them some stickers, it was great to hear Sharan, Jarek, Claude, Hervé, ... answering questions about how the foundations works, what makes the ASF so special, how new projects get incubated, etc ... And I got to explain to a handful of people that yes, Apache Subversion still exists :-D. Ah, maybe next time I should order some stickers too ;-). -- Johan --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org
