well, i'm sitting in the airport in cincinatti, waiting for my plane to leave (gotta love 2 and a half hour layovers), and i thought i'd write a little summary of the oscon 2003 experience.
i had a fantastic time. this was far far more fun than usenix last year. not that there's anything wrong with usenix, but this seemed like more my crowd. the majority of the talks and tutorials i went to were both interesting and useful, and next time i think i'll be better able to avoid those that won't be.
most of all though, i enjoyed actually getting a chance to meet all these people who up till now were just email addresses to me. the best thing, in my opinion, about open source is the people involved in it. the vast majority of the people i got a chance to meet were just fantastically cool, friendly, and willing to sit down and talk about all sorts of things i'm interested in, and while i get some of that from work, these really are my kind of people, to a greater degree than i've found before.
just off the top of my head, i got a chance to meet and talk to:
- casey west
- mike schwern
- alisson randal
- ask bjoern hansen
- rich bowen
- justin erenkrantz
- greg stein
- john peacock
- steve knight
- chromatic
- ward cunningham
- brian ingerson
- martin streicher
- ted ts'o
(and i aplologize in advance to anyone i've left off the list, i didn't mean to, but i just met too damn many of you this week!)
at most, these were people who i'd emailed or talked with on line before, but most of them were just random people i knew only through reputation, and all of them were just too cool for words. i feel grateful to be a part of their community, and actually getting a chance to sit down and talk to them just makes me more motivated to try to contribute more back to it.
of course, there were a huge number of people i didn't get a chance to meet, or who i only met in passing, so i guess i'll just have to come back again next year and do it again until i've gotten them all! ;-)
