LinuxCon + CloudOpen + ELC Europe 2014 and Linux Plumbers Conference 2014

Conferences are a way to know more about the projects and community and to network with some awesome people. And if it is LinuxCon Europe in conjunction with the Linux Plumbers then definitely it has to be an awesome awesome week!

About the conference

LinuxCon Europe is the place to learn from the best and the brightest, delivering content from the leading maintainers, developers and project leads in the Linux community and from around the world. Yes, it is an event where you can find all levels of technical talent gathered together under one roof for education, collaboration and problem-solving to further the Linux platform.

How I happened to be there?

I had been an OPW intern in the May – August, 2014 round and we had a Kernel Internship Report session organized by our coordinator, Sarah at the LinuxCon. Also, I had a talk about Coccinelle at the Linux Plumbers as a part of the developer tools microconference. So, I had a speaker ticket for two conferences. So, I got ready to fly to Dusseldorf – Germany, a beautiful city where I would get the opportunity to meet some awesome people and learn some great stuff.

How was the experience?

The keynotes sessions took place in a giant conference hall that accommodated about 1200 people. We had some experienced people talk about various open source initiatives like OpenMRS, how Amazon works with OpenSource projects etc. Jim Zemlin talked about the present state of Linux which was quite an interesting talk. There were talks about how huge communities are built and more technical subjects like wireless and the cloud. They were quite informative and broadened the scope of my thoughts. Then on the last day there was a discussion by the Linux creator Linus Torvalds with Intel’s Chief Linux and Open Source Technologies, Dirk Hohndel on the latest technical advancements in the kernel. It was the most awesome session with some brilliant and amusing answers by Linus.

I attended various talk which involved various subjects like SSH security, server optimization, MySQL availability. There was a session name “The cloud in 10000 words or 10 pictures” . It was the most awesome presentation I have ever been to not only because it is a topic of interest but because of the simplicity with which the speaker presented the entire matter. During the plumbers, I attended a tutorial on strace and learnt using various options for system call tracing.

I assisted Julia, my mentor from INRIA in a 2-hour long tutorial on Coccinelle and helped answer queries of the various attendees.

What I learnt?

I got an overview and some insights in various technical subjects such as the cloud, MySQL, system calls etc. I am now more aware of how the community was built, how open source projects are hatched and what it takes to manage such huge initiatives. It is sheer dedication and perseverance with a lot of patience that makes such projects successful.

I met a number of people from various open source and Linux projects like Yocto, elastic search, intel, enea, oracle etc. and learnt how some open-source projects are tweaked to serve specific applications.

I got to meet Greg, the most most patient kernel maintainer:

I met Sarah, our coordinator who helped us feel at home by introducing us to the various community members. I met Julia, my awesome mentor who helped me throughout the internship and otherwise to help achieve my goals. We held a tutorial on Coccinelle and I presented Coccinelle in the developer tools micro-conference organized by her. My talks and help were appreciated by people around and it was very encouraging to know that developers are benefited by my work and experience.

We had some interesting events like the VIP dinner where all the speakers were there, then the Women in Open Source Networking Luncheon where all female community members met and the best one – an OPW dinner where all mentors, Sarah and the interns had food and some chat!

Meeting people you have known through mailing lists and IRC was indeed wonderful. Talking to various kernel maintainers and developers about some prospective tasks and projects gave me new areas to work on to help develop the kernel.

So, it was one of the most enriching and amazing experience of my life. I would like to thank everyone there and the Linux Foundation for having such a huge event with a lot of fun and flair!!

Will keep you updated on more conferences and events to follow.. so stay tuned in!