The great thing about the area of London where I am (Hackney/Shoreditch, staying at the very cool Hoxton Hotel on Great Eastern) is that there is a lot of free wifi, including at my hotel and in the many bars, cafés and other venues. (Of course This characteristic was not shared by the airport lounge at Frankfurt, where I spent 6 hours after missing my flight to Moscow (visa issues), but it did have endless quantities of unnourishing but tasty and even inebriating comestibles. I arrived in Moscow at 5:05, and was spirited to my hotel, the Izmailovo, by a taxi driver I got after dickering and who believed that it was *okay* to go 160 km/hour down the freeway. The cost of the thrill ride--1500 rubles--seemed almost worth my life. The hotel was interesting--large, near the folk market (the Vermisage), popular with Russians and the stray tourist, and a lot unlike where I've stayed before; it had slot machines in the lobby, as in Vegas, and I should have played: my lucky day, for I survived the ride and was there, in Moscow.
But I had only a couple of hours or so to get ready for the conference, Moscow Interop, where Brian Behlendorf was also speaking (we were on some of the same panels) and that time could have been better spent ironing my very wrinkeled shirt, drinking coffee, eating (the cafeteria for breakfast offered an amazing smorgasbord of Russian food, and I tried it all), having a shower, shaving. It was already, at 7, about 30--Moscow's been having a freakish heat wave--and humid, too.
Brian and I got together, and with him leading, made our way via the magnificent, triumphant subways to the event. Muscovites don't really believe in air conditioning--they should (and at some point I thought I could make a fortune selling fans)--and the hall where the event was taking place, though auspiciously modern looking was only slightly less hot and only slightly less humid than the blazing moist outdoors. But it was tolerable, and the coffee was good, as was the cake, and there was lots of water. For our first panel, which included Eric Allman of Sendmail, as well as Brian and me, I'd gone only about 26 hours without sleep, but this is (unfortunately) not too unusual for such events; for the event in São Paulo, in April, I also presented right off the plane, and I went probably 30 hours without sleep. It's fairly easy to do, and adrenaline does a good job of keeping one awake.
So, the panel went well, though the questions by the moderator and audience ran all over the gamut. Quite a lot of them focused on OOo and ODF, a few on starting open source projects, and things related to their management: fairly normal, in other words. The second presentation could have been more interesting, but I will chalk it up to translations effects; normally, I wake people up, as tend to be animated. Anyway, the presentation ended, and then it was a series of meetings--the real point of being there, to be the community ombudsman, and see what I could do to resolve issues and focus attention on the RU community, and viewing a brilliant presentation (it merits its own entry) of Gnosis, a very cool implementation of the ODF for presentations--concluding with a dinner with the community members, to which Brian was included. That went quite well, and was rather fun, even without vodka (indeed, no vodka at all this trip!). And by this time, it was more than 40 hours without sleep.
The terrible thing about Moscow, is that the internet in hotels is so horribly expensive. By the time we returned to the Izmailovo, both Brian and I were likely really needing to catch up on things. Not only did I have a pile of things to follow up on, but also had to do my usual work. But internet access cost--get this--1200 rubles (25/dollar) for 600 minutes!! In cash. But I decided to do it anyway: there were too man pressing things.
The return to London the next day was accelerated by the heat: it was too hot to wander around Moscow with a suitcase and though I wanted to meet with some Sun people, they were busy in the morning. So I just headed for the airport an hour early. It too was expensive and lacking in efficient air conditioning, though it was cooler than the 36° outside, on the runway.
Since my return, I've been doing follow up and also further organizing the upcoming OOoCon. Actually, come to think of it, that's what I've been mostly doing: OOoCon. (Plus lots of other things.) OOoCon entails contacting would-be sponsors, such as Google, which promised money last year but has yet to pay up (Zaheda Bhorat of Google was a keynote speaker), and Intel, which is also delinquent. I find it amazing that such extraordinarily rich companies should have such a cavalier attitude... Especially in cases like Google, which in many ways is the largest ODF implementation (via Google Docs and Spreadsheet) and which claims to help open source projects. It would be nice to see concrete evidence of that help.
As well, I've been organizing a strong education push. Both Brian and I know that you don't just find FOSS developers, though that is always possible. But you can help yourself by helping to make them. (Or, you get companies to allocate them.) To this end, I've been working with numerous colleges, universities and the like in Canada, the US, Europe, Russia, India, China, Brazil (wherever I have been and then some) to see about getting OOo and other FOSS projects taught as part of the curriculum, as well as implementing GSoC kind of programs. It's also a lot of work, as it entails, again, an investment. But the payoff is huge. GSoC programs are great--call them fellowships--but they will only ever select a few students, though they will affect the course material, as professors and students seek to maximize their chances. Nevertheless, we need a stronger effort, the inclusion of OOo and other FOSS projects in regular course work. Mozilla (and to a degree, OOo) now have students work on extensions for Firefox and OOo in class, as part of their coursework. It's just a start. We need to move documentation, content, workflows, sample curricula, etc. to environments that are available to all; and we need, too, to have material and mentors to help teach the collaborative techniques that characterize FOSS. I started something like this in 2004, and in 2006, Sophie Gautier and I formed the Education project. But we need to move ahead, both on the OOo and more generally FOSS front.
But I had only a couple of hours or so to get ready for the conference, Moscow Interop, where Brian Behlendorf was also speaking (we were on some of the same panels) and that time could have been better spent ironing my very wrinkeled shirt, drinking coffee, eating (the cafeteria for breakfast offered an amazing smorgasbord of Russian food, and I tried it all), having a shower, shaving. It was already, at 7, about 30--Moscow's been having a freakish heat wave--and humid, too.
Brian and I got together, and with him leading, made our way via the magnificent, triumphant subways to the event. Muscovites don't really believe in air conditioning--they should (and at some point I thought I could make a fortune selling fans)--and the hall where the event was taking place, though auspiciously modern looking was only slightly less hot and only slightly less humid than the blazing moist outdoors. But it was tolerable, and the coffee was good, as was the cake, and there was lots of water. For our first panel, which included Eric Allman of Sendmail, as well as Brian and me, I'd gone only about 26 hours without sleep, but this is (unfortunately) not too unusual for such events; for the event in São Paulo, in April, I also presented right off the plane, and I went probably 30 hours without sleep. It's fairly easy to do, and adrenaline does a good job of keeping one awake.
So, the panel went well, though the questions by the moderator and audience ran all over the gamut. Quite a lot of them focused on OOo and ODF, a few on starting open source projects, and things related to their management: fairly normal, in other words. The second presentation could have been more interesting, but I will chalk it up to translations effects; normally, I wake people up, as tend to be animated. Anyway, the presentation ended, and then it was a series of meetings--the real point of being there, to be the community ombudsman, and see what I could do to resolve issues and focus attention on the RU community, and viewing a brilliant presentation (it merits its own entry) of Gnosis, a very cool implementation of the ODF for presentations--concluding with a dinner with the community members, to which Brian was included. That went quite well, and was rather fun, even without vodka (indeed, no vodka at all this trip!). And by this time, it was more than 40 hours without sleep.
The terrible thing about Moscow, is that the internet in hotels is so horribly expensive. By the time we returned to the Izmailovo, both Brian and I were likely really needing to catch up on things. Not only did I have a pile of things to follow up on, but also had to do my usual work. But internet access cost--get this--1200 rubles (25/dollar) for 600 minutes!! In cash. But I decided to do it anyway: there were too man pressing things.
The return to London the next day was accelerated by the heat: it was too hot to wander around Moscow with a suitcase and though I wanted to meet with some Sun people, they were busy in the morning. So I just headed for the airport an hour early. It too was expensive and lacking in efficient air conditioning, though it was cooler than the 36° outside, on the runway.
Since my return, I've been doing follow up and also further organizing the upcoming OOoCon. Actually, come to think of it, that's what I've been mostly doing: OOoCon. (Plus lots of other things.) OOoCon entails contacting would-be sponsors, such as Google, which promised money last year but has yet to pay up (Zaheda Bhorat of Google was a keynote speaker), and Intel, which is also delinquent. I find it amazing that such extraordinarily rich companies should have such a cavalier attitude... Especially in cases like Google, which in many ways is the largest ODF implementation (via Google Docs and Spreadsheet) and which claims to help open source projects. It would be nice to see concrete evidence of that help.
As well, I've been organizing a strong education push. Both Brian and I know that you don't just find FOSS developers, though that is always possible. But you can help yourself by helping to make them. (Or, you get companies to allocate them.) To this end, I've been working with numerous colleges, universities and the like in Canada, the US, Europe, Russia, India, China, Brazil (wherever I have been and then some) to see about getting OOo and other FOSS projects taught as part of the curriculum, as well as implementing GSoC kind of programs. It's also a lot of work, as it entails, again, an investment. But the payoff is huge. GSoC programs are great--call them fellowships--but they will only ever select a few students, though they will affect the course material, as professors and students seek to maximize their chances. Nevertheless, we need a stronger effort, the inclusion of OOo and other FOSS projects in regular course work. Mozilla (and to a degree, OOo) now have students work on extensions for Firefox and OOo in class, as part of their coursework. It's just a start. We need to move documentation, content, workflows, sample curricula, etc. to environments that are available to all; and we need, too, to have material and mentors to help teach the collaborative techniques that characterize FOSS. I started something like this in 2004, and in 2006, Sophie Gautier and I formed the Education project. But we need to move ahead, both on the OOo and more generally FOSS front.
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