The day one, DebConf11 Team welcomed all participants, gave a short talk about plan to organize DebConf11 in very funny way. Well, we could laugh, but if you look back, it was not easy. Organizing every DebConf needed a group of people to work together to get things done. It took years to organize. Conventionally, you have to attent 2 DebConf before placing your bid to organize DebConf. You need to prepare many things to support your bid before hand, and when you actually have won the bid, it’d be a year of hell to make it really happen. I once have been told that it requires one man/woman to work on this, full time, for one year, and must have many people volunteer (strongly) to support him/her. I organized mini-DebCamp once, I did know what would it be in small scale. But, DebConf is something like 10x bigger than the mini-DebCamp. So, thanks to the team for organizing DC11 to make this happens. You are great !
Next, Stefano Zacchiroli – the current Debian Project Leader (DPL) gave a talk about why Debian, and how important it is. He went through processes that ensure free and solid distro. The idea about Do-ocracy – Democracy things, PPA, TDD, and would happen in the (near) future. It was a good talk.
Afternoon, I saw Hector Oron – a friend from Taiwan Mini-DebConf, did not have a chance to talk to him though. Think about friends, almost none of our friend attend the talk sessions. And, in fact, many DDs did not attend all the session. I think some DDs may not attend any session at all. They came to hack. So, most of the time you’d see them in the hacklabs, which is open 24 hr a day. I put myself in the hacklab sometimes. Hacklab was quiet. It was almost the same atmosphere as it was during BSP in Thailand Mini-DebCamp. Most, if not all, DDs were very focus on their job, not many chats. And in the hacklab, I saw one blind developer (Sam Hartman ?), and one came on his wheelchair ! I learned something from what I saw here. You all should also learn something, too.
Talks in the afternoon was about cryptographic authentication, FTP and the NEW queue, Debian-Woman, and ended with a session to meet the technical committee. There are four tech committee attended DebConf11: Bdale Garbee, Steve Langasek, Andreas , Ian Jackson. The first and the last were former DPL.
At night, Chess and Wine party .. I should have joined C&W, but tired, and overslept ! I met Andrew Lee the next morning. He said C&W party was really great. Putting together various kinds of cheese and wine (scale of 100s) in a single (geek) party, you cannot get this from any party in this world ! .. Awe man !!