OSCON Report

A few weeks ago, I attended OSCON--the O'Reilly Open Source Convention--as part of the Apache CloudStack team. We met in Portland, Oregon, along with over 3,000 other open source enthusiasts.

A few of the highlights:

• Met fellow open source documentation writers from Eucalyptus, Apache, Rackspace, and LibreOffice. We compared notes on tools, automation, modularity, and information reuse. I learned so much. For example, it looks like converting content from one format to another is an issue for everyone. We need a better forklift!
• Got a chance for a couple of nice, long talks with experienced hands from the Apache Foundation. They clarified many of my questions about what it means that my project was donated to Apache. Will I have to change tools, move my website, adopt a style guide? (the answers seemed to be no, probably no, and only-a-bit.)
• "The Next Generation," aka the diversity talk. As a writer, I was naturally friendly to the message that open-source projects need to be welcoming towards all sorts of contributors, including functions besides coding. Writing, marketing, design, project management, event coordination...there are so many abilities needed and so many varied tasks to do.
• Poker night? Sign me up. My boss practically fell out of his chair in awe after I turned up three aces in my second hand. The bluff began weeks earlier when I professed to have never played poker before. Well, I've never played inside a casino, so it was sort of true... He immediately said I'd be welcome at his table, and I couldn't resist the temptation to make him regret that offer. The luck of the draw did the rest. He won it all back later in the evening. As Citrix employees, neither of us was eligible to win the poker-night prize anyhow, so it was all in good fun.
• Obtained one plush Gnu.

Again next year, please.