Flock 2014 Report Part 1/2

In case you don’t know, Flock is a conference for Fedora contributors and users to come together, discuss new ideas, work to make those ideas a reality, and continue to promote the core values of the Fedora community: Freedom, Friends, Features, and First. This year I had the chance to visit Prague and attend Flock, along with some other people from the Greek Community. (giannisk, comzeradd, axil).

I arrived in Prague on Monday (4/8) with giannisk. The trip was not very tiring, although I was waiting for a connecting flight at the Munich airport for 4 hours. We shared a room at the Dormitories, the significant cheaper option. Besides, it covered our needs fully, we just wanted a place to sleep at the night.

The next day we took the Metro and we head over to the Town Centre for a walk with Giannis. Later in the day, comzeradd arrived in Prague, and we went to an event that some Fedorians organized, in ‘The Pub’, a Beer House with a twist; where in the middle of the table there was a machine that you could fill you glass with draft Pils beer (I think it was Pilsner Urquell, but I’m not sure)

On Wednesday, the conference kicked off, with the first talk to be an introductory keynote from our new FPL, Matthew Miller. A few hours later, Chris Roberts made a presentation about Fedora Magazine, called The Past, The Present and The Future, where he explained how the magazine was designed in its early days and how it operated, in comparison with it’s current status. Chris also explained how the magazine scales up when needed (in cases of big traffic) in Openshift where we currently host it. Then we started a discussion about what could be changed in the Magazine in the following months/years, as more contributors offer to help and write content.

Jiri Eischmann also gave a talk, called ‘Fedora Ambassadors: State of the Union‘, were he talked what FAmSCo has been working on and what are the next plans. Then Christoph Wickert gave a talk called ‘Advocating Fedora.next‘, in which he gave us necessary information and talking points, so we can advocate fedora.next properly. He also encouraged everyone (especially Ambassaadors) to take a look at the fedora.next wiki page.

Christoph’s talk was the last for that day, and after that, in the evening we went to ‘The Pub’ (same Beer House as the previous day). But this day, the whole community came and we were able to exchange thoughts and ideas about many things!

The next day (Thursday), there were some quite interesting talks as well. The first talk of the day I attended was the one of Nick’s Bebout, in which he spoke about Yubikeys, the differences of them, and how could they be used to authenticate you to various Fedora Services. After that, I seriously consider buying a Yubikey Neo! Later, Tuan Anh Truong gave a talk about the Ambassador’s mentoring program, talking about the current status and possible ways to improve the program in the future. Sean Cross also made a Keynote about the Novena Project in the main amphitheater, a truly open source laptop.

The night event for Thursday, was a boat party!! It was a 2-hour river sail in Prague, and it was amazing!

To be continued..