Month: January 2011

Where is Jared headed next?

An important (and rewarding, even if it is tiring) part of my job as the Fedora Project Leader is to help spread the word about Fedora in various parts of the world.  The most visible part of this is speaking at conferences and meeting with our ambassadors and contributors. Over the next three weeks I’ll be on a jet-lag-inducing marathon of travel, and I thought it would be helpful to let people know where I’ll be over the next few weeks.

LinuxConf Australia

On Friday, I’ll be flying to Brisbane for the LCA conference.  This is my first time to attend LCA, and I’m very much looking forward to meeting many of our contributors in the Asia-Pacific region while I’m there.  I’m also glad that the flood waters are receding in Brisbane, and that the conference attendees can do their small part to help in the recovery by showing up for the conference, eating in restaurants, staying in hotels, and otherwise helping the local economy.  I’ll be giving a presentation on Thursday the 27th explaining what Fedora is and the unique relationship between Fedora and Red Hat, and how to work effectively with upstream projects.

FUDCon Tempe

After LCA, I’ll be flying from Brisbane to Tempe, Arizona for the North American iteration of our annual Fedora Users and Developers conference, affectionately known as FUDCon.  I always look forward to the FUDCon conferences around the world, as they’re the best opportunity to meet with and work with other Fedora enthusiasts in a fun atmosphere.  I’ll be giving the traditional “State of Fedora” address on Saturday, leading the Board meeting on Monday, and generally doing my best to ensure that the conference runs smoothly.  I’ll also pitch a BarCamp session or two.  As always, FUDCon is a free event and we encourage all Linux enthusiasts to attend regardless of their experience level.

FOSDEM

After FUDCon I’ll be traveling to Belgium for FOSDEM, which is one of the premier free/open source software conferences in Europe.  In particular, I’ll be doing a couple of presentations in the Distributions room, talking about cross-distro collaboration, as well as the roles that distributions play in the free/open source ecosystem.  In addition, I will also be helping out at the Fedora booth.  I’m also hoping to pop over to the Open Telephony room to say hi to some of my telephone-loving friends there as well, if time permits.

If you’re at any of these three conferences, I encourage you to stop by and introduce yourself.  I look forward to meeting with you!

Stop doodling — I mean, start doodling!

I can’t tell you how many times I heard the phrase “Stop doodling and get to work!” when I was a child.  My teachers were constantly telling me to stop drawing pictures and to focus on the class material.  Now that I have two children who would rather doodle than do their homework, I get to see the perspective that my teachers had.

Today, however, I’m actually going to ask you to get out your favorite pen or pencil or tablet, and start doodling — all for a good cause!  The Fedora Design team is looking for concept ideas for Fedora 15 artwork, and the submission deadline is quickly approaching.  At this point in the Fedora 15 schedule, they’re just looking for basic concepts and ideas, not finished products.  So get to work — you’re doodling might just be the foundation for the Fedora 15 artwork.

(Ok, I know what you may be thinking… you’re wondering about the “default wallpaper” decision that the Fedora Design team is discussing.  Whether or not Fedora decides to use the Gnome wallpaper as the Fedora 15 default wallpaper for the Gnome desktop, Fedora 15 still needs artwork for other desktop environments, Anaconda splash screens, website banners, media sleeves, and things like that.  Please help us come up with the best possible artwork ideas for Fedora 15!)