linux.conf.au 2007

During the Penguin Dinner at linux.conf.au 2006, I was given the opportunity to announce that linux.conf.au 2007 would be held in Sydney, Australia. This is what happened…

Seems like a night for retrospectives. While Hugh and Bdale gave you a whirlwind tour of conference history in general, I’m going to take you on a bit of a personal journey. How many of you are at your first linux.conf.au this year? [Many hands in the air, much applause.] Wow. Wow! Well, this is one man’s story, woven through the history of linux.conf.au. So first, there was CALU…

… the precursor to – and inspiration for – linux.conf.au. Organised by Rusty Russell, the whole thing was paid for on his credit card! I wasn’t at CALU. Back then, I was still peering through the phosphorescent glass, across the wide open fields of opportunity in the Free Software world.

In 2000, I took my first steps towards getting involved in the community when Grahame Kelly (a SLUG veteran who I knew through dating his daughter in high school) encouraged me to join the Sydney Linux Users Group. Along with a couple of friends from university, I gave a talk (about Docbook and SGML, of all things) at the very first meeting I attended.

The next monthly meeting was the AGM. There was generational change in the wind, so I ran for a committee position, and to my surprise, was elected. It was through the SLUG committee that I met my early mentors, Conrad Parker and Gus Lees, who are both here tonight. Early in 2000, they invited me to join a little team creating a conference called linux.conf.au. We wanted it to be “the OLS of the Southern Hemisphere”. I had never been to OLS.

The conference was the catalyst for a whole new social group and massive growth in the Sydney Free Software scene. In just four days, a lot of friends were made, and a lot of lives were set on new paths.

Soon after the conference, I met a fiesty country girl called Pia…

I’m sad to say that I don’t have a perfect linux.conf.au record. I didn’t go to Brisbane. Things got complicated during that intervening year. In late 2001, I joined the newly-formed GNOME release team as a webmonkey. The release manager at the time was Maciej Stachowiak, who I met at linux.conf.au in 2001. As he started getting busier at his new job, I took on more and more of the cat-herding. Then in December, Maciej sent this email. Busy just got serious.

It wouldn’t have happened without linux.conf.au.

By 2003, Pia and I were a pair. She was looking for ways to get involved in the community, so I encouraged her to run for the Linux Australia committee. In 2001, Linux Australia was partially revived for the use of its bank account and insurance for the conference, but it took a couple of years to really get things going.

Pia spoke to just about everyone at the conference about what they wanted Linux Australia to do, how it could help the community, and what she could do to make it happen. It took a while, but with encouragement from many of the attendees, she was finally convinced to run for President, and at Linux Australia’s first very public AGM, she was elected with an awesome committee to back her up. LA was reborn.

At linux.conf.au 2004 in Adelaide, Rob Collins – a friend I met at SLUG – got a phone call from a South African man, who was on his way to Antarctica. I passed it off at the time, but I remember Rob very excitedly explaining to me that he just had an amazing phone call that he couldn’t tell me anything about. Whatever, this kind of thing happens all the time in IT, right?

After four weeks, I got a call from Rob telling me to drop everything and come and meet this guy… who’s been to space! Well, Mark laid everything out, in great detail. It’s incredible to think how much of that very early conversation has come to pass. That’s how I, and a number of other Australians, found a place in Ubuntu. Much of our social circle – and now professional circle – was linked up through the Sydney scene and linux.conf.au.

Ah, 2005 in Canberra. Pia and I arranged our wedding date close to linux.conf.au, so that our friends from overseas – many of whom we met through previous conferences – would be able to come. It helped that Pia’s home town of Yass was only 45 minutes away.

The only available date at the venue was the Sunday immediately before the conference, so in a fit of insanity, we did it anyway. We had a small ceremony and lunch, then a huge party at Pia’s parents house. We posted invitations to the after-party in our blogs. It was crazy, but wonderful… and it wouldn’t have happened without linux.conf.au.

Well, now we’re here in Dunedin, and I’d like to announce that we’re expecting…! [The audience goes absolutely bananas.]

… to host linux.conf.au 2007 in Sydney next year!

I should tell you a bit about Australia, seeing that so many of you here tonight are New Zealanders. Wow, I’m still bowled over that more than half of you are at your first linux.conf.au. That’s great. You should definitely come along next year. I want to show some of the great and unique things about Australia to tempt you…

First up – we’re world-renowned for excellence in film-making.

We have great, internationally successful bands, both old…

… and young.

Fine food – best in the world.

Great sports and honourable sportsmanship.

And of course, in Australia we actually have vowels.

But seriously! Could the seven team please stand up? The team is Lindsay Holmwood, Sara Kaan, Ben Leslie, Matt Moor, Pia Waugh, Jamie Wilkinson, uh, and me. [Applause] It’s a rocking team, hungry to put on a great conference for you. Very excited.

So, we wrote some tenets, or benchmarks to measure against, to make linux.conf.au 2007 really great. Here they are…

linux.conf.au is about magic. Not just the magic of technology, but the magic of community and freedom too. It’s about showing off that magic, sharing it, being a part of it.

Our speakers are rockstars. Speaking at this conference is an incredible experience. It’s like being royalty for a week. Our speakers really deserve it. Sometimes, we go great lengths to satisfy their bizarre requests. Dunk tank, anyone?

We bring the community together, not just to the same venue. linux.conf.au is not about packing people into rooms and spoon-feeding them content. It’s about the people, the conversations in the hallway or over beers, and making great things happen together.

Our generous sponsors are partners, in the community and in the conference. We’ve had great sponsors over the years, real collaborators, who’ve made sure that commercial interests don’t negatively impact the culture and life of linux.conf.au.

linux.conf.au is a celebration of progress, but also of tradition… and we have quite a few of those!

linux.conf.au is entrusted to the organisers by Linux Australia, and more importantly, the community. It’s a gift, really, and one that each organising team takes responsibility for, because every choice we make will shape the future of the conference. I’m really proud that so many of our insane ideas from linux.conf.au 2001 are still present in the conference today.

Each team puts its own mark on the conference, lifting our expectations and finding new ways to keep it fresh. We’re aiming to raise the bar and set the standard again…

… but right now, I have no idea how we’re going to top Dunedin! This has been incredible. Please, let’s congratulate Mike and his team again. [Very loud applause.]

We’ll see you in Sydney next year!