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Posts published in “Community”

Building a FOSS Force Community

In the last couple of years we’ve begun to notice that in addition to the folks who visit FOSS Force on a regular basis to read our articles, we’re starting to see a community develop. We mainly see this in the comments sections at the bottom of each article, where many of you have become regulars by posting often, agreeing or disagreeing with our articles, and offering ideas from your own experience.

To us, it feels as if those of you who contribute your thoughts and ideas by regularly commenting have become a part of our site, a community of people who publicly represent what FOSS Force is about, just as much as Larry, Hunter, Ken, Isaac and the rest of us who write and produce the site. In other words, you’ve become a part of who we are, and although we have never met you, we feel as if you are friends of ours.

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Let’s build on that, shall we? Let’s celebrate you, the community of readers who congregate and express yourselves through comments on our site, and make you an even more important part of FOSS Force than you already are. In other words, let’s do a little old fashioned community building.

SCALE 14X Is One for the Record Books

SCALE 14x Sunday

Whew. It had over 140 exhibitors, and over 185 sessions. It had just north of 3,600 people registered for the event. It had four days of peace, love and FOSS.

That was SCALE 14X.

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But we’re getting ahead of Sunday’s story.

After the cacophony of Saturday night’s Weakest Geek — Ruth Suehle won her third, with talk of a dynasty in the air for that particular game — and the fun and games of, well, Game Night, Sunday rolled into Pasadena on a more quiet, thoughtful note.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

SCALE 14X Saturday in Pictures

Scale 14x Saturday

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls — that covers most of you: From a press standpoint, to say that SCALE 14X was busy would be a clear understatement. While the event has pretty much ratcheted itself up to the next level, staying atop the show in my capacity as the publicity chair is somewhat daunting.

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So rather than tell you what happened today, I’m just going to show you. You’ll thank me for it later, trust me.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

POSSCON Cancelled Until 2017

POSSCON 2016

POSSCON has been cancelled. The surprise announcement was made Thursday by way of an email from IT-oLogy, the nonprofit organization which hosts the event. The conference, which focuses on the enterprise and is targeted at IT professionals who develop or use open source software, was scheduled to be held in Columbia, S.C. on April 12-13.

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POSSCon 2016 email logoThis is the second time in three years that IT-oLogy’s longest running conference has been cancelled. In 2014 the event was cancelled, evidently due to logistical problems as IT-oLogy was in the process of launching the first Great Wide Open conference in Atlanta. Last year there was no Atlanta event, and POSSCON was successfully rebooted in Columbia, attracting around 850 atendees.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

SCALE 14X Gets Rolling for the Weekend

SCALE 14X Friday

One of the fears — one of the many in having an established conference at a brand spanking new venue — is this: Suppose they gave an outstanding Friday keynote, and nobody came? All those sleepless nights worrying about it were essentially for naught, since Cory Doctorow’s keynote at SCALE 14X Friday was a standing room only success.

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The keynote kicked off yet another day of SCALE at its new digs, and the Pasadena Convention Center has gotten high marks among attendees. The wide-open exhibit hall, holding 143 exhibitors, was a complete hit with both attendees and vendors alike.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Linux Foundation Sells Out, Brave New Browser & More…

FOSS Week in Review

We’re just barely past the relatively quiet news days that are the holiday season and already the news is getting to be quite contentious. So much so that I’ve been tempted to call this edition of the Week in Review “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” but I’m afraid that might turn into some kind of trademark dispute. I am reminded by our opening story, however, of the old Pogo quip from the funny pages: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Linux Foundation LogoLinux Foundation adopts plantation model: The biggest FOSS story this week came on Wednesday when free software activist and Linux kernel developer Matthew Garrett made public that on last Friday the Linux Foundation had dropped community representation from its board.

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The Linux Foundation’s board has always been weighted heavily in favor of corporations and money, with a large majority of the foundation’s board being elected by member corporations. The nine platinum members, who each pay $500,000 yearly in membership dues, elect up to ten board members (or one each for up to ten directors), the sixteen gold members elect three, and the more than 250 silver members elect only one. Until last week, individual members, who pay $99 in annual dues, elected two members to the board, not enough to influence foundation policy in a vote, but enough to give the community some say in the decision making process.

Not any longer.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

SCALE 14X: Making the Mark and Getting Ready for Doctorow

SCALE 14X Thursday

One of the drawbacks of having to work a show like SCALE is that I don’t get to go to enough sessions while I’m here. As the traffic cop at the intersection of old and new media, it’s my job to marshal the publicity team’s forces into taking the information happening at the show and then processing it for the wider public consumption.

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Pasadena Convention Center - SCALE 14x
The calm before the perfect storm, complete with plaza-sweeping Zamboni: The hall at the Pasadena Convention Center is ready for SCALE 14X attendees.
That said — and fighting off rumors Thursday morning that, yes, I am the one to introduce Mark Shuttleworth at the UbuCon keynote that starts the entire UbuCon and SCALE 14X on Thursday (not to worry, I didn’t) — SCALE 14X Thursday kicked off a new era in the conference; specifically one where it become a major player in the FOSS expo constellation, and perhaps the biggest independent show in North America.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

SCALE 14X Thursday: New Morning in Pasadena

SCALE 14X Thursday

Starting today, the Southern California Linux Expo — SCALE 14X in this year’s 14th annual iteration — moves from being hotel-based event busting at the seams to hold all the exhibitors and sessions to being a full-fledged, freewheeling convention center-based event with wide-open spaces and widespread talks.

The setup is done for today, with exhibitors readying their booths for the opening of the floor tomorrow after Cory Doctorow gives his Friday keynote. But let’s not get ahead of the story for Thursday.

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The schedule is posted online, if you’re at the event. If not, you can still follow along at the link.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Other Linux Expos Can Learn a Thing or Two From SCALE

SCALE 14x

SCALE 14x
Actually, I just wish this were true.
SCALE 14x is getting cranked up for the first ever SCALE at its new home in Pasadena, Calif., and already it’s obvious why this is the premiere community Linux fest in the country. For one thing, there’s the roster of great speakers, topped by such household names — in FOSS circles anyway — as Maddog Hall, Cory Doctorow and Mark Shuttleworth. Then there’s all of the cool things not always present at a Linux fest, not the least of which is the side-by-side UbuCon conference/unconference featuring all things Ubuntu and which is included in the cost of admission.

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Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

Finding the Right Tool for the Job

It’s been maybe two years ago, maybe three; that I was involved in a community discussion of charitable works. It stemmed from a topic I covered on my Blog of Helios and while we discussed the various means that we could be of service to others not so fortunate, one individual sought to find a way out of the discussion. “Well, I don’t know any poor people.”

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ToughbookHuh. He doesn’t know any poor people he says. Well “what a coincidence”, I told him. “Neither did I until I started looking for them.” That was the last I saw or heard from said person, and it’s all for the better. We didn’t seem to have much in common.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue