Penguicon 2024

by Christine Hall

While I’m not sure exactly what it is that Penguicon is, because it comes within an “n”‘s breath of containing the word “penguin” I’m willing to bet that it fits inclusion on a calendar for a website devoted to all things Linux and open-source.

Besides, it’s going to feature at least one pretty cool person who’s connected to open-source software, and that’s got to mean something, right?

That person would be benny Vasquez, the chairperson for the AlmaLinux OS Foundation (the folks behind the Linux distro that powers this website), who tells me that the conference “used to have a huge tech track,” but that’s evidently no longer the case because she’s been working with the folks who produce the event to remedy that. Tech would certainly be appropriate here as the event’s main focus seems to be science fiction and the last time I looked tech usually (but not always) plays a central role in sci-fi.

At the top of the event’s website it defines itself as being centered around “science fiction” and “open-source,” and since the event is named after Tux’s species, I’m guessing that FOSS has always been part of the mix. I’m also guessing that gaming (maybe even on Linux) will also come into the picture in one way or another.

‘Guest of Honor’ and Stuff Like That

James Gamble (I’m not sure what he does but he’s connected with the event) told me that, “Penguicon is a three-day event where we all learn from each other (as well as from our Guests of Honor) about hacking, building sci-fi universes, soldering, painting miniatures, gaming, coding, music, incredible costumes, and more. Our two pillars are Science Fiction and Open Source, but we cover as many diverse nerdy interests as possible.”

To me, that sounds as ‘way different’ as it also sounds ‘way interesting’, especially given the fact that one of the guests of honor this year is the aforementioned benny Vasques, who brings to the table her knowledge of the leadership skills necessary to keeping an open-source project on the tracks. If her current position with AlmaLinux isn’t enough for you, she was also the open-source security program manager at Microsoft for nearly a year, and spent another year as the community manager at Chef Software, back when it was an independent open-source company.

Vasquez is also not the only guest of honor. Already signed-up as the “Tech Guest of Honor” is J. Wolfgang Goerlich, who among other things serves as an advisory chief information security officer at Cisco. According to the event’s website, Wolfgang regularly advises on the topics of security architecture and design, identity and access management, zero trust, and resilience.

Another guest of honor, albeit from outside the tech arena, is needle-felter Margret-Ann Miller, who has some really cool and amazing felt dragons, wizards, and stuff like like that, which I’m guessing will be on display at the event.

Other than that, there’s no schedule posted yet — although event organizers do exhibit a sense-of-humor about that. When you click to navigate to the schedule page you are greeted with this:

Until we get our programming for the year scheduled, please plan on attending the following:

Friday: 7 pm. Stuff

Saturday: 11 am. Things

Saturday: 2 pm. Way more stuff

Sunday: 5 am. Sleeping

If you’re thinking you might want to attend, you might keep your eye on the event’s schedule page. In the meantime, we’ll let you know more when we know more.

The cost for attending the event for all three days is $80 plus fees (explained on the event’s webpage).