openSUSE Summit

Day One: The Rain Dont Matter

2012-09-23T05:00:00Z

Day One: The Rain Don't Matter

21 September 2012

Day One of the openSUSE Summit launched with skyrocketing attendance. With double the expected attendance for the first day, all rooms were packed! At first we assumed there would mostly be holdovers from the SUSECon conference, but in fact many were last minute registrants coming in on their own.

The day started off mid-day with several sessions. The Packaging Made Ridiculously Easy workshop was particularly well-attended. Word around the hallways is that folks have been actively engaged in the sessions they've attended. Good discussions and knowledge transfers all around.

The offical kickoff to the Summit began at 5 p.m. when Bryen Yunashko donned his Geeko hat to the roar of the audience and introduced Michael Miller and Andy Wafaa. openSUSE Around The World was very well received and the audience cheered and laughed along with the co-hosts as they highlighted the trimumphs of the Project and the recent release of openSUSE 12.2.

The ceremony was also the occassion for the official announcement of current openSUSE Board chairman Alan Clark stepping down to assume new roles elsewhere and Vincent Untz assuming the role as openSUSE's newest board chairman. The Summit team is excited to see Vuntz in his new role and also thank Alan for his hard work both on the Board and as co-chair for the Summit.

By evening, hard rains fell upon our hotel and semed to threaten our Poolside party. But in true spirit, Geekos are never discouraged. We pushed on with the party and it was an all-night success with food to be had, boat kits to be built, races to be won in the pool and just awesome pool-dunking whenever possible.

Friday was a great start to what will continue to be an awesome weekend. Saturday promises to be especially busy as local users come out for LUG Day. If you're in the area, don't hesitate to come on by even if you haven't registered yet. We've expanded our conference area to accommodate even more people. NO ONE will be turned away. That's just not the Geeko Way!

Pie For Pi

2012-09-18T05:00:00Z

Pie for Pi!!!

18 September 2012

openSUSE Project has a standing tradition of giving back to the community. And if you thought openSUSE Summit was about to break that tradition, you thought wrong!

The Summit is excited to announce the Pie for Pi Raffle drawing this weekend to benefit GNOME Foundation. Andrew Wafaa, affectionately known as The FunkyPenguin has generously donated a RaspberryPi board. SUSE is also stepping in donating a 36" stuffed Geeko plushie. It's pretty rare to spot one of these super-sized Geekos out in the wild, so you don't want to miss this one.

openSUSE Summit Sweetens The Deal...LITERALLY!!!

Not to be outdone, the Summit is making this a win-win raffle for everyone. Each ticket sells for $1. But if you buy $5, you get 6 tickets. AND... you get a free slice of pie. Nom Nom Nom!

Here's how it works

* Raffle tickets begin selling immediately after the Friday Opening Ceremony.
* Tickets will be sold on Saturday at the openSUSE Forums table in the Geeko lounge.
* Free slices of pie will only be sold on Saturday.
* Raffle Drawing to be held in the LUG Room at 4:50 p.m. on Saturday
* Winners must be present to claim prizes.

Why GNOME Foundation?

Like many open source organizations, the GNOME Foundation works hard to raise money to send people to important events and organize hackfests. The User Observation hackfest to be held during the Summit is no exception. Sending people around is no small feat, but it is an important part of how the open source community ecosystem works. This is our way of saying thanks to GNOMEies for all they do.

Gnome User Observation Hackfest Lands In Orlando

2012-09-17T05:00:00Z

GNOME User Observation Hackfest lands in Orlando!

17 September 2012

What do you get when you have a city with a large installation of open source servers and desktops, a group of dedicated hackers, and an awesome conference? Why, you get the GNOME User Observation Hackfest!

Florida's City of Largo is just crazy in love with open source. They've got over 800 servers and thin clients using openSUSE and GNOME desktops. And you can learn more about them when Largo's Dave Richards presents Large Deployments of openSUSE this Saturday afternoon.

GNOME Foundation is sending a group of hackers to Orlando. They land on Thursday and begin their assault on Largo (just two hours drive away) on Friday. There, the hackers will get first hand observations of people using GNOME in real-world situations. Then they head back to Orlando Friday night and get busy, in the Hackroom, provided by the Summit.

This gives a very unique opportunity for attendees of the openSUSE Summit. The Hackroom won't be a closed-door event. These hackers want to hear from you. Yes, it is true! You have this awesome chance to meet the people who contribute to one of the world's leading open source desktop environments and and tell them your thoughts face-to-face! You can actually make a difference by giving these folks valuable insight into just how you use GNOME and how you want to see it get even better.

And this all happens right here at the openSUSE Summit this WEEKEND! It isn't too late to register for this completely free event.

Summit Saturday Is LUG Day

2012-09-11T05:00:00Z

Summit Saturday is LUG Day!

11 September 2012

Apparently, there's quite a few Linux User Groups in the Central Florida region. Two in just Orlando, even! And it seems to have been a while since all these LUGs have found an excuse to gather together in one place.

Well, the excuse is here and openSUSE Summit jumps in. As many of you know, the openSUSE Project has a long-standing tradition of supporting local groups where we visit. Working together with some key LUG leaders in the region, we're happy to announce that Saturday is LUG Day! We're dedicating Bonaire Room 4 to LUG Day where old friends reunite and discuss the current state of affairs in the region. They'll be setting up tables to demonstrate their computers and offer up a few presentations throughout the day.

And at the end of the afternoon, LUG-ites will gather together for one big Reunion Meeting. And to make this even more exciting, the openSUSE Summit has a special plan in the works to help raise money to support the Orlando LUGs.

So if you're from the area, and you haven't seen your friends in such a long time, this is your perfect opportunity.

Summit Welcomes Stefano Maffulli

2012-09-07T05:00:00Z

Summit Welcomes Stefano Maffulli

7 September 2012

The openSUSE is proud to announce our keynote speaker as part of our many exciting events for the weekend.

Join us at 9 a.m. on 22 September as Stefano Maffulli introduces us to The Lessons of Open Source for the Open Cloud. He comes to us with a wealth of experience beginning in Italy with such accomplishments as being involved with the Italian distribution MadeInLinux and as the Italian chancellor for the Free Software Foundation Europe. He eventually found his way to San Francisco, where he now lives and is Technical Community Manager for OpenStack.

Maffulli brings an exciting keynote that looks at the evolution of Free/Libre Software and Open Source (FLOSS) movement from the data center to the cloud over the past 25+ years and the radical changes in how the world thinks of computing today. Addresing the paradigms needed to embrace the changes, Maffulli discusses these lessons and how we can move forward as an open source community to be a world leader in cloud computing.