Ubucon New York 2007

I really enjoyed Ubucon NY which happened on the Friday after LinuxWorld New York. Ubucon’s are informal gatherings where Ubuntu users get together to learn and socialise. The New York one was set up as an unconference so the attendees decided what the activities and talks would be. They’re organised by active members of the user community. John Mark did a great job organising it, and kept the day clicking along. Leslie and the rest of the Google team deserve thanks for providing the facilities and their overall enthusiasm. I of course returned the favour by making sure that no food on the buffet went
to waste!

It was interesting to see the wide variety of people who are active and interested enough to come along to a community event. The range was amazing, from professional business users who wanted to learn more about Ubuntu, to some of the seasoned Free Software activists.

Fabian did a great talk about our commercial support services for Ubuntu and what it’s like to work at Canonical. I learnt a few things myself! I was supposed to do a talk on the Ubuntu roadmap but there wasn’t enough time at the end of the day. So as people were getting tired I did a quick Q&A session on Canonical and Ubuntu instead. It got picked up in eWeek which was very surprising as it really was short: I think I managed to answer most people’s questions with a reasonable level of clarity!

If you’d like to be notified about upcoming Ubucon’s then you can subscribe to the Wiki page. The plan is for the next one to be in Sevilla, Spain on Saturday May 5th and is being organised by Jono Bacon. We’re also having our first formal user and business conference called Ubuntu Live. It’s in Portland, USA and comes right in front of OSCON July 22nd to 24th – make it a date in your diary!