~kanarip

Returning from FAD EMEA I have to say we had a very useful and enjoyable weekend.

Every time I have these kinds of meetings, whether with Fedora Unity as a founding member, or as Fedora EMEA e.V.'s vice president, I feel like a leader. You have stuff to consider, things to discuss, and decisions to make. These decisions might impact some people, and I can only hope some people think those decisions are the right decisions. So let's walk through our agenda and see what we discussed and came up with, for the parts that I'm involved with, or take partcular interest in.

Besides upcoming events like FOSDEM, Chemnitzer LinuxTage, LinuxTag and next year's FUDCon, Fabian Affolter and myself had the idea of organizing a FAD evolving around getting Sage in Fedora. There's a Wiki page with some ideas, suggestions and discussion, and a lot of people seem interested in packaging it, but since it's such a vast amount of work it needs organisation; Sounds to me like a perfect Fedora Activity Day.

On the topic of events

We agreed that our previous FUDCon location selection process, which ended prematurely given the unique opportunity to join LinuxTag in Berlin, is going to continue in some or the other form. Here's (briefly) how we imagined it would go;

1. Anyone who thinks a city of their particular preference is the most awesome city to hold a FUDCon, willing to do a lot of the work involved takes a few considerations and fills in the details on a wiki page. This however needs to happen way in advance, in order for the rest of the selection process to happen in a timely fashion before we start actually organizing the event. In general, you would need to have as much details as possible on that page by, say, February (e.g. FOSDEM).
2. We, the Fedora EMEA board and other community members, Community Architecture from within Red Hat (also community members, but that's besides the point) try and determine the most suitable location on that list. A few goals that we have collide here, and it all gets to whether a reasonable amount of Red Hat employees can use this FUDCon to get ((even) more) involved with Fedora, for which we need the respective budget holders of those employees on board with the location, and that we have a FUDCon in a different location each year. We also take into account the prices (hotel, travel, FUDCon location, food & drinks, etc), and in the future we would also like to take into account the number of willing participants from within the rest of the larger Free Software community and Red Hat's Ecosystem (partners).

Neither of these two points are set in stone. We're inventing this "list of FUDCon locations suggested by YOU" and the selection process practically as we go along. I've also suggested that if we hold a FUDCon, I imagine a lot of people either go on vacation or spend their money on attending a FUDCon. I think I've said something along the lines of: "Why not give this group of Fedora friends the opportunity to attach their vacation to FUDCon, just by organizing a list of people that are going to hang around for a little while after the main event is over?"

On the SAGE Fedora Activity Day

How we're going to set up this Fedora Activity Day (or multiple days) hasn't been set in stone yet; we need your input on this. Do we think it is one day of collaborative effort (including reviewing the packages), or do we think it's multiple days? Would it be useful to be in the same location at the same time hacking on this stuff? Would it take a week for a bunch of people to get the job done? I'm not sure yet, maybe you have some idea.

The Most Important

Other then that, the major issue we got around to discussing this weekend, at least from my perspective, is the Trademark issue. It's not the same issue as with the domain name owner Trademark License Agreement, and I'm not sure how much I can say about it while it is still ongoing, but the bottom line is simple; The non-profit (with a standing Trademark License Agreement) should give up using the trademark (meaning the non-profit should rename itself), or the purpose of the non-profit is defeated. Obviously, our take at this is that we do not want to give up the trademark, nor give way compromising our original purpose. Therefor, we (Red Hat and Fedora EMEA e.V.) are looking into opportunities and options that up and until now may not have been considered, but it's a work in progress. I'm sure there's more to follow on this subject ;)

Freaking Annoying

Last but not least, and not of particular interest to the people looking to a report on FAD EMEA, I lost my phone somewhere in between the Schloss Beuggen, Rheinfelden (Gerold's place), Rheinfelden (City center), Fabian's car, Basel and the airport. Not knowing where your phone is I can tell you is freaking annoying. Especially if the contract permits me to do virtually anything anywhere to anywhere I want (need?), in any quantity I want (need?). I have not lost my phone in over 9 years, and I always keep it with me (similar to how I keep my laptop around). In contrast, I do forget to take my house keys with me every once in a while ;-) My phone though enables me to perform bank transfers, all the relevant phone numbers are in there and it's the first or second thing I reach for when I need to contact someone. Not having it is a PITA.

I raised the alarm and probably got Gerold to kneel down and search every corner of his house (I'm sorry Gerold, I'll make it up to you I promise!), until finally the Schloss Beuggen told me that yes indeed, they did find my phone. I'm so relieved I could dance, I would have been in a million kinds of trouble cancelling/blocking that contract, especially since tomorrow during office hours, my regular $dayjob kicks in and I'm implementing Red Hat VDI (monday), then afterwards I have obligations on the other side of the country (tuesday), back to Red Hat VDI and some M$ Windows (wednesday), etc, etc. Either way, I'm getting my phone sent back to me with the upmost urgency. I'm glad I know where it is though, it's a big relief.

I'm at FAD EMEA 2009 today, and I have to say; Mornings in Rheinfelden are much more beautiful then back home!