I'm sat in the airport at Dublin waiting for my flight to Norwich, without internet access because eircom's wireless internet service accepts payments but dishes out incorrect username / password details (as Gianugo also experienced during his nightmare trip home). Whilst this means I can't do essential things like compulsively checking my email, chatting to people over IM, or reading news, it does give me a chance to write up some thoughts on ApacheCon.
This was my first ApacheCon, as I've somehow managed to miss the previous European events - London 2000 (too busy starting up Luminas) and Stuttgart 2004 (too busy running Luminas). In many ways I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.
It's definitely a conference by geeks for geeks, but the business track had an awful lot of good content in it too. I particularly enjoyed Danese Cooper's "Challenges of Corp. Inv. in Open Source", and found much to agree with in Brian W. Fitzpatrick's "Apache: Code Isn't Enough". I think the highlight was definitely the Lightning Lottery Talks, which provided some much-needed relief after the mental exertions of the previous days.
There were a few niggles: the pre-conference organisation was pretty chaotic (talks and workshops confirmed or cancelled far too near the actual event); spotty wireless at the beginning of the hackathon (though this improved dramatically); most annoying of all was the totally inadequate number of power supplies. The last was especially frustrating since I usually carry a 4 socket power strip with me, but decided against it this time since the Cocoon GetTogether had lulled me into a false sense of security about provisions at Apache-related events.
None of these niggles were enough to seriously lessen the enjoyment of the event though, and the sense of Apache community really made it a great experience. I can't wait for the next one.
I've uploaded my photos to ApacheCon Europe 2006, and more photos can be found under the tags apachecon and apacheconeu2006.
Posted by savs at June 30, 2006 3:43 PM