June 27, 2010
Some Notes About Barcamp Oxford

We’re still recovering from the trip (going from Exeter, full energy on the Barcamp, and going back in the same day it’s exhausting), but we’re very satisfied with the event.

Time table

Although we have organized a couple of barcamp events in Valencia (Barcamp Valencia), this was our first pure barcamp event ever. In Barcamp Valencia we have a call for papers prior to the event, so it was not really a barcamp strictly talking, although we encouraged the participation of the attendees.

The first impression is: I like it! Some random notes:

  • The proposed talks were interesting, and surprisingly the topics were mostly general (at least in the talks I attended), thus accessible.
  • The organization was great (people from the Apache Software Foundation), and the premises were perfect.
  • Attendees were friendly and participative. Although I wasn’t able to participate in all the talks, I did it in the topics that I could, and I felt comfortable doing it.
  • I expected more attendees (Oxford it’s a big city, full of students).
  • Oxford in June is way hotter than Exeter :).

You can check photos of the event, and the Barcamp Oxford Blog with comments and notes about the talks.

In case you don’t know what is all this about, check out the barcamp rules.

by jjm on 11:32am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZyiCzQ7
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Filed under: barcampoxford barcamp oxford talks event 
June 25, 2010
We’re going to Barcamp Oxford

Alex finished her course yesterday (she’s now a new qualified MFL teacher, yay!), and with the intense work of the last days, we totally forgot the Barcamp Oxford that will be held tomorrow in the University Club, Mansfield Road, Oxford (obviously).

Barcamp Oxford

Fortunately it’s not too late! We booked two train tickets, and we’re going to the barcamp (2:30h of train but, who cares?). We have never been in Oxford, so we’re double-excited about the trip.

The worst part it’s that I don’t feel like giving a talk about anything without some previous preparation, but I’ll try to participate as much as possible.

It would be great to meet other Fedora users in the barcamp, and if you’re a Fedora ambassador planning something and need some help, don’t hesitate to contact me ASAP!

by jjm on 2:39pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZyhoCEe
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Filed under: fedora barcamp oxford barcampoxford 
January 31, 2010
The Second Barcamp Valencia it’s Over

Yesterday was held the second Barcamp Valencia, and it was a total success: 124 attendees (from 156 registered, and 23 non registered attendees that finally attended the event), 12 interesting talks + 1 (I hosted a talk about GPG, and I hope it was as interesting as the rest hehe).

That was a very nice experience, again (the past edition was great too), and I made a lot of new friends an learnt some new stuff (not much, because being in the organization team I couldn’t attend more that a couple of talks… not counting mine).

It’s surprising the high interest of the people to attend to such events, but the very low participation in the set up. In fact I was almost alone in all the setting before the great day (that day I had help from two guys, and without that help it would have been impossible!).

I don’t know if it’s related to the Spanish idiosyncrasy, but I think the barcamp idea of an event doesn’t work out here. In fact we didn’t run a pure barcamp event yesterday, but something a little bit more like a more classic congress.

Another conclusion it’s the impressive power of the social networks (mostly Twitter in our case) in order to promote events. May be you don’t know it, but 124 attendees it’s a very good mark of an event of this kind in Valencia.

In other news, some people speculated about the possibilities of the next barcamp once I’ve left the area (and the country!). Come on, I don’t feel I’m essential.

by jjm on 5:33pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZyLgSF6
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Filed under: Barcamp BarcampValencia Valencia 
July 26, 2009
Photo by Kiko Alario, some rights reserved. Fedora Community Talk at BarCamp Valencia Yesterday I gave my talk at the first edition of BarCamp Valencia (you can check the slides, in Spanish, and there’s a pool of photos in Flickr). The event was a great success: we had 68 attendees, not bad for Valencia (seems that it’s hard to gather people for this kind of events). I was a member of the organization, and we had one room dedicated exclusively to Open Source talks (the other one was bigger, and just for web 2.0 and social media stuff) . My talk was oriented to making a lightweight introduction to what’s a Linux distribution and hence what’s Fedora, followed by a brief description of how Fedora community is organized and how easy is to join a sub-project or group to start collaborating. I described the different user roles and skills, what is mentoring, and the main tools (FAS, wiki, mailing list, and the brand new community website). When I finished my talk, in the subsequent questions/debate, I realized that most of the attendees where quite amazed by how well organized is the Fedora community. They had a previous picture of Fedora being the toy of Red Hat, and I think they were sort of reluctant about Fedora because of it. I’m not sure if I know where this picture comes from, but despite this, I awaken their curiosity about our distribution (well, unless the Debian guy in the room, but I can live with that). And then the question popped up: How Fedora differs from Ubuntu? You know I’m the kind of guy that thinks any software it’s OK as long as it is free software, and I don’t like the useless discussions about branding in open source projects (Fedora vs Ubuntu, Gnome vs KDE, and the like). So my answer was easy. You know, both are distributors and, to some extent, they’re distributing the same software. In fact I updated my Fedora right there, and the attendees agreed that the GUI program it’s almost the same that Ubuntu’s. You know that’s not 100% accurate, but I think they got the message about what’s a distribution. So far, so good. I liked the experience. That was my first event as Fedora ambassador, and I survived! Yay! Update: if you want, you can download the ODP of the talk.

Photo by Kiko Alario, some rights reserved.

Fedora Community Talk at BarCamp Valencia

Yesterday I gave my talk at the first edition of BarCamp Valencia (you can check the slides, in Spanish, and there’s a pool of photos in Flickr).

The event was a great success: we had 68 attendees, not bad for Valencia (seems that it’s hard to gather people for this kind of events). I was a member of the organization, and we had one room dedicated exclusively to Open Source talks (the other one was bigger, and just for web 2.0 and social media stuff) .

My talk was oriented to making a lightweight introduction to what’s a Linux distribution and hence what’s Fedora, followed by a brief description of how Fedora community is organized and how easy is to join a sub-project or group to start collaborating.

I described the different user roles and skills, what is mentoring, and the main tools (FAS, wiki, mailing list, and the brand new community website).

When I finished my talk, in the subsequent questions/debate, I realized that most of the attendees where quite amazed by how well organized is the Fedora community. They had a previous picture of Fedora being the toy of Red Hat, and I think they were sort of reluctant about Fedora because of it.

I’m not sure if I know where this picture comes from, but despite this, I awaken their curiosity about our distribution (well, unless the Debian guy in the room, but I can live with that).

And then the question popped up: How Fedora differs from Ubuntu?

You know I’m the kind of guy that thinks any software it’s OK as long as it is free software, and I don’t like the useless discussions about branding in open source projects (Fedora vs Ubuntu, Gnome vs KDE, and the like).

So my answer was easy. You know, both are distributors and, to some extent, they’re distributing the same software.

In fact I updated my Fedora right there, and the attendees agreed that the GUI program it’s almost the same that Ubuntu’s. You know that’s not 100% accurate, but I think they got the message about what’s a distribution.

So far, so good. I liked the experience. That was my first event as Fedora ambassador, and I survived! Yay!

Update: if you want, you can download the ODP of the talk.

by jjm on 9:35pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy8wtJr
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Filed under: Fedora Talk Community BarCamp BarCampValencia Ambassador 
June 19, 2009
BarCampValencia Will Take Place the 25th July 2009 Finally we have a place for the first BarCampValencia! The event will take place in the Escuela Superior de Enseñanzas Técnicas in the CEU University. They will lend us two rooms with all the necessary stuff, and this is about 100 seats. I’m going to give two talks: A talk about Fedora: I’m not sure about the topic. I’d like to give an introduction to the distribution and talk about the community. A lightning talk about GPG + signing party: I’m thinking about the best way to do the signing party, because the participants should know GPG and what is this kind party before the event, so they can bring their keys. This will be my first event as Fedora Ambassador, and I’m very excited about it.

BarCampValencia Will Take Place the 25th July 2009

Finally we have a place for the first BarCampValencia! The event will take place in the Escuela Superior de Enseñanzas Técnicas in the CEU University. They will lend us two rooms with all the necessary stuff, and this is about 100 seats.

I’m going to give two talks:

  • A talk about Fedora: I’m not sure about the topic. I’d like to give an introduction to the distribution and talk about the community.
  • A lightning talk about GPG + signing party: I’m thinking about the best way to do the signing party, because the participants should know GPG and what is this kind party before the event, so they can bring their keys.

This will be my first event as Fedora Ambassador, and I’m very excited about it.

by jjm on 6:39am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy7Xk_I
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Filed under: Fedora BarCamp BarCampValencia GPG Signing Party 
April 18, 2009
A BarCamp in Valencia? I’m thinking seriously about it (at least I think about it in Spanish). After being involved in the organization of FLOSS events at my hometown, I must admit I like it. All the work, the stress, the problems, and sometimes the satisfaction of a job well done. I’m a Open Source advocate, you know, but in this case a more reasonable tagline would be: Web 2.0, Open Source and Social Media. Valencia is the third most populated city in Spain (wikipedia says 1,583,331 habitants in the metropolitan area, data from 2008). It could be a nice event to spend a weekend in this beautiful city and know some local geeks. What do you think? Update: we’re moving… BarCamp Valencia.

A BarCamp in Valencia?

I’m thinking seriously about it (at least I think about it in Spanish).

After being involved in the organization of FLOSS events at my hometown, I must admit I like it. All the work, the stress, the problems, and sometimes the satisfaction of a job well done.

I’m a Open Source advocate, you know, but in this case a more reasonable tagline would be: Web 2.0, Open Source and Social Media.

Valencia is the third most populated city in Spain (wikipedia says 1,583,331 habitants in the metropolitan area, data from 2008). It could be a nice event to spend a weekend in this beautiful city and know some local geeks. What do you think?

Update: we’re moving… BarCamp Valencia.

by jjm on 11:46am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy5prGS
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Filed under: BarCampValencia BarCamp Valencia Open Source web 2.0 Social Media Event