Brussels

BarCamp Brussels...For The Impatient

So I kind of stealth launched the concept of BarCamp Brussels in some posts wrapping up FOSDEM 2006, slated for around September 2006 to coincide with EuroOSCON.

 

 

 

I just found out about BarCamp Brussels ForTheImpatient -- for April/May! Boy, those Europeans sure are impatient :P Being organized by Peter Forret.

Hey, Ton, I'm hoping you and your crew will be interested in one or both camps. What do you think? (and yes, I still "owe" you a post on the 4 jobs meme...it might end up being a podcast or something suitably different).

Sounds like fun...wish I could attend lots more European events, but I have to ration out my travel a bit. Hopefully the ForTheImpatient crew will be able to figure out some good areas and set things up nicely for a bigger (or at least...more international?) attendance in September. I'll be watching it with interest.

FOSDEM attendees and European hacker culture

A little more personal pointer to the people at FOSDEM. It was nice to see O'Reilly as the major sponsor. The bookstore was hot, with people agonizing over just how many dozens of books they should buy. In many ways (as indicated by the full name -- Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting), the attendees are the core audience for O'Reily's books. OSCON, on the other hand, tends to be priced out of reach of the mainly grassroots, non-commercial hacker culture in Europe (aside from being accepted as a speaker).

Some of the usual European suspects were there -- Ralph and Edwin (wow -- Edwin did some Englsh blog posts Day 0/1, Day 2), and I did see Gerv off in the distance although I didn't end up talking to him directly. I also met Christ, who came with Ralph and Edwin (and yes, that name will be funny to native English speakers).

Geo Dan came along to experience the uniquely European hacker experience that is FOSDEM, along with the infamous Ivan with whom I had many great talks about architecture and culture as well as a fantastic dining experience. Andy brought an Amsterdam crew (Gijs, Marco, Nadya) and talked about Flock and I stole the wonderful Nadya's scarf.