There are a bunch of things I mean to blog about, but as I have just got fully home from Heidelberg and DebConf15 this afternoon that seems most appropriate to start with. It’s a bit of a set of disjoint thoughts, but I figure I should write them down while they’re in my head.

DebConf is an interesting conference. It’s the best opportunity the Debian project has every year to come together and actually spend a decent amount of time with each other. As a result it’s a fairly full on experience, with lots of planned talks as a basis and a wide range of technical discussions and general social interaction filling in whatever gaps are available. I always find it a thoroughly enjoyable experience, but equally I’m glad to be home and doing delightfully dull things like washing my clothes and buying fresh milk.

I have always been of the opinion that the key aspect of DebConf is the face time. It was thus great to see so many people there - we were told several times that this was the largest DebConf so far (~ 570 people IIRC). That’s good in the sense that it meant I got to speak to a lot of people (both old friends and new), but does mean that there are various people I know I didn’t spend enough, or in some cases any, time with. My apologies, but I think many of us were in the same situation. I don’t feel it made the conference any less productive for me - I managed to get a bunch of hacking done, discuss a number of open questions in person with various people and get pulled into various interesting discussions I hadn’t expected. In short, a typical DebConf.

Also I’d like to say that the venue worked out really well. I’ll admit I was dubious when I heard it was in a hostel, but it was well located (about a 30 minute walk into town, and a reasonable bus service available from just outside the door), self-contained with decent facilities (I’m a big believer in having DebConf talks + accommodation be as close as possible to each other) and the room was much better than expected (well, aside from the snoring but I can’t blame the DebConf organisers for that).

One of the surprising and interesting things for me that was different from previous DebConfs was the opportunity to have more conversations with a legal leaning. I expect to go to DebConf and do OpenPGP/general crypto related bits. I wasn’t expecting affirmation about the things I have learnt on my course over the past year, in terms of feeling that I could use that knowledge in the process of helping Debian. It provided me with some hope that I’ll be able to tie my technology and law skills together in a way that I will find suitably entertaining (as did various conversations where people expressed significant interest in the crossover).

Next year is in Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a long way (though I suppose no worse than Portland and I get to stay in the same time zone), and a quick look at flights indicates they’re quite expensive at the moment. The bid presentation did look pretty good though so as soon as the dates are confirmed (I believe this will happen as soon as there are signed contracts in place) I’ll take another look at flights.

In short, excellent DebConf, thanks to the organisers, lovely to see everyone I managed to speak to, apologies to those of you I didn’t manage to speak to. Hopefully see you in Cape Town next year.