While long and at times disjointed, I found this a refreshingly transparent report on something that feels half counterintuitive (scattered grants in the context of effective altruism) but that I can relate to as I research open source sustainability challenges.
In a larger organizational setting, your manager probably has a title that reflects their level and/or seniority, such as principal or general manager. Or at the very least they'll have something in their business card, like product manager of foo.
When you talk to your manager, are you consciously aware of their title? Do they speak to you with that clout? Do you filter what you say based on that?
Most of the people I know stopped going to LFNW after the shitshow that was that year, they still attend SeaGL and other conventions.
The exploding can of WD-40 that MS handed out that year was the cherry on top of the hijacking of the main space, fake Azure credits, and poorly run afterparty that MS put on.
Frankly, MS should not have been allowed to hijack LFNW that year. This year MS was the only booth to not staff on Sunday, I'd hope LFNW doesn't waste table space next year.
Chris Lamb is a remarkably active and outgoing DPL. But yes, I've been active in Debian for well over a decade and I've seen both a lot of people leave and new people that I don't know or get to know as I used to. All 5 DPL candidates ring a bell for me, though.
In alternatives, packages write their files to the disk and then register those as alternatives. A user can decide which one should satisfy the alternative.
In diversions, a package claims a file. When anyone else tries to overwrite the same file, it's diverted elsewhere. It isn't designed for the user to choose between equals.
I built a derivative distro using diversions mainly to prevent "soft-forking" Debian packages as much as possible (maintaining packages is extremely costly for anyone that isn't a decentralized organization like Debian)
RPM-based distros certainly led server OEM shipments back in the day, but that didn't mean Debian wasn't being used extensively in the backoffice.
As others have pointed out, APT played a critical role in Debian's popularity as open source software grew and early naive software distribution methods were outpaced by complexity.
I won't weigh in on Canonical's broader presence across verticals, technologies, etc., but Ubuntu is widely recognized as the most popular Linux in cloud platforms. I believe this is a direct result of APT coupled with a more rapid release pace.
RPM-based distros remain extremely valuable and extremely popular in many scenarios, particularly when someone has to run a product from a proprietary ISV or something that has a very complicated certification model.
In some cases, but certainly not all and in my opinion in a decreasing amount, the choice of distro might be tied to how active a particular company is in the upstream kernel. "Buy Red Hat because they contribute to the kernel". Suffice to say as decision makers perceive that their app isn't the kernel, that decision criteria is shifting (thankfully, many RPM-based vendors including Red Hat have many other value items to add)
If you attended FOSDEM 2019 and live anywhere in the Americas, I would love to get in touch to see if we can organize an Americas FOSDEM Debrief with a handful of people in the room plus live streaming. It'd be great to have summaries per track. It'd be fantastic to have speakers join us, but I'm mostly interested in attendees. I'm same username on Twitter, too.
It was my first time at FOSDEM. I listened to podcasts/read blog posts from people that have been attending the last 15 editions so I kind of knew what to expect. I brought snacks both days, and didn't bother bringing a laptop. I picked odd hours for commuting, and tried to commit to a track/room for a bit (it took me days to figure out my schedule)
That means I probably missed some of the FOSDEM experience but I also didn't experience much crazy (except for the wintry mix that made moving around so hard on Saturday)
You are right that the volunteer experience is inconsistent and I have no data to compare to other years. At times, in some rooms, it felt like the attendees were self-policing (shooshing others, controlling people standing up, etc.) when the volunteers were not. I've also been to events in other places (Open Source Summit Japan comes to mind) where there were volunteers but the experience was much more streamlined. It might be cultural, who knows.
What I heard (and therefore wasn't expecting) is that nothing new gets announced at FOSDEM anymore. However there are still tens of thousands of people in the industry that might hear the news on Twitter/HN/elsewhere and still want to go ask questions/have a debate.
I mostly attend open source/tech conferences in the Americas. I think I know what you mean, but that's not the main difference I see between FOSDEM and those conferences.
There's still "commercial" at FOSDEM (plenty of sales pitches in sessions, to begin with) but I think what's strikingly different is that FOSDEM has no "agenda", that is, the event isn't crafted around a theme and said theme doesn't dictate the rest of the content and the discussion.
