Catching up - OSCON notes

Better late than never?

I enjoyed my first ever OSCON event.  Here are a few observations and a couple of reminders to self:

* In a preview of OSCON, a point was made that this year the tracks are not focused on programming language but rather on function/usage such as "mobility", "Design", and "Data". I noticed this before the article and the shift is a part of what attracted me to attend for the first time.  I was particularly interested in the "Protect" track as well as some "Data" topics.

* I started the week by attending a few of the morning talks at Open Cloud Day.

* Security focused talks attended (for CISSP CPEs).
How my POODLE lost his Xen state by seeing a Ghost, going BERserk, and getting ShellShock with a Heartbleed.

Evolution of information security threats.

Vulnerability management for open software development.

* Any slides are at: http://www.oscon.com/open-source-2015/public/schedule/proceedings

* The lunch time food was very well done, at least for my specific allergy concerns. On Day 1, everything in the "special diet" line was both gluten free and vegan.  I felt the need for a thick rare steak later but I found plenty to eat at the time. Day 2 lunch was mexican day. The mixed dishes were gluten free and vegan so I just had to avoid the side add ons: tortillas, cheese, and sour cream.

The evening events were not so well marked and not as robust in the selections that were marked as vegan and gluten free. I am so ready for the world to label "dairy free" as nicely as they have begun to identify the gluten free items.  While vegan is dairy free, dairy free does not have to be vegan.

* OSCON has an interesting dynamic but I find a number of contrasting statements.  On one hand you have the core conference focused on developers. On the other hand you have the Cultivate preconference event and a variety of talks on building community.

There were talks on sysadmins turned developers and overcoming the impostor syndrome. There were talks about the importance of new contributors and how to make them feel welcome. There were talks on the paperwork and management side of reporting and handling security vulnerabilities. In other words, many talks that are not all about programming.

Even in the keynotes and social media, there are references to inclusion, diversity, and community.
Yet in some of those same discussions, there are references to "we all have computer science degrees" and the use of #programmer along with complaints of "many people use opensource but few contribute". This last one really hit a nerve with me. It feeds my pet peeve of hearing "I cannot contribute to opensource because I don't code"  ARG! But that is rant for another post.

* I remembered to get my Fedora Badge.

-SML