Tag Archives: apachecon

Geocaching and Leeches

There’s a couple of small details that I omitted from my description of Friday at Rafter’s Retreat that I should fill you in on, my loyal readers.

Russ brought the makings of a geocache, and hid it near the cottages, and then a bunch of the rest of us went hunting for it. Suchetha was the first person to actually find it.

We had been promised that the place was infested with leeches, and during the geocaching, I had my first experience with them. They weren’t the big fat leeches from “Stand By Me”, but rather were small inch-worm looking things. Which, of course, just makes them harder to get hold of to yank off. They inject an anticoagulant, which then makes you bleed profusely after the sucker comes off.

Truly unpleasant experience, and not one that I would choose to repeat.

But, of course, I did repeate it, getting leeches on my legs and feet each time we went walking out into the jungle, throughout the rest of the time we were in Kitulgala. Nasty things.

Geek Out, Friday

Aug 20, 2006
Kitulgala, Sri Lanka
Friday

The last week has been absolutely amazing, and yesterday ended it with a bang. Following a whole week of FOSS conferences (7 conferences or gatherings of some description) the LSF (Lankan Software Foundation) held the GeekOut as a wrap-up, for the geeks to get together and engage in non-geek activities, as well as a chance for informal discussion of many issues.

30 of us came to Rafters’ Retreat in Kitulgala, about 3 hours east (well, the way our bus driver drove!!) of Colombo.

The drive from Colombo was a bit of a surprise to me. The entire drive, the road was lined on both sides by shops, homes, small businesses, and other buildings. I had figured that once we got outside of the city, there would be stretches of emptiness, or perhaps farmland. But, it turns out, at least in this part of the country, it’s very densely inhabited.

We arrived in Kitulgala just as it started raining. (It has rained much of the time that I’ve been in Sri Lanka.) The bus is too large to actually pull in to the grounds of where we’re staying, so we parked across the street and down a bit, and started piling out into the downpour. We stood for a while up on the porch of a building there, waiting for the rain to slacken, but that didn’t happen.

Eventually we decided to make a run for it. We took off across the street in the rain.

About halfway across the street my backpack decided that it wasn’t zipped up properly, and came all the way open, spilling all of its contents into the street. Including my camera, cables, microphone, mic stand, and lots of papers. Everything except my laptop, in fact.

With the help of a bunch of the guys, we scooped everything back into the backpack, zipped it correctly, and hurried the rest of the way across. It seems that nothing is permanently damaged, except for most of the papers. Fortunately, there was nothing irreplaceable in the papers.

Shortly after arriving, we had some dinner. As with every meal since I’ve set foot on the island, dinner was amazingly good. The food here is sort of like Indian food, only rather different. It is fairly spicy, although at the hotel the tone it down a lot for the benefit of us soft-tongued westerners. At FOSS Enterprise, and here at the Retreat, they have been giving us the genuine article, and it is fantastic, if somewhat painful. 🙂

That evening we stayed up until 1 or so (the younger guys stayed up a lot later than I) talking about Open Source, local politics, the school system, and involvement in Apache.

Folks in “developing nations” (although more and more I wonder about this seemingly arbitrary division of the world up into categories, and the stigmas associated with it, but that’s a post for another day) *GET* Open Source in a way that we don’t in the USA. They understand that one of the core benefits of FOSS is the ability to have a local economy that isn’t beholden to Mr. Gates and Mr. Bush. By having a local software industry, they can make decisions that are in the best interest of their own nation, rather than being forced into particular decisions by multi-national corporations.

Certainly, the same is true of any industry, but software seems to be one area where huge percentages of the world are completely dependent on one company – Microsoft. And it represents a disproportionate percentage of national budgets, which increases as computers become more important in daily life.

To Be Continued … (Saturday’s writeup coming soon)

Sir Arthur

Yesterday a few of us got the opportunity to go visit Sir Arthur C Clarke at his home in Colombo. He just recently had cataract surgery, and so didn’t want a lot of flash photos taken. Several pictures were taken with Ken’s camera, and hopefully I’ll have them soon.

Sir Arthur is still a great presence in the room. Knowing that one is in the same room with the guy that wrote Rama was pretty amazing.

His home is full of the awards and collections of a full life. There were signed photos from the crew of various spacecraft, as well as various movie spacecraft crews. And the original geosync paper was there in a frame.

Danese sent some photos, which she had taken last year, for me to give to Sir Arthur. I had them on my ApacheCon US ’05 flash drive. The guy that handles the computers there wasn’t in, and so I ended up leaving my flash drive with him. So Arthur C Clarke now has an ApacheCon flash drive, which is kinda cool. I wish we’d taken an ApacheCon T-Shirt to him as well.

I’ve now met two of the authors whose work I most admire – Arthur C Clarke and Douglas Adams. And having seen a little of Sri Lanka, I can understand why someone would choose to live here. It is certainly very beautiful. Sir Arthur is evidently held in very high regard by the people here.

The World Is Flat In Apache

Sanjiva is giving a great presentation on how the ASF flattens the world. He has given examples from the way that the Incubator treats HUGE companies as compared to how we treat one-person projects (ie, no preferential treatment simply because you happen to be a multi-billion dollar company). And he talked about how our model brings the developers in direct contact with the users. And he’s talked about how being involved in ASF projects gives you the opportunity to be part of a global community, and make a difference in your world. And he’s talking about how people in all skills have a place that they can fit into an Open Source project.

It’s always fascinating to me how folks outside of the US and Europe really *get* Open Source in ways that are completely different than the way that folks inside the US and Europe get it. It’s very cool, and gives a great new perspective on how involvement in Open Source matters in the world at large, particularly in companies that must otherwise be very dependent on the USA for their information economies.

Lost Luggage

This morning, when I stumbled down to the front desk, my suitcase was there. This is definitely the longest I’ve ever been without my luggage, and I was very grateful that I decided to pack two suitcases this time, rather than just one.

Also in there was my recording gear, so hopefully I’ll now be able to record a Feathercast or two in the next few days.

Tuesday morning

It is Tuesday morning. I just called Sarah to say goodnight – Monday night. I got a good night’s sleep last night, and I feel much more human today. I sat at the hackathon yesterday, but I didn’t get much done other than a little bit of email.

Today Ken is giving the keynote, and I have a talk about DAV. My suitcase still isn’t here, so hopefully I won’t look too rumpled. I’m *so* glad I brought two suitcases this time. At least I have something to wear, even though it’s not what I wanted to wear.

Arrived in Sri Lanka

I’m in Sri Lanka. I’ve been here perhaps an hour. It was a *long* trip,
but I made it. And now finally I’ve been somewhere in Asia.

Things haven’t quite started yet, but they’re getting set up for the
hackathon, and things are going to get started soon. There are a lot of
guys here from WS02, and a few folks from other places.

The first part of the trip was largely uneventful. Lexington to
Cincinnati to Paris.

I hate the CDG airport. It feels completely accidental. Everything about
the layout of the airport feels unintentional. I was there for 3 hours,
and I spent 2 hours of that travelling from one part of the airport to
another. There was a 20 minute bus ride from the airplane to the
terminal, which went around and around until I was sure that the driver
was lost.

Then I had to get on another bus to get to Terminal 1. But apparently I
got on the wrong one, so wasted another 20 minutes driving about to the
wrong terminals. Then got on yet another bus to get the rest of the way
to the terminal.

About halfway through boarding, they suddenly stopped letting us on.
Several emergency guys with fire extinguishers, a repair guy with a
large tool box, and several policemen showed up. 10 or 15 minuted later,
they all left. I have no idea what that was about. And then they let us
on board.

Sri Lankan Airways is, I believe, the nicest airline I have ever
traveled on. The food was amazing. Simply wonderful. The stewardesses,
although I imagine the folks that abolished the use of that word would
object to them, were graceful and beautiful, all dressed in what I took
to be traditional Sri Lankan outfits. Did I mention the food was
fantastic?

The first hop was through Frankfurt. In Frankfurt we had to all get off
of the plane and re-enter the boarding area. At the entrance to the
boarding area, they re-checked all the boarding passes against the list
of folks who were allowed to get back on. In Frankfurt they do this
thing where they check your boarding pass before you can get in the
waiting area, rather than before you can get on the plane. Sort of a
good idea, as it speeds up boarding. Unfortunately, there are far fewer
seats in the waiting area than on the plane.

I arrived in Colombo at (I think) about 6 in the morning. It took a
considerable amount of time to wait for all the baggage to go around the
belt, and I finally dtermined that my larger suitcase had not, in fact,
come with me on the last leg of the trip. Fortunately, I brought two
suitcases this time, and the smaller one arrived, so I have something to
wear until the other one arrives tomorrow. Unfortunately, my recording
gear is in the larger one, and I had hoped to do some feathercast
interviews today. Hopefully it will arrive this evening some time. If
not, well, I’m sure I’ll manage somehow. My laptop is here, and that’s
all I really need. 🙂

The trip from the airport was fascinating, for a number of reasons.

For starters, folks here drive quite creatively. Lanes are merely a
suggestion. A new lane can be created at a whim, usually assisted by
blowing the horn a lot. And yet it was more like a well-choreographed
dance than the terror it should have been, and everyone seemed to know
their part.

We went through several distinct parts of town. Out nearer the airport,
the buildings were older, and many of them looked uninhabitable, while
others showed signs of a long-past splendor. Apparently some of them
were from the colonial days.

The next section was buildings that looked more purpose-built. Lots of
stores and businesses.

Then there was the downtown area, with more multi-storey buildings.

Through all of this, there were hundreds of school kids heading to
school. Lots of white uniforms keeping somehow spotlessly clean in spite
of the muddy roads and cars zooming past.

I slept quite a bit on the plane, and I thought that I was doing ok, but
now that I’m here and sitting around, I’m starting to feel the effects
of the 9.5 hour time difference. Maybe I should go take a short nap
after all.

Step One

I’m in the Lexington Airport, step one of my trip to Sri Lanka. It’s pretty much the same here as normal. Yes, they have the “your bottle of water may explode” signs everywhere, but the folks here are just as laid back and helpful as they were the last time I flew.

In the early post-9/11 days, the security people here were tynrannical, rude, and petty. As they have become more professional, and many of them have been replaced, it has become actually quite pleasant being in this Airport. The folks seem aware that most of us consider them an obstacle, and they are polite and efficient. It’s a wonderful change. I had gotten used to being angry by the time I got through the “security” check, but this year it has been much, much better.

The Atlanta flight was just announced as “the one that’s on time today.” Very encouraging.