Mon Jul 18 12:01:16 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050718.html

Wed Jul 13 18:13:05 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050713.html I'm departing tonight for some days to Cahors (Lot), in southern France. For those who do not know it, Lot is a very nice part of France, wild, with astonishing landscape and with welcoming people. Once you know that it is always sunny there and that it is where food and wine are best, you really don't want to spend your holidays elsewhere. :-)

Then, you know that you live in a developing country when it takes 5h30 by train to get there from the capital. In comparison, it takes 1h30 to go to Brussels from Paris, and 2h30 to go to London ... As I do not own a laptop, the journey is going to be looong! Fortunately, as I'm traveling with my brother in law, François-Marie, the trip will seems shorter. <advertisement>I would advise people that enjoy good photos to have a look at his site, as he makes quite nice photos.</advertisement>

As there is no high speed internet where I go, don't expect me to answer to mail or to fix my critical bugs ... I live in a developing country I told you! :-)

Sun Jul 10 17:37:20 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050710.html LSM2005 was great even if there were some organization issues, like not knowing if you would have a room to sleep during night. A friend even proposed me to sleep on the floor in her sleeping bag! Fortunately, it was not a serious issue but with more information, additional stress would have been avoided.

What's making a good LSM? Of course, conferences. This year, I attended few conferences since I was only two days there. Regarding Debian, I attended the Debian-Women conference from Hanna Wallach. Hanna is a great speaker and her conference was quite enjoyable, the audience seems to have enjoyed it.

The other Debian conference was mine, initially planned at the same time than Hanna's, but we managed to report it later in the afternoon. It was about what I prefer when it comes to talking about Debian : our methodology, our mission and how our mission influence our methodology. More than three years after I joined Debian, I'm still amazed how people that do not know each other for the vast majority can work together and produce a coherent system.

I had fun with my talk and people seemed to enjoy it. Some of them told me that it was the first Debian conference they attend where the speaker did not pronounce the word apt. :-) Got the usual trolls during the Q&A session (like the Debian position about Ubuntu). After my talk, we had the key signing stuff ... where I realized I forgot my papers at home. And unfortunately, I haven't forgotten them. I've lost my ID card, driving licence and other papers with my wallet. Sigh, tomorrow I'll have to spend some time at the police station.

Beside conferences, there was the plenary session, where François Pellegrini, one of the main anti software patents activists got an affecting standing ovation after his conference about the recent EU vote. Two european MEPs were there (one leftist and one rightist) and they answered very constructively to our enquiries.

And of course, LSM would not be LSM without afters and happenings! We went every night to the tanneries, an anarchogeeks/artists squat where we had good time and good chat. Lots of interesting people and things there.

Thu Jul 7 10:09:22 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050707.html I am preparing my package for the Libre Software Meeting as my train is departing in less than two hours.

I am feeling pretty excited going there as a lot of old friends are there. I seriously doubt we will skinny-dip, but conferences are promising and we are most probably going to have fun as usual.

See you there !

Wed Jul 6 12:58:34 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050706.html "Software patents directive has been rejected by 648 votes against 14."

Happy happy joy joy !

Now, if Paris doesn't get the 2012 games, it will be a perfect day.

Oh wait, if I can meet the woman of my life today, THAT would be a perfect day. :-)

Mon Jul 4 18:08:36 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050704.html As I'm supposed to deliver a speech at the Libre Software Meeting, I have to prepare it. These days were quite busy: waking up late, sunbathing, skating, sketching in Paris, ... needless to say, I'm now late and I have to finish my speech soon!

The LSM is promising, I think I'll met nice people there: some Debian developers are to come, as well as some folks from wesnoth and a lot of old friends. It will be hard to decide who to party with. :-)

Fri Jul 1 17:10:10 2005 Benjamin Drieu http://www.grassouille.org/blogmax/050701.html Sure Eric, Free Software has no foes or even if it has, they won't attack us, right?