Archivo de la etiqueta: Colaboradores

I have found my place within Fedora Project

As a Fedora Ambassador I should help people find a place to collaborate with the Fedora Project. I have been around for long time doing different things in Fedora Project. I feel that I have failed myself because I did find my place before. I have been doing for so long events, recruiting collaborators and helping people. I failed my self to help me doing things that I really enjoy doing for the project.

FUDCon Managua 2014 was a major challenge and at some points I was considering quit. People like Lila, Cristhian, Samuel and Fernando keep me going. At the same time, Fedora Council was taking shape and FamSCo was starting to change. Probably I was involved in to many things.

Some time ago I was asked if I will keep up with marketing activities. I accepted to be dismiss from Marketing Team. I am not doing anything, it is fair to step aside. It felt right, I can be back any time when I want. Later on I unsubscribe myself from the marketing mailing list as it was no longer related to marketing, but to Fedora Magazine.

I quit to freemedia, I was dealing with membership management which I stepped aside long ago, and recently I quit completely as I haven’t sent media in months. Again, it felt right as I can came back anytime.

The transition from Fedora Board to Fedora Council made me take a choice. Did I wanted to keep in that level of commitment? I honestly I was not following the mailing list and not following the trac. Much of this was because of FUDCon, but also I lack energy.

I really wanted to FAmSCo to change, when that become a reality, then I felt that I did not need to keep involved. Againg I lack energy, motivation or both. So I quit.

Even I have organize 9 Fedora Release Parties in a row. I got a hotdog cart to release Beefy Miracle. I also helped to organize release party in El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica. I am not doing it now. Lila has said to do it, and I am glad to someone else take charge of that.

I came to Fedora because I wanted to have a stable platform for Amateur Radio. I like electronics and experimenting. I needed to ask help and end up helping people. It was a great ride, but it was a side track.

So what I am going to do? I want to thanks Valentin and Icaro Project for helping me find my place in Fedora. I love the electronic experimenting. It is a wonderful project aiming to education, but you can get on board and keep growing and learning with it.

This is what I was looking for. A place to collaborate with something that challenge me to learn things that I want. A thing to talk about and do presentation about things that I am passionate about.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Fedora Project. But I am not passionate about talking about features that I am not using and most of the time I am not fully understand. I did it because I fell it was something to be done.

Since I get in touch with Icaro I am thinking how I going to use Icaro boards with Amateur Radio. Switching equipment, satellite tracking, too many possibilities.

Since FUDCon Managua 2014 I was been asked about robotics. From the science committee of the vice presidency office, from RUPAP degree in system, there is a department of research and development of RUPAP that also asked about, the ministry of education also asked about. I event got a request for a pilot experience with a school. My answer has been, Icaro project will happen in Nicaragua, you can be part of it or just watch it happen.

I have found my place within Fedora.

FUDCon Managua 2014 Clousure

Last day of FUDCon I tries to approach as many contributors to ask: What do you think was accomplished in this FUDCon? I used their input as part of the closure speech at the end of the convention. I improvised with a hand write notes. Here you have a more digested summary.

The most important thing was first hand experience, that was mention also as learning with practical examples.

The second most relevant issue was Networking. Not in the wires and OSI layers. Get in touch with people, to get acquaintance, to know what they do. That king of bonding tie together the community. It was also view as scouting. People see who is doing what and how they may engage in a team in the short future.

The view was that there was low attendance, but people there were really engaged. There were package reviewed. This is the first FUDCon that we have computer labs for practical sessions. There were restrictions, but we have it. All this activity lead to people sponsored in packaging and ambassadors. It also lead to candidates for packaging, web sites, ambassadors and documentation teams.

Electronics got a fair share of fans. People looking at Icaro Project become aware that it is possible to make from scratch robotics. People looking at Arduino view that Fedora (or Linux) is the way to get real into the edge of programming and electronics. By the way, Icaro package was migrated from Gtk2 to Gtk3 during this event.

Some people were more into the opportunity of give back part of all that we have gotten from Fedora and show the open source way. More concrete though were on looking as an opportunity to focus on what it is important.

From here the speech went to thanks the University and its staff, sponsors that contribute to the event, and specially the local team that made possible organize the event.

I save for last a brief comment with Robert Mayr about the potential that is hold back by the language barrier. This talk become a exchange of email. I often took for granted that if you are technology you better get into English. I have solve problems beyond my skills by just been able to read what the screen said. But Robert validate those people that claim to have technical skills and that have problems to engage with Fedora Project because of a language barrier. I felt dumb. I myself were talking a few months back in FLOCK about helping girls to apply to Woman Outreach Program, as a proof reader and translator if were needed. So, that is a real problem. We need to start looking to ways to mitigate this barrier.

FUDCon Managua 2014 The Facts

This is a quantitative summary of the things that happened on FUDCon Managua 2014. So cold data, not so much into feelings and ideas.

Four universities other than the venue were visited to promote the event, and also Fedora (UPOLI, RUPAP, UAM and UCA). There was presence in three TV interview at different channels to promote the event.

Our online registration at the website had 175 persons, our estimated peak attendance was 150. This was really under the shadow of last year 800 people audience in Cusco. The badge for FUDCon Managua 2014 was awarded 46 times, which give us an idea of how many FAS accounts were active. Last year were only 25. This shows that our low attendance was highly engaged.

Ambassadors team got new 4 members (lilixx, searchsam, srkraken and creaturahpc) and one new candidate (menina).

Web sites team got one new team member (Echevemaster) that got involved during the preparations for FUDCon and two new candidates (lilixx and sophiekovalesky). By the time both candidates have alredy submited patches.

Packager is a bit mor difficult to describe. There is one approved memeber (williamjmorenor) and there are four people that submited packages (yaderv, franko92 magjogui and pynash). franko92 has 2 packages in review and yaderv did also the migration of icaro package from GTk2 to Gtk3.

Documentation got one candidates (searchsam) that by now is already approved.

This sum 12 people that moved from a non defined relationship with fedora to actual contributors. Many of them were in the borderline, but FUDCon did the last push to cross the line to engage wit actual teams.

Infraestructure got two person interested (mayorga and creaturehpc) but both need follow up to see if that interest become more than that.

First time that FUDCon LATAM had computer labs. There were two, we had limitations on the use of them, but we had them. We have a hacking at night, a meeting room at the hotel was available from Tuesday 21st to Friday 24th which was convenient.

We got some news hits as follow:
Printed
El Nuevo Diario Róbotica Educativa
El Nuevo Diario FUDCon

Online
La prensa TV FUDCon
Revista Help Desk TIC FUDCon

FUDCon Managua 2014 The rough edges

We have a paradox. We are equally fedora contributors and members of the fedora project but we are not equal. There are two variables that I will like to point, income and confidence. We have successful people very confident and with relative good income on one side and students with no job building their character. Some of the students depend on scholarship to keep them in college.

So, one extreme may get pushy to say we are equal, we have to chip in the same for food and drinks. That is unfair. We all not have the same resources and we all not drink alcohol. This is a rough edge that we should avoid. This kind of pressure is not trivial for some people.

In the other extreme, you get questions like: there will be something to pay for gas to help the ride? You may think that is because they don’t want to get ask for money that they don’t have. But I like to believe it is because they know the value of things and want to help is they can.

You find very nice contributors that take care of the whole bill, and most people think they do that because they can. But I firmly believe they do because they know that there are someones that can’t afford their share in that bill.

But sometimes somebody said that will take care of the bill and then collect later. Which is a way to spare those who can afford their share. Some times people that can cover their share don’t repay and is odd to be reminding people about that.

For me the worts of all is the sum . Those that overdue they excitement and end up short on money. They are usually the same who don’t repay, those who do not ask if a share is needed, those who do not thanks if the bill has been covered for them and also those who force others to chip equally.

But if we are not aware that we have diversity in income and in character, we will be hurting people when we get all together. Please pause and think. We should not hurt our friend just because our equality as contributors is overestimate .

FUDCon Managua 2014 The Regrets

I want to apologize to people that I hurt. I was on the edge having to deal with too many things, apparently it was a cutting edge and not in the good sense.

First, I want to apologize to a friend who usually bring the fun to the meetings. I was so desperate to get things done for the event that forgot that we needed fun. Even that I always said that fun is important. I miss him as part of our team, as a friend.

Second, I want to apologize to Eduardo Echeverria. We had a block in communication and I lost it. Before doing or saying anything regrettable, I left. This was not well understood. People do not believe that as amicable as I usually am, I can lost it. Usually it is not a good idea to put a finger into a spinning fan. I try to avoid people from the hazard of my spinning. Nothing said, nobody hurt, but it was an awkward moment at an inconvenient time an took me a while a regain my self control. This also should include apologies to Lila and Samuel who took my load during this time.

Third, I want to apologize to Fernando. He is a kind person and sometimes I feel that he look up to me. A trivial issue for me, that was important for him. I dismissed him harshly and rushy twice. Worst of all, second time in front of other people.

I think that most likely there are people that I am missing on this list, I am most sorry to have been hurting some one and not even noticing. I apologize to all.

FUDCon Managua 2014 Web Site

I am not sure why am writing this. For once I know that true man do not ask directions. In the other hand against all philosophy of sharing and reusing the best code, true is that FUDCon LATAM sites never reuse what was done before.

The most important thing is that the results of the web site are not under only one person alone. Depend in the input from others, the request from event organizers, the time to spare, the help received, among other factors.

We had a beautiful site for FUDCon Managua 2014. We needed to show off who will come, what they will talk about, where this will happening and promote our sponsors. All this was accomplished. Plus we have registration and vote cast on talks to help us put together the schedule. All in all was a good site. I can go on talking the beauties of the site and why the new organizing team should use it. But, I think there are some issues that need to be considered for the next team.

Most of web sites do not have hard dead line. Event web sites are a special category, they do have hard dead line. You need to show people that you are serious and I don’t know why, having a website is a proof. Probably is following the saying: “If it is on internet, it should be true”.

The web site is how do you get sponsorship, how do you get other experts to join your speaker list, how do you get doors opened in universities to talk to students and how do you get attention from media. You need to list your sponsors, your topics and your speakers. Sadly, if you have foreign speakers you will get more attention. The sooner you got this in place, the sooner you can start getting things flowing. We had troubles with time. It is not one person fault, it was everybody fault.

But you can’t lie, so you have to mark those that are invited and those that have already confirmed. At some point you have to hide (erase) those who are not coming and accordingly hide (erase) they talks. This was an issue that were not implemented at the beginning, and the implementation was not aesthetics as it should.

Let’s take a small side track. When I was in the first steps of the free software community, I was invited to an event and asked to create a Launch Pad Ubuntu account. At that moment I didn’t mind. Six years after, if I am invited to give a talk in a conference, and they ask me to fill an account with their membership … well you know … I will say yes to everything and do nothing.

So I can’t ask local experts and expect that they create a FAS account to be on the event site. You can not build a site based on FAS, of course you are doing a Fedora convention. But you are asking favors. If everything go smooth, they may like to join fedora community. If I start by forcing them to create a FAS, they won’t. If I made that mandatory, I will loose local experts talks. My favorite phrase is “How I can help you help me”.

One issue that was spotted at last time was, that there was no name on talks, only the image of people that was going to give the talk.

Having a short time, affected the vote cast option. We had what can be considered more like an random sample rather than a statistical significant amount of data to support our schedule desitions.

Another issue, was that people doing multiple talks did not provide sequence. Most times this did not matter. But some cases was important. As the schedule was made based on votes, and having at one side the special request, not having this information made lot of problem at the event. It will be desirable to have a more complete output for the vote, to help people make the schedule.

The vote and the schedule was a first experience on FUDCon LATAM. This is a cultural issue. People want to know what they will attend. There is no culture for des-conferences. You can not count on all people having devices to vote on site. Not to mention the schedule nightmare that we had with the votes. Thus, the event would crash. And if you have too much people, you can not have the marking sheets. I remember once that there were some dark marking sheets, where mark had low contrast. I still think that for LATAM, the vote cast was a good idea and we failed in implementation. Failed in time and communication. It is something that we can built on. Pass this experience.

A good idea that got pending was the link to upload the slides. It was even includen in the booklet. Slides were not possible to be upload by each person giving a talk. They have to be collected in order to be uploaded using ssh. In the end, the slides were not collected. So, there upload bottle neck was not an issue.

I have to thanks Echevemaster for a beautiful site, with so many features and so much time invested. It was an amazing result for the time given. Lilixx did a nice touch with the slides. Axioma provide help. But all in all was Echevemaster brainchild. Best way to recognize this work is to reuse and improve the inner work for next FUDCon LATAM

FUDCon Managua 2014: The Heroes

Those who did remarkable things for this FUDCon deserve some recognition.

The spawning heroes
Oscar and Efren that show up from thin air, unexpected, filled us with questions and were welcomed into Fedora family.

Travel Hero.
I know this is a hard competition and I am partial. Denis and Robert did know what they were facing. I am awarding this to Jared, who squeezed FUDCon between two convention, missed a flight connection and still came here for a day. At last moment he still was fighting to stay one extra day. That level of commitment is truly remarkable.

Web hero
Eduardo Echeverría did most of the work of the website. It ended up a beautiful site. He get some help along the way, had some bumps along the road, but was his masterpiece

The talking heroes.
Yes, there were people who never stop talking. This award is about those who did many talks and workshops. First of all Eduardo Echeverría, it was a nightmare to accommodate his talks without making him been talking two sessions together. Luis was another that did many talks. Valentin with one day long workshop after losing his voice the day before was incredible.

The sprint heroes
Those that showed up on the convention to take care of everything that was still pending. Leticia and Franco did most of the video recording. Franco travel from León city just to be here helping.

The marathon heroes.
Those that accompanied most of the planning, took some task, and helped shape the event. Eduardo Mayorga, William, Fernando and Cristhian. They help with ideas, put some time along the road and were in the event helping.

The Triathlon heroes.
The extreme athletes, usually know as iron man or woman. Samuel did the booklet one handed. Aura did the rest of the art for the FUDCon. The next phase was planning, they were there every single time that we went through the trac list offering take care of things. Final phase, put together the schedule when I surrender to this task and finally they sustained the convention. Both are truly the best collaborators on this event. There is no many time that I can say, this event were not possible without both of them.