"Ubuntu is Humanity", and I have come a long way since knowing Ubuntu in September,2008. That is when I first came across Ubuntu and started using it, right away. Since then, I have almost perennially been on Ubuntu, with a very small percentage of all the 'lot' of technical and non-technical work I do, on anything apart from Ubuntu.
Although, I am no 'Developer', I proudly call myself an Evangelist and better a 'tweaker'( even hacker is a term too big for my C and bash aptitude). To be part of the the meet up was a warm homecoming kind of a feeling.
To have immense passion towards ' a piece of software' is not regular in the regular world, but amonsgt the FOSS'ers it is a denominating trait. My passion about FOSS and in particular Ubuntu is very explicitly shown by me,for, in 'any' discussion you'd have with me, chances that I do not bring Ubuntu into it would be a rarity!
So, today's Ubuntu Developers Day was something I was looking forward to for quite sometime. And, it did leave me all happy by the end of the day. Today's meet was impeccable- organizationally and pleasantly intuitive - content-wise (except for one sponsored firm's blah blah;)
Firstly, I was a little apprehensive about Unity becoming the default GUI starting Natty Narhwal ( Ubuntu 11.04), but today's sessions have gotten me all excited like rest of the Ubuntu community. Ubuntu will be the first Operating System to ship with full multi-touch abilities, and it was really nice to have had it heard from Chase Douglas.
Secondly, IBM's Linux Technology Center made its presence felt, by very aptly showing off the team behind the ext4 filesystem, and its own contributions to Linux, as a whole.One pleasant surprise in IBM's keynote though was, they mentioning the two Kernel workshops which was conducted along with FSMK,with due attribution to FSMK :)
If I were to call today, a day of de-apprehensions, it would fit perfectly. For, the other major apprehension "The Obscure Cloud" got elucidated in Ubuntu terms. Although, my disassociation with the Public Cloud would still go on, the idea of Private Clouds within enterprises on enterprise owned servers has got me all excited. And, the two great talks by Nick Barcet , did bring a better insight about 'Ubuntu on Cloud' and 'Cloud on Ubuntu'.
The lunch was complex, for we were at the Leela Palace. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the salads and the Shepherd Pie (excellent minced mutton, baked and garnished like a pie:), with a climactic relishing of the yummy chocolate dessert.
Post lunch, apart from Nick and Chase's second talks the other talk was boring, can't complain, for I know the terms of sponsorship. As, i was running late for another commitment, couldn't stay for the two other sessions post tea.
And in exchange for our feedback, the goody bag given was awesome, with a cool Maverick Meerkat T-shirt, Ubuntu stickers, Ubuntu branded Diary and pen, stuffed in an uber cool bag.
The exhibition rooms, where Ubuntu and variants of Ubuntu were displayed took me by awe. The cutest was Spark's smart book powered by an ARM Cortex and running Ubuntu. Another cool product was the one which would only play media, connect to the net and do some simple things, running Ubuntu Netbook on a Freescale chip,with SD memory! Then the muti-touch demo with the finger painting application was simply stunning.
