Sadly this year will be the last Portland OSCON for abit :/ next year it seems we are heading to Austin, Texas Convention Centre. At the moment the grape vine is that it will be there for at least two years. Whilst I enjoy Austin and glad to ssee the Open Source love spread to a start-up hotbed and share the knowledge, I am going to miss Portland. I love going to Portland to catch up with people that really dont have the funds or ability to be able to make it across to Austin plus pay the OSCON ticket price. So sadly alot of University Professors and students that I am used to seeing wont be there. But thats the way conferences go at times.
This year was a good year, got to hang with Mister Open Source from Amazon as he calls himself, Paul Berg. Interesting character I chatted about last year we discussed BitCoin and DNS use and many many other things. Had some great chats and look forward to catching up with him again next conference as he always has a funny story to tell about Patents, Software Licences and him at a conference, at work or on a date. The party was really good and we also got to attend the first ever Software Conservancy Party for sponsors. I am really amazed at what Karen has been able to do with Conservancy and very proud to support it.
Take away talks this year well the Tasmanians of course gave some hilarious game talks, Paul Fenwick as always entertained and well I think I could write a whole essay on the talk by Randi Harper and Twitter trolls and blocking. Oh and of course we got to have an experience of real life twitter trolls during the conference /