Well, I’d fully prepared to write a round-up of LUGRadio Live 2007, but we made the call not to attend on Sunday, so I can’t rightly do that. However, I will say I’m pretty much disappointed with the Live event, and just with LUGRadio in general. Maybe the show has slipped, or maybe I just expect more content, and not an endless stream of sub-par nob-gags.
The talks we attended were pretty good. Ted Haeger of Bungee Labs presented a great concept in on-line development, staging, and hosting of web applications.
Adam Sweet’s Gong-A-Thong was a terrible concept and could have been better used as an idea’s Gong-A-Thong towards the end of the weekend. Turning up to this piece of shit meant I missed the talk on SaberGL.
All was not lost when we decided to split and got into Ben Lamb’s KDE4 talk. This small talk was a little lacking in content, greater discoveries were to be made from the Q&A session, whilst Ben tried to wrestle with KDE4 and the projector.
Next it was onto the Mass debate, with representatives from the Open Rights Group (Becky Hogge), Google (Chris DiBona), Novell (Nat Friedman), and Microsoft, who’s representative’s name escapes me. This debate had real potential, but fell down to poor chairing by John O’Bacon, so it rapidly descended into a shout out your questions/heckle, instead of waiting for the micro-phone session. Which meant that many politer, more debate savvy people were unable to offer outside insight.
Lastly, before the mess that’s probably going to ship as Linux-related podcast-worthy material. Chris DiBona of Google, opened our eyes to Google, how they learnt to manage data centres, how they give back to FLOSS, and just how much cash they award in the Google Summer of Code.
Sadly it looks like Google are paying up to get the LUGRadio crew over to California for a ‘special’ LUGRadio Live in the USA. I’ve got a feeling a return visit will not be funded when Google see what they get for their money.
Sorry lads, it was funny once… When I was going through Middle School.
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From the LugRadio community, drinking beer at the post-LRL drink-fest at the Quality Chin, we want to put “LugRadio: it’s an endless stream of sub-par nob-jokes” on t-shirts!
Thanks!
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My pleasure ;)
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Damn, that’s bad news mate.
You sound like me, sure you’re not getting old and grumpy?
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Hey Cie. Me? Old and grumpy? I don’t think so. I suspect my real issue is that LUGRadio is not an inclusive community, and this was quite evident from the events and comments of the day.
FLOSS geeks shouldn’t strive to seek social acceptance. They should strive to educate society on its rapidly shrinking rights.
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Heh, I just wandered across to the LUGRadio Live 2007 site to read the official round-up, and found my quote has been cited :) Thanks guys!
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I’m sorry that you’re not very good at attending talks that are of interest to you …… ;-)
There were always three talks and a BOF, sometimes two, to pick from.. I had trouble picking which talks to attend, not because there was not enough, but because there was a lot of relevant content there.
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I agree, the choice of talks was good. There were a few points where hard decisions had to be made on what to attend. From that perspective LUGRadio have achieved a lot, organisation must be a real pisser, and they’ve networked enough to get recognisable names to the show.
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Could you expand a bit on the “LUGRadio is not an inclusive community” comment? We do _try_ (and I suspect fail on a number of counts) to be inclusive, but it would be good to hear it from your perspective so that we can try and change it.
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Hi mrben. Sure thing. It appeared at the show that there is a core of twenty-to-thirty people who make up the ‘inner circle’ of LUGRadio. The listeners didn’t appear to have many lines of involvement into this inner circle.
The Gong-a-Thong may have been an attempt to address this, or scare small children :) I think it would have been much better if left till last thing Saturday and Sunday, and then have folks put forward ideas on the talks they’ve seen, or the tech they’ve seen. Then gong each one if they’re A. Shite, B. Well, shite again I ‘spose. I feel this could really help push potential projects together. A bit like an IETF mic session, only with less clothes and slightly more beer.
All in all, I think my main gripe was the debate, and how it was run.
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I feel I can only echo some of the negative sentiment about this year’s LRL.
The atrium was far too noisy most of the time – it’s all well & good if you like that particular brand of metal & schoolboy humour – certainly didn’t make speaking to ‘customers’ any easier, especially some of the more ‘fruity’ smelling ones. Maybe include a bar of soap or deodorant in next year’s goodie bags eh lads?
From an exhibitor’s point of view the whole weekend felt like an exercise in preaching to the converted. We couldn’t really cover any new ground & the whole object of taking MythTV on the road (from our PoV) is to evangelise & ‘spread the word’.
My fellow stand mates won’t be returning to LRL & I’ll have to think long & hard about coming back – on reflection it seems like all the effort we put in went to waste.
The above notwithstanding, the pre & post-show time was a great opportunity to network, which even I managed to do a little of. I’ll no doubt return to LRL in future but it’s unlikely I’ll ever exhibit again on the same scale.
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yibble – thanks for the expansion.
The “core” folk are likely to be those who spend their lives on IRC or the forums, I would guess. These are the most vocal outlets of the lugradio community, and as such probably get a certain amount of attention in some areas of the program, but I wasn’t overly aware of the vast majority of the weekend being focused on those people – but, then again, I am on the inner side of the circle.
Do you have any suggestions as to how this can be resolved at next years event? Were there specific areas where you felt sidelined? Was it mostly in things like the live and unleashed part of the day, or did it happen in some of the talks too?
I think you’re probably right about the placing of the gong-a-thong extravaganza – Sunday afternoon might have been better in some respects. Personally I felt it might have been bolstered if they had pre-arranged maybe 5 or 6 lightbulb talks so that at least some of the content had been “prepared”, while leaving slots free for people to sign up on the day.
Personally, this year I really enjoyed the Mass Debate. I agree that there was a proportion of heckling/shouting out, but I didn’t think it overshadowed the main debate all that much. But that’s just me – sorry you didn’t like it :(
Juski – I agree about the noise level in the Atrium; I think the reason that the exhibition was in there along with talks was that last year some exhibitors complained that being in a separate room meant they didn’t get as many people “passing-through”. It’s hard to find a good balance in a situation like that. I am surprised, however, that you expected to find all that many people to “convert” at LRL, given the target audience. I do hope you come again, even if it’s not to exhibit.
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As we made the call not to attend on Sunday, I’m basing this entirely on Saturday. So if Sunday became a group-share-the-lovehugs-fest (not meant sarcastically), it probably all balanced out. I understand that the core folk also have vested a lot of time into participating into community presence on the LUGRadio site. It’s to be expected that they’re all quite happy to eventually meet-up.
For the debate, now I may be wrong, so correct me if I am. It seemed a majority of the heckling (and Hans Reiser comments) were coming from said ‘inner circle’ (I nearly shouted “Pwned!” when DiBona laid some smackdown.) This compounded with the dodgy chairing led to a debate which was very linear and blinkered. I think this could be resolved with firmer chairing skills, and multiple mic-hands. This would enable the debate to cover most aspects before moving on to other topics, and reduce frustration from the audience. Another common thing for debates is to have a SMS number on the stage that folks can text during the debate, then read out a few choice ones at the end. This is a way for folks to get a quick sentence in on a previous topic, so as not to break up the flow by taking questions on last topic.
Further suggestions is a real tough one. It’s easy to pick, it’s difficult to inspire. One thing that does spring to mind, is perhaps more activities which are indirectly FLOSS related… Maybe a 1on1 ladder on the MAME cabinet (yes, we saw it hiding. I was keenly interested as I have one myself… With light-guns.) Not only would this have drawn more attention to the cabinet, added some social elements, but also thrown people together in competition for Sweet’s thong… Dust beaten, washed, tumble dried, and ironed, then remove Sweet :)
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Hi there,
I went to the LRLs in 2005 and 2006. The first year I enjoyed the talks and exhibition but found the “Live and Unrestrained” show tedious, being dominated by what I described in my post-event review as “foul-mouthed mutual back-slapping”. (The review is here.) As you can see if you read the entry, two of the participants left comments to the effect of “start your own show if you don’t like ours”. Actually, it’s not the language I dislike, it’s what you describe as the “sub-par nob gags” – I listened to enough of that crap to last me a lifetime when I was at boarding school and don’t want to travel all the way to Wolverhampton to listen to more of it. I didn’t ask the women present what they thought but the issue of why there are so few women in LUGs and open-source projects was covered in Linux Format some time in 2006 I think, and if LRL is in any way representative of LUG cultures, the reason why they there are not many of them around should be obvious.
The show last year was more interesting and it seems they may have taken my complaints on board because the description says “this year featuring actual Linux content”. I didn’t go this year b/c I couldn’t afford it and the talks on Saturday weren’t about the subjects which interest me, but I’m glad I didn’t now.
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yibble – thanks again for your comments.
I will see what I can do in advance of next years event to try and work at ways to be more inclusive. I don’t think I can do much about the way the live recording goes – it’s probably always going to be geared towards the long-term listenership, and the online community. But in terms of the rest of the event, I’m sure we can work out some good ways to be more inclusive.
WRT the debate – from memory none of the big heckling was from the “inner circle” that I could identify. Certainly the Hans Reiser dude was not someone I recognised. I do agree with you about pre-submitted questions, and I will have a discussion with the presenters about changing that for next year.
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Hey mrben,
Thank you for your constructive attitude. I’m pleased that I’ve managed to convey my stance on not wanting to change the podcast, but simply help make it, and the event more accessible. At least the podcast doesn’t normally cover folks shitting themselves in public.
Thank you for correcting my perception of the heckling incident. I’ll definitely re-consider my stance, and may well attend next year’s event… Preferably the Californ-I-A instance. So long as I can get a t-shirt with the slogan, “LugRadio: it’s an endless stream of sub-par nob-jokesâ€? :)
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yibble: nice to see someone who can give out criticism without being miserable about it, and I for one appreciate that; thankyou. There is a certain amount of stuff done which is dedicated to the “core” LugRadio listenership during LRL, I agree, but that’s at least partially done as a way to “reward” our community; one of the things that we really like is that there are people who love the show and are part of it, and so some of LRL is for their benefit. Hence, a community hero award; we really mean that. This can make people who aren’t part of that close-knit community feel left out; not sure I can think of a way around it.
The lightbulb talks and pre-submission: yes, I broadly agree with the suggestion that we should have had a few lined up in advance. We didn’t, at least partially because we didn’t have time after getting all the named speakers together, and partially because when we suggest that people should volunteer for talks very few people actually do so, sadly. Without wishing to look like too much of a dick, did you do a lightbulb talk? If not, why not? That section could have been better if there were better talks (although I personally enjoyed most of the ones that were done, especially the GP2X one).
On the ideas front, do, please, come up with more. We do our level best to think up things that are new and interesting (hence the gong-a-thong, the hour of power, etc), so when you come up with ideas, wing them off to the show email address or suggest them on the forums (forums.lugradio.org).
Matt Smith: did you ask any of the women *at* LRL whether they enjoyed the show? Maybe not. Not to say that there’s not more to be done, but, again, if you feel we could be doing it better, it’s harder but more productive to try and help us rather than merely carp and criticise.
Oh, and: hope to see you in San Francisco, yibble. We’ll brush up our knob gags especially. :)
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Thanks for the compliment, Stuart. I completely agree with your first paragraph, and it does throw the show into a different light for me, based upon on its goals.
Nope, I didn’t do a Lightbulb talk, to tell the truth. I’d not really prepared to go drumming-up support for various projects I have bouncing around my head. As I commented on earlier, I’d probably have been more inclined to take the mic-stand if this had been later on in the day, after I’d mulled over the presentations.
If I attend next year, it will be the UK show. I don’t think my boss would sign-off on a trip to San Fran’… Still, we can always hope.
If I have any firmer ideas, I’ll submit them to the forums you’ve suggested. Thanks for taking the time to enter the dialogue (both Stuart and mrben) in order to address an attendees experience.
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I feel the LUGRadio community is very inclusive. I’ve not been around for that long and found it really easy to feel accepted to both the forum and the IRC channel so when I showed up there were lots of people I recognised and who I could talk to and have a drink with.
I wasn’t able to attend ’05 or ’06, but I really, really enjoyed 2007. I felt it was very much a case of “you get out what you put in”.
The mythTV stand really helped me out though and I look forward to putting together a mythTV box based on their advice over the coming month.
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Hey yibble, loads of work has left me coming to this conversation a little late I’m afraid :) Just wanted to say regarding the hecklers at the mass debate, just to confirm mrben’s comments, from what i could tell they were not “inner core” members. I only just recognised the fool who was trying to make light of the Reiser situation, but only because I had seen him trying to be ‘witty’ or ‘cool’ earlier in the weekend and failing miserably at it. I do despair a bit when these kind of things happen, and when it puts people off coming back again; hopefully you’ve been swayed by the replies here, and hopefully we as a community can overcome any issues that arised to make both 2008 LRLs a great success.
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Hi Neuro,
The dialogue here has been very productive, and certainly has changed by perception from when I originally posted. I may well be back for LRL ’08, I may even bring my Heckler-Stick.
There’s also the possibility that I may participate in the IRC chan’ before the event, just so I can put faces to nicks.
Thanks.
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Then can I suggest that the name badges for LRL’08 have a section for real name and section IRC Nick? We all hide behind internet names, it makes life simple if you just want to drop out.
I’m really impressed with the excellent response from this Yibble mate, lets see what LR can pull together for next year. Oh and I can’t make the Diggnation thing in London :(
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I don’t know about you, jezster, but I put both my real name and my nick on my name tag.
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