Mark Shuttleworth | here be dragons

I got struck down upon my return from Mexico with a fever. Other than that, it was a fantastic conference – well done to the organisers for picking such a cool venue. Highlights this year (for me, anyhow):

• The 10m jump. Bonzai.
• Meeting Warren of MEPIS fame in person.
• Getting to do not one but TWO Ubuntu Q & A sessions. Thanks, Don.
• The flurry of activity around the Java licence changes. Still not settled, but still, well done to all involved for at least making good progress so far.
• The curious geodesic-ish dome, which it turns out covers a sulphur spring (why? no idea. but cool nonetheless)
• Sinchronizada’s. Especially in two’s. Asynchronously.
• Mexico City Margarita’s (alas, not much to be said for those in Oaxtepec)
• Oaxtepec Negro Modelo’s (forever to be known as “The Black Hunk”)
• The bandwidth if you woke up before 9am
• Tango lessons
• Dodging the Pool Police for late night skinny-dipping. You KNOW I love skinny-dipping.
• The mountains on the drive up from Mexico City.
• The volcano to the east of the complex.
• Some positive feedback from Joey Hess (along with some constructive criticism, but hey, it’s a start)
• Lots of DD’s thanking me for Ubuntu. Don’t thank me. Thank them. And thank yourselves 🙂 And while you’re at it, THANK UPSTREAM! But nonetheless, thank you for saying thank you, because it’s a labour of love.
• The view of Mexico City from the plane, coming and going. And coming. And going.

So, all in all, I had a great time.

I’m pleased that there was good discussion about the Ubuntu and Debian relationship. Overall I think we’re past the “sky is falling in” phase and into the “practical ways to improve the flow” phase, which is thanks to hard work on both fronts. I note far fewer Ubuntu bugs spuriously ending up in the debian BTS, and a lot of coordinated tracking of bugs across Ubuntu, Debian and upstream. From our side, at least, Launchpad makes it a lot easier for Ubuntu to be smart about that. Raphael and Enrico made a list of things we can do on all fronts that will improve that coordination – we’ll get to quite a few of those this year, I think. Some folks apparently grumbled in private but never showed up to the Ubuntu Q & A’s – you know who you are. Hello, folks, you don’t get to party unless you show up! To those who did – thanks for the Q’s. I hope the A’s were satisfactory – ping me on irc.freenode.net if you have more.

But mostly, it was just good fun. I’m glad that the rain and the flooding didn’t bring out the scorpions, as it sometimes does in tropical environments. My Spanish may suck but I never felt like a stranger in Oaxtepec. Or, better put, I never felt like a lone stranger. We’re all a bit touched, really, by local standards. Manyana…

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