the one thing that beats a Jet2 holiday (episode 2)

Hello.

It's been a minute since mid-June when BSDCan in Ottawa and FreeBSD Kitchener–Waterloo Hackathon happened. It's been an even longer minute since my last episode of open source despatches, so welcome to episode 2.

Too much has happened, and I can't really remember all the details either. So I will cut to the chase: this episode is low-key sponsored by BSDCan (thank youse!) and the people are awaiting a recap of sorts, particularly of conference operation things, from my slice of it all.

BSDCan 2025

I got a very late start to my drive to Ottawa from northeast PA (Pennsylvania) on Tuesday. So late that I missed out on the Goat BOF, which is essentially a pregame to the rest of the conference week. Always great to catch up with the regulars, some who I only get to see once a year around this time, and meet new charactersfolks and bring them into the fold in a relaxed setting. I blame emergency house work that needed done since it would be two weeks before I returned. At least the border crossing at dark o'clock was painless and the late night donair poutine slapped.

After only a couple hours of sleepnaptime and a short-as-in-exactly-one-bus-ride-from-the-airbnb-to-almost-directly-in-front-of-the-venue commute, the FreeBSD Developer Summit, co-hosted at and before the regular BSDCan conference, was on. I get inside Desmarais Building on the University of Ottawa campus, into the main lecture hall where the devsummit had already started, to find the audio/video crew in the usual spot in the very back.

This year, after my programme on DJing and music production on FreeBSD at the main conference last year, I was slyly voluntold to help out with the A/V, which I obliged since it's fun, the fundamentals are nothing new to me and Andrew and Patrick can use the consistent help. This is the crew that gets all the programmes live-streamed for those who cannot make it in-person and recorded for future reference on video sharing platforms n dat. Apart from setup and teardown at the beginning and end of each day, much of the work involves making sure the wireless microphones for the presenter and audience work properly and their levels set appropriately, cameras behaving themselves and pointed in the correct direction, and flipping between scenes to give presenter, slides or the BSDCan Screen of Deathcommercial break equal or greater emphasis.

For the devsummit duration, there was only one room to mind, the main room, as the tutorials happening concurrently in the other rooms the conference booked are not streamed or recorded. Once the main conference hit on Friday, we had to staff each room, rotating amongst ourselves as needed depending on which programmes we wanted to catch for ourselves and other reasons.

The goal is to get the streamed footage good enough, not only for those watching live, but also such that Andrew and Patrick have to do as little post-processing and editing as possible for the video postings. Here is the result from when I handled Olivier's (olce@FreeBSD) programme seen above:

Secondarily, hang out on IRC and other chat platforms so those heckling from afar can also join in on the fun and more importantly ask the hard-hitting questions.

After securing all the equipment in locked rooms, we and a bunch more headed to Father & Son's, a bar directly across the street from campus and where the Goat BOF happened, for dinner and drinks. Needed my smoked meat poutine fix.

Ended up being my only foray there all week, especially since a particular Irish character was so dearly missed that a fellow conference attendee made a joke obituary slide. Hopefully we will get to see and hang with him at EuroBSDCon in September.

The hacker lounge, especially after dinner, is always a nice feature of BSDCan and other BSD conferences. It was less populated than previous years however. We must be getting old.

Saturday was more of the same in terms of operations. As there are other recaps of BSDCan floating around on the internets, I will spare youse content about the programmes. Over lunch I got to check into an amateur radio net back in the States using my American callsign with proper Canadian suffix, with Diane (db@FreeBSD) as a bonus station under her Canadian callsign. Obviously we had to sync about ham radio stuff in FreeBSD/ports. We got a new committer in the fold too!

The closing session and especially the auction are always a highlight. Always make sure you keep your important stuff with you, otherwise you may have to bid for it back! However certain items like a $20 CAD banknote are perenially auctioned off because lore.

The aforementioned Patrick was announced as next year's conference chair. That means we A/V people will need more help next year, since Patrick will be juggling so much more in that role. For now, good yard. To the closing reception (after packing everything up)!

One conference attendee, and now FreeBSD committer, wanted to celebrate his 21st birthday (even though the drinking age in Ontario is 19) so a few of us went out quite a bit longer.

In Philly, this would constitute a citywide special, but the can of PBR is too big.

In previous years, there would be a group who went to brunch at Father & Sons on Sunday morning, where their breakfast special can't be beat, but for some reason it seemed that people were in a hurry to get out of Ottawa this year. Sadge. I did manage to find Michael Dexter and we got brunch at Cora. Somehow we ran into a couple other conference folks just leaving.

What is Dexter's significance you may ask? He is probably the one most responsible for getting the monies needed to make this, and other BSD conferences and initiatives, happen. So make sure to thank the hell outta him.

FreeBSD Kitchener–Waterloo Hackathon

After some abbreviated exploring of Ottawa, I started making my way down to Kitchener–Waterloo for the post-conference hackathon. A few of us spend another week in the same place getting stuff done and having fun with one another. Details to come in the next episode since it will get more technical-technical after all. For now, have a shot of my drive on a not-congested Highway 401 through Toronto: