OpenBSD Journal

Evolution of the Hackathon

Contributed by deanna on from the it-all-started-here dept.

The OpenBSD web site received a new section this week: a hackathons page. Hackathon is a word we hear more and more these days, even outside of the OpenBSD community. This new page, which includes pictures of the famous t-shirts, is a fun reference for those interested in how it all started, and how it is evolving. To accompany this, here's some commentary from a developer about why hackathons are such an important part of OpenBSD. The hackathons are cool because generally the developers never get a chance to meet each other. That is true both before they start to use and hack on OpenBSD, and even after we get commit access. That was especially true of me because of where I am on the globe. There is another guy in Brisbane who had commit before me (d@) but i had never met him, and neither of us go to things like the unix users group meetings. Since then pascoe@ has been given commit, but he's my boss.

So being able to put faces to names is a big thing for me.

However, the biggest benefits from a hackathon come from being in the same room as everyone else for a week. It gives me a chance to focus on the code fulltime. In real life i only get to hack on openbsd in my spare time, and that seems to be an ever decreasing resource (see www.oxide.org/cvs/ for proof). Being able to sit in a room with headphones on for a week straight really lets me get my mind in the right space.

Also, as part of OpenBSD's usual process of development, we try to get oks from each other as a way of verifying the code before we commit it. For me that process can take days. I usually hack something up in the evening, mail it round for people on the other side of the world to read, and go to bed. I get up in the morning with feedback, I go to work, come home, and deal with the feedback. Then I send it out again and sleep. That keeps repeating till i have an ok and i get to commit the code.

At a hackathon that process is sped up. By orders of magnitude. The people i need to get feedback from are a table away, and because we're awake at the same time we can talk. Because we can talk we get to do away with the delicate process of writing email that doesn't offend each other, so the exchanges last minutes instead of days.

Finally it is good to be able to work with people who all have the same attitude toward code, and who are there to code. It is surprisingly difficult to get a group discussion about anything to happen, unless you suggest food and beer. I guess it is hard to code when you're holding a glass.

-- David Gwynne, dlg@

The new hackathons page is http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html.

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Anonymous Coward (70.179.123.124) on

    Great new page :)

    Personally, I'd like to know a little more about upcoming hackathons (e.g., the upcoming hardware hackathon) and what we can do to support them (e.g., buy and mail hardware for the devs to hack on at the upcoming hackathon, which is a not-so-subtle hint to the slackers who've sent nary a glance towards want.html :).

    I always enjoy learning more about how the OpenBSD devs get things working.

    Comments

    1. By Michael Osburn (72.164.242.200) michael@mosburn.com on

      > Great new page :)
      >
      > Personally, I'd like to know a little more about upcoming hackathons (e.g., the upcoming hardware hackathon) and what we can do to support them (e.g., buy and mail hardware for the devs to hack on at the upcoming hackathon, which is a not-so-subtle hint to the slackers who've sent nary a glance towards want.html :).
      >
      > I always enjoy learning more about how the OpenBSD devs get things working.

      Is their a time table set for the hardware hackathon? I would be intrested in doing what I can to support it, but i would rather not have to do a last min. rush to get hardware out to the developers so they have it in time for the event. I understand not giving to great of notice to stop non-developers from crashing the party but atleast knowing when the events happen helps convice the higher ups the need to donate by a certin time

    2. By Marc Balmer (213.189.137.178) mbalmer@openbsd.org on www.openbsd.org

      Well,

      > Personally, I'd like to know a little more about upcoming hackathons (e.g., the upcoming hardware hackathon) and what we can do to support them (e.g., buy and mail hardware for the devs to hack on at the upcoming hackathon, which is a not-so-subtle hint to the slackers who've sent nary a glance towards want.html :).

      I am organizing the upcoming hardware hackathon. If you want to support us, you can to in various ways:

      - donate hardware we can hack on
      - donate funds, i.e. money so we can pay hardware/food/beer or financially help developers that need it (some travel across the whole world to help make OpenBSD as robust, reliable, and secure as is now).

      and of course tell your peers, friends et. to buy our cdroms and the audio cd.

      If you want to support this upcoming hardware hackathon, please get in touch with me or Theo de Raadt.

  2. By Nate (74.13.33.246) on

    May be interesting to include some of the information from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon">Wikipedia article</a>, Dug Song's c2k1 cast picture would be nice.

    Then again, maybe just include links to the various picture sets developers have taken from the past hackathons.

    Comments

    1. By Nate (74.13.33.246) on

      > May be interesting to include some of the information from the Wikipedia article, Dug Song's c2k1 cast picture would be nice.
      >
      > Then again, maybe just include links to the various picture sets developers have taken from the past hackathons.

      One of these days I will look to see if I have HTML turned on or not before posting.

  3. By Anonymous Coward (128.171.90.200) on

    I remember seeing a image for the front of the c2k3 tee somewhere which was quite amusing, something about giving instructions to cab drivers in case the developers were too drunk to remember where they were going.

    Comments

    1. By jasper (80.60.145.215) on

      > I remember seeing a image for the front of the c2k3 tee somewhere which was quite amusing, something about giving instructions to cab drivers in case the developers were too drunk to remember where they were going.

      voila

      Comments

      1. By mbalmer (213.189.137.178) on

        > I remember seeing a image for the front of the c2k3 tee somewhere which was quite amusing, something about giving instructions to cab drivers in case the developers were too drunk to remember where they were going.
        >
        > voila

        hmm, this shirt would not have helped a lot in buda... or the taxi bill would have been, well, a bit high...

Latest Articles

Credits

Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]