OpenBSD Journal

[c2k8]: BBQ and Hackathon Summary Preview

Contributed by merdely on from the no!-that's-good-for-the-flowers dept.

Mark Uemura (mtu@) gives us a taste of what's to come from c2k8: The 2008 General Hackathon:

bbq

c2k8 (Barbecue) - June 8, 2008, Bob's home, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I have been asked to write up something for the c2k8 hackathon similar to what was done for the n2k8 event. Actually, it is difficult to do without individual summary reports from each developer. Usually, this comes after the hackathon is over for obvious reasons. However, several have been asking, so I feel compelled to send something.

Mark continues below with pictures and a recap of the BBQ at Bob's.

Bob and Art
You can see source-changes@ for yourself, but I really can't give away any secrets yet -- that would spoil the fun. I can tell you that there are some big things happening. They are worth waiting for and deserve their own individual write-ups. In fact, there are quite a lot of things that you will not see on the source-changes list but that are being discussed, worked on and/or are dependent on commits that must happen first. There are a lot of diffs that are being held back or are being tested before they get put into snapshots. At any rate, I ask that you please be patient for the summary series as they will not start until next week.

A few of us came early to the c2k8 hackathon and arrived on Friday, June 6. It didn't take long for us to congregate at a local pub. It has an amazing 360 degree view of the whole city of Edmonton. One thing that you notice right away is that Edmonton is really flat and green. Apparently there is a beautiful river valley. OpenBSD legend has it that Bob would talk about it as if it was the eight wonder of the world. The c2k8 t-shirt says it all. What I can say about Edmonton is that so far everyone that we have met either on the street, on the bus or even jogging in the beautiful river valley have been really kind, welcoming and inquisitive (more below). I love Canada because it is really a multi-cultural melting pot. Canadians accept and embrace all cultures and that is one of the interesting and wonderful facts about Canada. Do you ever wonder why Canadian flags are often worn on backpacks by so many travellers who are not even Canadian? Canadians, generally, have a good reputation abroad and there is a good chance that people in other countries have a friend or relative living in Canada. It's a great country!

beer
The barbecue was held on Sunday night. One might think to have the party after the hackathon but I think that it has been tradition to have it very early as there are always new developers to the hackathon and it is good way to get to know everyone or, at the very least, put cvs account names to faces. Apparently beer helps in this regard. In fact, there are at least 12 developers that have come to the general hackathon for the very first time. Another OpenBSD tradition is the Swedish sport of beer hurling. Yojiro Uo (yuo@), a new USB developer from Japan, asked me, "Is this normal?" just before he got pulled out of the crowd of onlookers and into the next group of hackathon newbies forced to give it a go. You can't help but die laughing when you see the beer coming out in the opposite direction, usually out through their noses. The secret, as observed by watching long time veteran Henning Brauer (henning@), is to just open your throat up and not swallow but just let gravity take over. As soon as you are done, you put the bottle down and run just in time to get out of range of those unfortunate souls that can't keep the beer from turning direction and out onto their fellow hurlers.

Mmmmm.... meat!
The barbecue food was fabulous and the meat was amazing. Bob was serving them out as "Large" and "Larger" but coming from Japan, it was like "Huge" and "Oh, my goodness"! You cooked it yourself and I have to say that after having bar food and pizza for the past couple of days, it was like being in heaven. Bob's wife also baked so many kinds of deserts. They were so savoury -- I had one of each -- that I think they were all devoured in about the time it took to hurl a beer ;-) Thanks Mrs. beck@!

Despite the rain, we were all able to keep warm by two gigantic fires set up in Larry's (Bob's Neighbour and longtime friend from University days) backyard. I have to thank Larry for letting us [ab]use his backyard for not just the barbecue but the beer hurling. I can only think that there will be a huge patch of grass in the middle of his yard that will either grow into a forest or turn brown for the summer. A big tent was also set up in Bob's backyard. He knew better than to spoil his backyard with such barbarian sports. The other thing that kept people warm was the amount of alcohol consumed. I overheard someone saying that there was one litre for every person at the barbecue. Well someone fortunate or not, got my litre but the kicker is, the beer ran out! At that point, they had to turn to stronger forms of brain cell destroying juice. Thank goodness they all have so much superfluous cells to give up that are not required or suited for OpenBSD development.

Bob, Peter and Henning
After midnight, on the way back to the University from the barbecue, I was in a cab with Reyk Flöter (reyk@) and Claudio Jeker (claudio@) and the cab driver asked, "So, who are you rooting for?" after he found out that I was coming from Japan, Claudio from Switzerland and Reyk from Germany. It took a few moments for Reyk to understand what the taxi driver was asking him. "Germany, of course!", he says. Then the driver started talking about one of the more popular teams in Germany and I loved Reyk's response. "Hanover has the best soccer team in all of Germany," he says with a straight face, "you didn't know that?" The driver looks to him in disbelief and Reyk goes on to say, "You know that right?" testing his knowledge of German soccer teams. Both Claudio and I were holding our stomachs in the back of the taxi watching this interaction. Then Claudio had to burst Reyk's bubble with, "Yeah, right maybe for the 'B' League," and that was all it took for all of us to burst out in fits of laughter.

The hackathon is in full swing now with everyone deeply engaged in the work that they came to do. One thing that struck me as sad is that many of the developers who have contributed so much to the Project are themselves lacking hardware and are still working on very old laptops. There's even a box of 1GB DDR RAM sticks here for anyone who can use them. Out of a room of 60 developers, there are very few developers who actually have the newer laptops that can actually use this newer RAM. So the full box of 1GB sticks remains untouched. I am impressed with what the OpenBSD developers can do with so little. People are often working on drivers for hardware they can't themselves test for lack of hardware. If you are able to help in any way, please have a look at the hardware wanted page or if you can donate money please help by visiting the donations page or the orders page. I can't stress enough how much help we need. Most of the developers here have come on their own dime and/or have taken time off of work and away from their families just to help the Project in the best way that developers know how for everyone's benefit. How can you help?

Thank you for your OpenBSD Order!
Name: Mark Uemura
Order number 2008/6/6-22:1:23-8074:
-> Total: CDN $340.00 + Shipping

(c2k8 hackathon summaries to begin soon)

Once again, thank you to Mark for taking the time to share his experience at the hackathon. I'd also like to echo Mark's sentiments regarding the sacrifice and effort the developers put into the project. OpenBSD continues to be awesome because of their hard work. It's very important that you get the companies you work for, your vendors, your customers, ... to donate to the OpenBSD Foundation to ensure that hackathons like this (and the project itself) can continue to grow and improve.

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Josh Hoppes (12.219.27.151) on

    http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=121313547703053&w=2
    Sweet! Out of path load balancing is one of those features I have been hoping to see since hoststated/relayd was added to the OS. Great job to the OpenBSD team!

  2. By Andy Elvey (viking) andy.elvey@paradise.net.nz on

    I like the c2k8 T-shirt! I was hoping to see a moose on it (but there's a cow, so I guess that's close enough... ;) )

  3. By Anonymous Coward (212.20.215.132) on

    Thank you, Mark. I really appreciate you taking the time doing this. Not to put any pressure on you, but I really enjoyed your n2k8 series, and I'm really looking forward to your coverage of the c2k8 ;-)

    Thanks again.

  4. By Anonymous Coward (24.37.242.64) on

    Shouldn't c2k8 be e2k8 instead? Assuming this is in Edmonton instead of Calgary.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (212.20.215.132) on

      > Shouldn't c2k8 be e2k8 instead? Assuming this is in Edmonton instead of Calgary.

      Canada? ;-)

      Comments
      1. By Chris (139.70.11.40) on

        > > Shouldn't c2k8 be e2k8 instead? Assuming this is in Edmonton instead of Calgary.
        >
        > Canada? ;-)

        Look at this and you'll get a sense for it means.

        http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (24.37.242.64) on

          > > > Shouldn't c2k8 be e2k8 instead? Assuming this is in Edmonton instead of Calgary.
          > >
          > > Canada? ;-)
          >
          > Look at this and you'll get a sense for it means.
          >
          > http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html
          >
          >

          That's what I mean, all the c2k* hackathons have been in Calgary (hence the C in c2k8) but this one is in Edmonton, not Calgary so shouldn't it really be called e2k8?

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (68.225.188.35) on

            > > > > Shouldn't c2k8 be e2k8 instead? Assuming this is in Edmonton instead of Calgary.
            > > >
            > > > Canada? ;-)
            > >
            > > Look at this and you'll get a sense for it means.
            > >
            > > http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html
            > >
            > >
            >
            > That's what I mean, all the c2k* hackathons have been in Calgary (hence the C in c2k8) but this one is in Edmonton, not Calgary so shouldn't it really be called e2k8?
            >
            Not all in Calgary, look again in the webpage. Look at the letter prefix on each i.e.: pf, c, v, h, n, r, f.

            Most of the "c"'s are related to "General hackathon" and were located in Calgary, but not all. In the end, it really doesn't matter what the letters and locations have in relation to each other. Excellent code and improvements come from these hackathons. Humppa !!!

          2. By tedu (74.68.146.146) on


            > That's what I mean, all the c2k* hackathons have been in Calgary (hence the C in c2k8)

            Except the ones that weren't. The c, of course, stands for coagulation.

    2. By Andy Elvey (viking) on

      > Shouldn't c2k8 be e2k8 instead? Assuming this is in Edmonton instead of Calgary.
      As an aspie, I've found the general pattern (although there are a few
      exceptions... :) )

      The letter or prefix tends to relate to what the hackathon's focus is,
      rather than where it is. Fair comment though, that this one could use an "e" instead of a "c".

      Anyway, pf2k4 focused on pf. r2k6 focused on routing, p2k6 and p2k7 on ports, h2k6 and h2k7 on hardware and so on. As mentioned though, there are exceptions (mostly in the early days....)

      Comments
      1. By Miod Vallat (miod) on

        > The letter or prefix tends to relate to what the hackathon's focus is,
        > rather than where it is. Fair comment though, that this one could use an "e" instead of a "c".

        The focus is not on Edmonton. It is on code.

  5. By Anonymous Coward (88.90.218.146) on

    > I overheard someone saying that there was one litre for every person
    > at the barbecue. Well someone fortunate or not, got my litre but the
    > kicker is, the beer ran out!

    Call me Norwegian, but /one/ litre? Of course the beer ran out.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (70.66.206.60) on

      > > I overheard someone saying that there was one litre for every person
      > > at the barbecue. Well someone fortunate or not, got my litre but the
      > > kicker is, the beer ran out!
      >
      > Call me Norwegian, but /one/ litre? Of course the beer ran out.
      >


      Agreed. As a western Canadian I can surely assume that the proper term is 1 litre per line of code in the kernel, per person, per diem.

      Love these updates guys, thanks a ton.


      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (212.20.215.132) on

        > As a western Canadian I can surely assume that the proper term
        > is 1 litre per line of code in the kernel, per person, per diem.
        >

        I think you're confusing OpenBSD with Linux ;-p

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (70.66.206.60) on

          > > As a western Canadian I can surely assume that the proper term
          > > is 1 litre per line of code in the kernel, per person, per diem.
          > >
          >
          > I think you're confusing OpenBSD with Linux ;-p
          >

          Oh no, I assure you I do not make that mistake.

          A brain is great. A brain with CanadaLube is better.

          And I'm sure the Euro's will one-up me, as their beer is better.

          But it's still beer.





    2. By Anonymous Coward (142.244.224.100) on

      > > I overheard someone saying that there was one litre for every person
      > > at the barbecue. Well someone fortunate or not, got my litre but the
      > > kicker is, the beer ran out!
      >
      > Call me Norwegian, but /one/ litre? Of course the beer ran out.
      >

      I'm sure Mark referred to Imperial Litres.


  6. By tfm (tfm) west.to.east@gmail.com on

    What do you win when you can drink beer the fastest?

    Comments
    1. By Chris (139.70.11.40) on

      > What do you win when you can drink beer the fastest?
      >

      Maybe a head rush? :)

      http://www.kegfun.com/images/HeadRushCan.JPG

    2. By phessler (phessler) on first undead, then not, then undead again.

      > What do you win when you can drink beer the fastest?
      >

      another beer, of course.

    3. By henning (142.244.224.35) on

      > What do you win when you can drink beer the fastest?

      beer.

    4. By art (142.244.224.44) on

      > What do you win when you can drink beer the fastest?
      >

      The possibility to run away before everyone else sprays beer all over you.

  7. By Jason G (70.75.19.130) on


    There's also 4GB of Sun RAM suitable for an E280/B1000/B2000, plus 1.5GB for a B100/150.

    If it already hasn't been claimed, someone please do so. I don't want to have it carried back to Calgary by Theo, only to be placed back in my care. Sell it on Ebay in order to pay for something more relevant. Trade it for a pitcher of Trad. Make beautiful jewelry. Put it under the rear wheels of your car for traction in the winter... it doesn't matter to me. I just don't want a clear plastic package pushed across the table at the Ship to me in another week or so! ;-)

    --jbg@

  8. By Reyk Floeter (129.128.159.59) reyk@openbsd.org on http://team.vantronix.net/~reyk/

    Actually Hannover 96 is in the "A"-League (1. Bundesliga), but I'm normally not really interested in soccer except of the fact that relayd is involved in the web site of German soccer.

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.]