Margarita Manterola Richard Darst Ana Beatriz Guerrero López, Andrew McMillan, Ángel Vivas Vivas, Anto Recio, Ben Hutchings, Christian Perrier, Cyril Brulebois, Damyan Ivanov, Gregor Herrmann, Gunnar Wolf, Holger Levsen, Jonathan McDowell, Margarita Manterola, Michael Banck, Michael Schultheiss, Michal Čihař, Mike Hommey, Steve McIntyre Moray Allan Damyan Ivanov, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki, Gunnar Wolf, Judit Foglszinger, Moray Allan Aigars Mahinovs, Gerfried Fuchs, Moray Allan, Tiago Bortoletto Vaz

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STEVE MCINTYRE

ebian is one of the largest and most influ- make plans for future work and solve some Dential distributed software development of their existing development issues. As organisations in the world, and right from the usual, we took the time to mingle and meet very beginning of the project we have effect- friends old and new. ively worked together remotely using a variety of means: email, IRC, phone, etc. But, no mat- “We bring people together from ter how well we have learnt to use these meth- all over the world for a week or ods they will never compare with the two, helping them to work and bandwidth and efficiency of face-to-face meet- play better, sharing ideas, code ings. As the largest of those meetings, - and beer.” Conf will always be important to us. We bring people together from all over the world for a As always, DebConf depended on a week or two, helping them to work and play bet- number of dedicated volunteers. The organ- ter, sharing ideas, code and beer. ising team included people from future and The government of Extremadura in previous DebConfs, along with the local Spain has hosted a number of devel- people who spent so much of their time opment meetings over the last few years, making things happen before and during but this was the first time that they had com- the conference itself. And, lest we forget, mitted to something the size of DebConf. year on year our video team continues to With their help and continuing generous provide a very professional service, provid- support from many of our key sponsors, we ing live video streams of the talks and again managed to run a successful confer- downloadable video afterwards. Planning ence for several hundred attendees despite and running such a large conference takes a the looming financial problems affecting lot of work, and the team deserves a great much of the world this year. round of thanks from the project as a whole We saw the usual collection of technical for their efforts. sessions and workshops this summer, cover- Looking back at DebConf9, I have lots ing most of the areas that are important in of fond memories to take forward. I can't Debian. Many of the core teams held meet- wait to meet many of you again in New ings at the conference, helping them to York next summer for DebConf10!

PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS

6 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT GUNNAR WOLF

he academic committee is charged with One of the most interesting events was the Tmaintaining the high quality standards of keynote by the release team. Their proposal the attendee talks at DebConf. This is quite a was fascinating, but new and controversial. long task, reviewing and scoring countless sub- The ability to have a group discussion and get missions. Once we are done, the entirely separ- feedback from people in real time allowed a ate long process of scheduling all talks begins, quicker and better resolution than discussion requiring coordination of rooms and speaker online could have produced. schedules, trying to minimize the overlap LiMux also had a keynote describing the in- between talks interesting to the same subset of stallation of a Debian derivative on over people. While this is a long task, we do get a 14,000 of Munich government's computers. preview of DebConf before DebConf. Such large installations produce a lot of useful Talks are rated based on relevance to Debi- feedback for the body of Debian developers, an, technical merit, and usefulness to fostering which made this keynote very useful for cur- discussion within the community. Most offi- rent Debian developers as well as others inter- cial track talks have some relevance to Debian. ested in large scale Debian deployments. The talk selection process begins many Another talk that was a great success was months before DebConf, when speakers draft the presentation about the new debhelper fea- and submit an abstract. We have events of all tures. A tool that has been helping packaging types, from keynote lectures to birds-of-a-feath- since more than a decade has recently added er, small discussion sections. Talks are not lim- quite a number of new features and all the de- ited to those from current developers, users velopers were eager to share ideas about the often hold discussion sessions to share wisdom new work that could be done with it. or explain significant deployments to the Debi- There were also many smaller events, an community. presentation of several interesting new tools, re- The talk committee meets and evaluates all search that has been going on, problems found submissions based on technical merit and relev- and their solutions. As well as quite a number ance to Debian. Reviewing more than 100 sub- of workshops that allowed members of many missions is hard work, but it is well worth it for different teams in Debian to get together and the preview of what is to come. share their ideas with a fluency that can't be ob- While not every talk can be selected, luckily tained through the internet. DebConf can accommodate many more events. The talk selection team is proud of the tech- This is especially useful since not every event nical program that went on at DebConf9, and can be planned and submitted in advance. Any- we encourage all interested people to consider one may consult the schedule, find an unoccu- reviewing talks in future years – if you can't at- pied room, and arrange a spontaneous tend them all, at least you can read summaries gathering of developers. As such, there is no of them all! such thing as a complete rejection -- only unoffi- cial and not scheduled in advance.

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 7 These are the key technical talks given during DebConf9 , and the estimated number of attendees

Steve McIntyre 100 Don Armstrong 50 This talk dealt with what makes Debian different from The newly introduced features to the bug tracking other distributions, and what new or not so new developers system, including the affects, summary, and local can do to help make Debian better, introducing ideas to mirror were be presented and demonstrated during this make work done for Debian cooler and more fun. talk, as well as some of the underlying architectural changes to the codebase.

Luk Claes and Adeodato Simó 90 This talk presented plans and ideas for Debian future releases, ensuing a lot of further discussion. Steve Langasek 50 pam-auth-update allows to automatically enable PAM modules when installing. This talk provided an Joey Hess 90 introduction to what it is, how to use it, and how to get debhelper v7, dh sequences, pluggable buildsystems -- good results with it. debhelper has added many new features while staying true to its decades-plus roots. This talk covered the new features, how to use then, and how it compares to cdbs. Agnieszka Czajkowska 50 This presentation introduced new concepts and ideas for an innovative yet controversial image campaign for Holger Levsen, Lars Wirzenius 60 Debian, including boot sequence, wiki and webpages. This talk showed how packages and maintainers can benefit from piuparts and piuparts.debian.org.

Steve Langasek, Hector Oron 45 Simon Richter 50 Multiarch design and implementation discussion. The * NM AM FD DAM BOF results, Enrico Zini current state of multi-arch was presented with a lot of * Internationalisation sessions results, Christian Perrier enthusiasm of the audience. * Genesis of an installer, Christian Perrier * Redirecting require, Joachim Breitner * Mastering po4a in 5 minutes, Nicolas François Sam Hartman, Mario Lang, Enrico Zini 45 * vs Microsoft Installer, Simon Richter An overview of accessibility features present and * MMUless systems, Simon Richter missing in Debian, from the user and developer point of * Free Software concept map, Rene Merou view. * -xapian-index, Enrico Zini

Aurelien Jarno 50 Michael Banck 45 This talk showed many potential uses of QEMU, a generic and open source machine emulator, for Debian This BoF focused on the problems perceived with the Developers, particularly useful because it supports a good debian-devel mailing list. It discussed what can be done to subset of official Debian architectures. make debian-devel be again a better place and the central point of Debian development.

Bdale Garbee 50 Enrico Zini 40 This talk presented the relationship between HP and Debian from the perpective of a large corporation working Debian Data Export is a standard for publishing Debian with Free Software. information. This talk aimed to explain how the tool works, how it can be used to extract information from all the different data in Debian.

8 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT Joerg Jaspert 40 Guido Günther 35 This talk presented the history and description of the Libvirt is a library that aims to make virtualization work of the FTP team, and the people behind it, and an easier. This talk presented libvirt, explaining what it is, invitation for more people to help. why it is useful, and how to use it.

Torsten Werner 35 40 The immunity tool provides a secure container to lock An introduction to NAS devices currently supported in down any application that processes untrusted data . A Debian, how to make it work, and lessons learned. ready to install Debian package was presented as a proof of concept.

Guido Trotter 40 Gaudenz Steinlin 35 Ganeti is a cluster virtualization platform which can help scheduling virtual machines on clusters of physical This talk presented research made on how the Debian nodes, using various virtualization technologies, like KVM project grows over time, how the workload is distributed and Xen. This talk aimed to help developers make among developers, the impact of releases and other events extensive use of such platform. on the overall project activity, and the differences in social interaction

Florian Schießl 40 S. Gran, P. Palfrader, M. Zobel-Helas 35 Munich's LiMux project uses free software in the 14,000 PCs of the administration. This talk presented the 3 A discussion on how DSA manages Debian years experience of the project, challenges regarding the infrastructure, with an emphasis on feedback from teams integration of the client, the availability of business and users. applications and the migration to OpenOffice.org.

Lucas Nussbaum 35 Luk Claes 40 A discussion of the current state and possible future The stable release, volatile and backports.org all have changes of the several areas where the QA team works. their goals and rules. This BOF intended to gather ideas about a common policy, to clarify the interactions and borders of each of them and increase their use and Luk Claes, Raphael Geissert 35 cooperation. An intense discussion on why, how, and when to make the switch, the possible side-effects and counter-measures.

Gregor Herrmann 40 Steve McIntyre 35 This BOF discussed finding and integrating new Debian has quite a large amount of money held in trust members into teams, structures and procedures that could at SPI and elsewhere. This was a discussion of the better help. It focused on collecting models of good practice and ways to spend that money developing ideas for improvement.

Lucas Nussbaum 35 Don Armstrong 35 Ultimate Debian Database provides a central place to This BOF discussed techniques to deal with packages dig into Debian's information. This talk provided an that have many bugs and what features might be added to introduction to UDD, discussing its current status, and the BTS to improve that. possible evolutions in the future.

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 9 martin f. krafft 30 Martin Michlmayr 25

Stefano Zacchiroli 30 Franklin Piat 25

Francisco Rivas 30 Andreas Tille 20

Luk Claes 30 Blars Blarson 20

Bdale Garbee 30 Philipp Kern 20

Mike Hommey, Rene Engelhard 30 Wookey 20

Enrico Zini 30 Luca Capello 20

Franklin Piat 25

PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS

10 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT Enrico Zini Giacomo Catenazzi

Gunnar Wolf Simon Richter, Neil Williams, Wookey

Christian Perrier Vagrant Cascadian

Matthew Johnson Joachim Breitner, Robert Jaehne

Ben Hutchings W. Martin Borgert

Luk Claes paul cannon

Miriam Ruiz Jose Lancho

Simon Richter Carsten Valdemar Munk

Riku Voipio Martín Ferrari

Adrián Pérez de Castro Alexander "Tolimar" Reichle-Schmehl

Blars Blarson Micah Anderson

Olivier Berger Luk Claes, Petter Reinholdtsen

Raphael Geissert Bdale Garbee

Simon Richter Joey Hess

Steve McIntyre martin f. krafft / James Westby

Andreas Tille Michael Banck, Andreas Tille

Franklin Piat Raphael Geissert

Michael Banck Holger Levsen, Lars Wirzenius

Bdale Garbee, Joerg Jaspert, Jimmy Kaplowitz, Don Armstrong Michael Schultheiss

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 11 ANTO RECIO

rganising DebConf is a difficult job • Since the residence belongs to the Junta de Owhich requires keeping track of many de- Extremadura, the DebConf organisation tails, not only local logistics but also many oth- would not need to pay to use it, it was er details. Some details, like visas, are tasks 100% sponsored. which need to be kept track of closely and • Good large rooms where we could hold the which require a lot of time by themselves. events and meals. We were planning a din- The Local Team has a very positive assess- ing room for 300 people. ment of DebConf9. In the end, all the efforts • Very good internet connectivity. We were were worth it because the majority of the at- planning a fibre optic link which would al- tendees passed on to us their good feelings low us to have a very good connection dur- about the organisation. During the entire confer- ing the whole conference. ence, all the attendees enjoyed the conference • The sleeping rooms were very well events but also the cultural and recreational equipped. Air-conditioning was very im- activities which we arranged. As the Local portant for the high temperatures in sum- Team we feel very proud that Extremadura was mer. able to host a DebConf, for everything which • The whole residence was adapted for this region means to Free Software. people with special needs.

“The majority of the attendees Several public institutions and companies passed on to us their good sponsored DebConf9. We started approaching feelings about the organisation.” these institutions at the beginning of 2009. Some quickly realised that the Debian Confer- ence was a very important international event and that they should get involved through finan- From the beginning, the Local Team's main cial sponsorship. Here is a list of the financial goal was to find a venue where all the events sponsorship from the various institutions in Ex- could take place and where people could relax tremadura: whenever they wanted, with most if not all of • Junta de Extremadura, Platinum sponsor the sleeping rooms in the same building. • Telefónica, Gold sponsor (fibre optic con- At first we considered the possibility of us- nection) ing another venue, an 18th century building • Ayuntamiento de Cáceres, Silver sponsor which is very well equipped for conferences • Comparex, Silver sponsor and much cooler because of its age. In the end • Gabinete de Iniciativa Joven, Bronze spon- we decided that the Muñoz Torrero University sor Residence was much better suited to a Deb- • Consorcio Cáceres 2016, Bronze sponsor Conf. • Cenatic, Bronze sponsor The main advantages of the Muñoz Torrero The total income which the Local Team ar- University Residence which drew us there for ranged for DebConf9 was €71500. DebConf9 were:

12 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT DAMYAN IVANOV

eing at DebConf9 was exciting as usual. BThis was my second attendance and this time I had the chance to help with the organisa- tion. During DebConf7 (my first), it was amaz- ing to see how many volunteers are needed to run the conference, During DebConf8, I fol- lowed the fun on the organisers' IRC channels and video streams since I couldn't attend. It was all very clear to me that (1) I wanted to be in Cáceres; and (2) I wanted to help with the or- PICTURE BY TIAGO BORTOLETTO VAZ ganisation. Front Desk was the perfect match. Although puzzle-solving skills were required in order to I was busy with other interesting things during assemble the fancy carton boxes used for carry- the most busy days (like working on the funny ing three bottles at once. This task required signs you could see all around the venue) I more than one puzzle-solver but the end result took care of Front Desk several days in a row. was quite satisfactory. We employed typical It was an addictive job. :) Debian synergy. I recommend volunteering on the Front Desk to everybody who wants to get a bit in- side the organisation of DebConf. It is an inter- esting, rewarding job with no special requirements. It is not a heavy-load position, you'll have plenty of time for regular DebConf hacking. The hardest part is getting up early on morning shifts, but the excitement of being at DebConf helps there. See you at Front Desk!

PICTURE BY GERFRIED FUCHS

Front Desk gave me the ability to meet and interact with new people, certainly not a usual experience for a typical introvert geek. Being able to help people with all the tiny little prob- lems that come up at conferences was very re- warding. And it was not a hard job: you just have to attend the organisers meetings and listen, then tell people what you've heard. There were some additional tasks like selling food tickets and the unique Debian wine. Some

PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 13 BEN HUTCHINGS & HOLGER LEVSEN

he video team continued to build on the ex- transcoded at any time of day. Tperience of existing members while recruit- The video team now has a good set of audio ing new volunteers to work for nothing more equipment, with which we recorded high qual- than a video team T-shirt. As usual, we ity audio for most events as well as providing provided live video streams and also recorded PA in the main talk room. During the 'Access- events for later viewing. This year we pub- ibility and Debian' talk we were able to mix in lished over 50 hours of video covering 76 speech synthesiser output directly from Sam's events. laptop. Unlike the hotel in Mar del Plata, the venue Some mistakes we made that we should cor- did not provide staff to support A/V. However rect next year: we were free to arrange furniture, cables and - We didn't get all the 'cheat sheets' ready, equipment ourselves. The second talk room so new members made mistakes and had to ask was designed as a video theatre and had limited a lot of questions that we could have answered lighting controls, so it was a challenge to light in advance. the speaker without also lighting the screen and - There was not enough time to update the making it unreadable. Sometimes we suc- Pentabarf video code during DebCamp, so we ceeded in this; sometimes not. could not make some enhancements to the Instead of recording directly to a file server, video workflow. We need to work on this in we set up each room's video mixer to record to advance. local files and then moved the files to the file - We decided to reuse video tapes once we server after each half-day of recording. This knew we had good recordings on disk, but we change meant that we no longer required the net- didn't set up a process for this. We ran out of work team to set up a separate video network, tapes and sometimes had to reuse them without and that recordings could be reviewed and checking.

PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS

14 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS

answered in the streams. The on-the-fly editing done by the "Directors" of each talk MARGARITA MANTEROLA allowed us, the viewers from all over the or several reasons, I couldn't be present at world, to watch the speakers, their slides, and FDebConf9. This is to say, I couldn't be the audience reactions, just as if we were there there physically, but thanks to the awesome ourselves. work done by the Video Team, I was definitely Even though I missed being at DebConf9, there for the talks. thanks to the Video Team I didn't miss a single I've always appreciated the hard work done talk. And I know I was not the only one, quite by the Video Team volunteers to give the best a number of Debian developers, maintainers possible coverage of DebConf. It was not until and contributors, who for some reason or I was on the other side of the screen, however, another couldn't make it to Cáceres, were able that I realized how much their work meant to to keep up to date with what was happening at those not present at the conference. the conference through the streams. Each DebConf day I woke up at 5 AM in Thank you. Danke. Gracias. Merci. There the morning and had breakfast while watching just aren't enough words to express my the morning talks; through IRC I was able to gratitude to all those that worked to make this ask questions to the speakers and get them possible.

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 15 ANA BEATRIZ GUERRERO LÓPEZ

ith DebConf changing venue every explained how they work with Debian, Wyear, we try to give all the Debian de- how they earn money by giving support to velopers and contributors the chance to attend a free software, and how they develop using close to home. But what free software. about users, people working on companies us- Extremadura inhabitants are already ing Debian or just enthusiastic people who quite lucky, since their regional govern- want to learn more about Debian? Is DebConf ment has been holding many international also for them? free software events in the last years. Des- pite this, and despite holding the event in “... topics such as how and why the middle of the summer holidays, we had to contribute to Debian, how about 50 people from Extremadura and ad- Debian works, and the jacent regions attend the Open Day. This differences between software is not the best part: the talks were recorded licences. and now all Spanish speakers in the world have good quality videos with talks about We tend to think DebConf is for every- Debian. body who is interested, and in the case of ad- vanced users or people working in free Jose Antonio Recio Cuesta, Marta Quintanilla software companies in the area, this is right. However, there are plenty of users Luciano Bello, Steve Lang who are interested in Debian, sometimes asek, Enrico Zini new to free software, who do not speak flu- ent English. We want them also to have Adeodato Simó the opportunity to enjoy the conference and learn more about Debian. This is why we Francisco Rivas hold a Debian Open Day at every Deb- Conf, with talks in the local languages. This year we held the Open Day mostly Miriam Ruiz in Spanish with some talks in English. The day was begun by the Director General of Diego M ICT of the regional government of Ex- artínez Castañeda, tremadura who gave an overview of how they are deploying and using Free Software Hector Colina solutions in fields such as education and healthcare. The day continued with a mix- ture of talks given by Debian Developers in José L. Redrejo Spanish about topics such as how and why to contribute to Debian, how Debian works, and the differences between soft- Daniel Lombraña González, IDENTIC ware licences. Also, some local companies

Sebastian Ortega Torres

16 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT ANDREW MCMILLAN

net overlaid on the LAN, enabling SSH access hanks to Fon.com, DebConf9 had a sup- for management and SNMP for monitoring. Tply of access points that many attendees Each AP was given a number allowing us to gazed enviously at. Of course, with such a pile physically correlate an AP with its manage- of APs we faced challenges of how to config- ment IP address. ure them to provide as much coverage as pos- Once all APs were in place and working we sible without interference. We also had to bear tuned the output power so that no AP could see in mind that most attendees were using laptops, the broadcasts from another AP on the same and that hacklabs had a very high-density envir- channel. onment. We used 15x Buffalo WHR-G54 for most Overall the wireless worked well, and the of the network, supplemented by a few Foner- problems that were encountered pretty much as. All routers were installed with OpenWRT happened at the times and places when you Kamikaze 8.09.1. Initially we tried to use the would expect to encounter problems. 2.6.x kernel on the Buffaloes but some clients had problems connecting, so we switched to the more stable 2.4 series. I expect that next "We had to bear in mind that time we deploy these it will be OK to deploy most attendees were using with a 2.6 kernel from a more recent Open- laptops, and that hacklabs had a WRT. very high density environment."

Coverage was concentrated on the talk nfortunately the hostel network at Fran- rooms, the hacklabs, and around the infrastruc- Ucisco de Sandes was not great. The ven- ture team, with some further (less successful) ef- ue was some distance away from the main forts to cover the sleeping areas and the bar venue at Muñoz Torrero and was unavailable across the road. In order to reduce casual snoop- for setup until the main conference was almost ing all access points advertised a WPA2 PSK upon us. encrypted SSID. In order to reduce the barriers Given this, further complicated by the his- to WiFi for new arrivals, core access points toric nature of the building, it was only pos- also advertised an unencrypted SSID so that sible to cover a limited amount of the building even the forgetful could still get their Internet with wireless. To confuse the matter even fur- fix. ther there were two upstream DSL connec- When laying out the access points we were tions, complete with telco-supplied wireless fortunate that the venue was somewhat linear, APs, but no equipment or time to implement so we were able to start from one end using bonding across them. channels 1, 6, 11, 1, 6, 11, 1, 6, 11, … and so on. All access points were bridging the wire- less directly to the LAN, which was assigning DHCP and so forth. The APs themselves were allocated static IPs on a separate RFC 1918 sub-

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 17 On behalf of all of the organisers and at- STEVE MCINTYRE tendees of DebConf9, we express our gratitude aising funds to support DebConf is often to all of our sponsors. Without their help, there Ra stressful task, but in 2008-2009 it would be no DebConf. We'll be in touch reached a whole new level of difficulty. With shortly to see if they'd like to help DebConf10. economies all over the world contracting, many of our usual sponsors were feeling the squeeze. It's hard to convince sponsors to donate to a MICHAEL SCHULTHEISS Free Software conference when they're strug- ebConf is very proud of how affordable gling to meet their normal costs of business. Dit is to attend. Thanks to our many spon- On top of that, we saw a number of mergers sors, not only is there no registration fee re- which meant that many of our potential spon- quired but everyone who applies by the early sors were swallowed up by other companies. In registration deadline is eligible for sponsored some cases this was not a problem for us, but food and lodging. Historically, all who applied in others the new owners were not interested in by the deadline received both of these. There is promoting our work in Debian. We will contin- also an option for attendees who can afford it ue to work on them in the future, of course, but to pay for their accommodation with the group. this year we weren't successful everywhere. DebConf is also able to provide limited Against that background, we must thank travel sponsorship. Unfortunately, every year many of our returning sponsors for coming we get more requests for travel reimbursement back and supporting us nonetheless. Large, than we can provide. The sponsorship team is well-known companies like HP, Nokia, Intel responsible for allocating the travel money. and Google helped us a great deal again this We strive for fairness. A team of experi- year. Meanwhile, plenty of smaller specialist enced developers reviews applications and Free Software companies (Collabora, Credativ, rates applicants based on their contributions to SiriusIT, Green Quadrant) continued as spon- Debian and DebConf. Attendees whom have sors this year despite the nightmare market- been selected to give a talk have a high prior- place as did others already well known for ity. Core members of important teams also working with Debian: Canonical, Bytemark, have a high probability of getting sponsored. Univention, hands.com. Sponsorship is not exclusively decided by We also managed to find several new spon- Debian Developer status, but by public contri- sors this year, and by far the most prominent of butions to things like mailing lists and bug re- those were the local government agencies of Ex- ports. Thus, even new contributors can have a tremadura and Cáceres. The Extremadura gov- good chance at travel sponsorship. ernment have been very supportive of Debian Travel sponsorship is made possible by con- for several years, arranging and hosting meet- tributions by DebConf's sponsors above and ings for several teams. This year, they expan- beyond that needed to fund the basic confer- ded that effort and invited us to bring a full ence, so the travel sponsorship team would like DebConf to their region. This was a wonderful to thank our many sponsors for making all of offer and we were happy to accept! this possible!

18 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT MICHAEL SCHULTHEISS

udgeting for DebConf9 was very challen- An uncertain global economic climate and Bging, particularly since the DebConf9 other factors led many people to cancel their budget team did not include anyone local to travel plans. We ended up with 246 attendees, Spain. Despite these challenges, the budget of which 23 and 3, respectively, were in the team was able to develop a workable budget "Professional" and "Corporate" categories pay- and continued to refine it up to and through the ing the cost of their stay directly. Further, 72 conference itself, allowing yet another excel- more found lodging spaces by themselves in lent DebConf to occur. Cáceres. We covered the costs of lodging and Fortunately, DebConf9's budget was logistic- food for 148 conference attendees. ally less complex than DebConf8's, as we only Cost Amount (EUR) needed to deal with two non-profit organiza- Travel Reimbursments €21.094 tions rather than three. Since DebConf9 was be- Accommodation €15.120 ing held in the EU, we utilized FFIS Conference Dinner €6.550 (Förderung Freier Informationen und Software) Infrastructure and Equipment €6.810 to receive money on behalf of DebConf9, Food €3.612 primarily from the eurozone. SPI (Software in T-shirts €1.760 the Public Interest) also received money on be- Transportation €1.500 half of DebConf9, primarily from countries out- Total €56.446 side of the eurozone. When we started preparing for DebConf9, Many of the usual needs that need to be we were expecting 400 attendees. As always, covered when organizing a DebConf, such as we worked on a very tight budget: we wanted Internet access, renting of the conference facil- to stretch the money from our external spon- ities, and even part of the lodging and food sors to cover as many attendees as possible. were directly paid by local sponsors. We were fearful that many planned events From DebConf funds, we partially or fully would have to be canceled or downgraded due reimbursed 49 people's travel expenses. Many to lack of money. We also considered charging of them would have been unable to come to the for some events rather than sponsoring them out- conference without this help, so this was an im- right. portant part of our budget. Year Venue People Budget (USD) On the leisure and entertainment side, we 2000 Bordeaux, France 30 $0,00 covered the cost of the DayTrip and provided 2001 Bordeaux, France 50 $0,00 some really nice DebConf T-shirts. Finally, we 2002 Toronto, Canada 90 $5.000,00 held a nice dinner to celebrate in style and in- 2003 Oslo, Norway 130 $25.000,00 vited the flamenco band from the dinner to per- 2004 Porto Alegre, Brazil 150 $75.000,00 form again the next night. 2005 Helsinki, Finland 300 $130.000,00 In summary, we received 109,571 EUR in 2006 Oaxtepec, Mexico 310 $150.000,00 total for DebConf9, and spent 56,446 EUR on 2007 Edinburgh, Scotland 394 $180.000,00 the conference. We will thus be able to pass 2008 Mar del Plata, Argentina 223 $160.000,00 on 53,125 EUR as startup funding for Deb- 2009 Cáceres, Spain 246 $75.000,00 Conf10 in New York.

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 19 ANDREW MCMILLAN

uring the middle of the conference, three Dfull buses of attendees headed off early one morning to the Reserva Garganta de los Infi- ernos in Valle del Jerte. First, we visited the park information centre to get an idea of what all was around. In typical fashion many of us were impa- tient with looking at dioramas of the park when the real thing was just up the hill, so a trail of developers headed off on the seemingly shortest path to the most scenic part of the PICTURE BY MORAY ALLAN park: the cascade of Garganta de los Infiernos getically inclined had come to Jerte directly, from which the nature reserve takes it's name. since the nature preserve was particularly un- friendly for wheelchairs, or indeed for anyone not keen on climbing up 150m in the hot Span- ish sun. An ambulance was called when Joey Hess's foot managed to find some broken glass in the river pool, but the efficient Spanish medical system had him back with us before the buses left for Cáceres. And throughout the day, amongst all of this walking about and swim- ming I overheard plenty of chitchat about Debi-

PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS an, and plenty of geeks communicating, making friends and making plans for large and These amazing cascades were a real treat, small changes that will contribute to the project and a very attractive location for us to eat the in the future. prepared lunch while many conference goers at- Admittedly, though, at the end of a long, tempted to negotiate the cascades first in a hot and energetic day the main thing I heard downwards direction, and then (for the more were content snores. physically motivated) in the upwards direction. It was great to see our two blind attendees also enjoyed making their way down the cascade with a little help from everyone else. After an hour or two at the cascades we re- luctantly returned to the buses for the short jour- ney into the town of Jerte itself where there was a river pool and we were further able to swim, or simply sit, socialising and sipping san- gria in the shade. A fourth bus for the less ener-

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20 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT CHRISTIAN PERRIER

ach year the traditional "Cheese and Wine (organized in "Cheese cutters", "Cheese EParty" is one of the favorite social events labelers", "Wine openers" and "Cheese dis- for DebConf attendees. patchers") was able to release on time with top With DebConf9 being hosted in a region quality material and avoid release-critical biolo- and a country where cheese and wine are a tradi- gical degradation. tion, we could not miss that great opportunity. As Debian likes new challenges, this year So, once again, a few dozens of DebConf deleg- saw the appearance of specific Debian Wine. A ates managed to bring the required "material" local wine producer provided a high quality to make this party a success. Vino de la Tierra de Extremadura and unique Local cheese was also widely represented wine labels were created for that occasion. and we would like to issue a special mention Next DebConf will see us facing a new chal- for the "Torta del Casar" provided by a local lenge: organizing an even better Cheese party cheese shop. while respecting the drastic regulation for The Extremaduran heat in summer turned chemical weapon importation in the United all this into a "how to store several dozens of States of America. This is of course nothing odorant milk derivatives for a few days" chal- that motivated free software developers can't lenge. But, once again, the Debian cheese team manage. See and stink you in NYC!

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DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 21 HOLGER LEVSEN

faces of the Debian crowd and comments on the net. This wine is now available from a webshop until all is sold out. See http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWine for information regarding how and where to order. While the shop is able to ship worldwide, ship- ping to many countries is unfortunately quite expensive. This is a known bug. But, at least it is possible and has been done. If you can, please submit patches or build a new service (the wine label is released under the CC-3.0-by or W4UPL licence, at your choice) – Without doubt, it would be great to see more and even better (distributed) wine next year and the years to come! Cheers! Enjoy sharing the wine and the soft- PICTURE BY AIGARS MAHINOVS ware!

ome time in March 2009, I had the idea of Sproducing some bottles of Debian wine for this DebConf. Somehow I knew that Anto had contacts at a vineyard, so I asked him if, and how, it might be possible to make a few hun- dred bottles. As he said yes, I drank some glasses of that very wine (though obviously with a different label) and started to think about a Debian label and so on. Together with a friend, [email protected], the label design was done. We only needed 15 (saved) versions of the PDF. :-) The PDF itself is error free, though the printing process intro- duced three errors in one area. If you find those bugs, please make sure to fix them with a pen, so your fellow wine lovers can enjoy the bever- age more purely. All in all 1770 bottles were made, of which we had 600 for sale in Cáceres. JOY FUN EX- CITEMENT! Almost all were happily bought and even more happily drunk, judging by the

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22 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT ÁNGEL VIVAS VIVAS Debian? Experiencias personales (Why contrib- went to DebConf9 because I live in a vil- ute to Debian? Personal experiences), and that Ilage near Cáceres, and I'm a free software was where I heard the best advice for getting supporter. I had been using Linux as my main involved in a free software project: ask your- OS for three years, and Debian about a year by self what Debian can do for you, and extract all the time of DebConf9, so I expected it to be a the juice. Participating in the things you love good way to meet people with the same con- and need, and with the tools you like, will be cerns and lifestyle as mine. where you can contribute more to Debian. For me, it was great. My initial idea was I also asked a lot of people where they are still largely overwhelmed by what DebConf working, what their concerns are, and that kind was. I met a lot of people working on things I of stuff... most of them recommended the same like, and sharing my same ideas. I also wanted I said a few lines above: ask yourself what you to help as a volunteer because I use Debian, need, what you like, and what languages you and Debian is maintained by the community, like, and find your place in Debian. so my duty as a Debian user is to collaborate, I would also recommend to people inter- and not only be a passive user. For me, it's very ested in participating in Debian that having a difficult to start maintaining the kernel or work- fluent level of English will help a lot. If you ing on PostgreSQL packages, but I can help want to work with people from a lot of differ- cabling the DebConf9 building, selling wine or ent countries over the world, the best language t-shirts, and in many other ways. for that is English. And, for people who are starting with more Finally, the best part of being a volunteer is technical things, there were some interesting not the technical side but the human side. After talks at the Debian Open Day: Debian por den- DebConf, I have kept contact with a lot of tro (Debian Inside), and ¿Por qué contribuir a great friends.

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DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 23 JOHNATHAN MCDOWELL most of the time, but it must absolutely be ac- eople often aren't entirely sure what to companied by the chance to meet colleagues Pmake of my annual trips to DebConf. face to face. This allows both an understanding They're impressed that I've travelled so widely, of where other people are coming from (are but then bemused that I do this on my own they a serious person, do they joke a lot, etc., time and money for something that isn't really which helps understand their online posts) as that related to my day job. It has to be said that well as a chance for exchange of ideas and the part of the appeal of DebConf is the social side opportunity to have useful discussions that of things; it's always great to see the many may simply not happen without in-person con- friends I have in Debian in person, people I've tact. With my keyring-maint hat on I achieved only ever spoken to before online. This year two very useful pieces of work at DebConf9: was no exception to that – I had many a pleas- first talking to Gunnar Wolf about him joining ant lunch and beer over the course of the confer- the keyring-maint team and then also being ence, with people I would rarely, if ever, see if able to sit down with representatives from the not for DebConf. The reasonably central loca- DM team, DSA and FTP masters to discuss tion of the venue within the city of Cáceres how to best move the DM keyring into the meant it was easy to go for a wander around dur- keyring.debian.org infrastructure. Yes, both of ing the break between the morning and after- these could have been achieved remotely, but noon talks, providing plenty of places to DebConf allowed it to get done much more ef- explore for lunch and dinner with other confer- ficiently and swiftly, simply by having all the ence goers. appropriate people in the same place. Don't get the impression that I think Deb- It takes a lot of work to make DebConf Conf is all about having a good time however. come together, but it pays off in terms of the It's important to realise that underneath all of benefit to the project that comes out of it. the socialising is a lot of very important con- While many people were involved in making tact for Debian. We are often accused of being DebConf9 great I have to say special thanks to quick to anger on our mailing lists, and part of César and Anto, the local team members who this is due to the highly decentralised nature of gave up a considerable portion of their lives for the project. My experience in the commercial many months to produce this year's event. world has been that telecommuting is fine for

24 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT GUNNAR WOLF his has been a great two weeks. TDebCamp was – of course – followed by DebConf. My blog postings were kept silent to an absolute minimum, just as my measurable productivity. Of course, this does not mean I have been scratching my belly or anything. Orga team work is HARD and tiring. But it is great fun. And sitting at the front desk means you get to interact with everybody. For $DEITY's sake, it is the best way to get to know people

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MICHAL ČIHAŘ hanks to all people who organised Deb- TConf9, from my POV everything went really smoothly and I enjoyed my time there. I finally met people I meet daily on the mail- ing lists and now I can finally imagine

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GREGOR HERRMANN with fellow Debian guys and get to know fter having attended the Debian confer- them better than is possible via email or IRC. Aences in Edinburgh and Mar del Plata, there was no question that I would join Deb- DebConf itself was exciting again: with Conf9 in Cáceres, too. After meeting some cool talks, productive workshops and ad-hoc other participants on my trip there, first in Mu- meetings I could feel how this bunch of vo- nich and then in Madrid, we were welcomed lunteers work hard to improve the great oper- by the helpful members of the local team in ating system we are producing – and have the Residencia Muñoz Torrero and later by lots of fun while doing so. Social events like the friendly catering staff – and I immedi- the cheese and wine party, the day trip and ately felt comfortable in this place which the conference dinner, or spontaneous excur- would be our "home base" for the next two sions to Cáceres' old town topped off a suc- weeks. cessful conference. DebCamp was relaxed and productive as I'd like to thank everybody in the local in the years before, and being able to sit out- and the global team who contributed to this side in the shadow with great WiFi coverage experience, and I'm looking forward to the made it even more fun to work on Debian next DebConf in New York and especially to stuff. The nearby park made it easy to go out meeting so many great people again! in the evening and have a chat and a drink

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 25 GUNNAR WOLF

hen we started working Some people also chose to Unspecified 56 Wtowards DebConf9, we help DebConf by paying the €15 Germany 38 were expecting it to be probably per day for their meal, which is a Spain 36 the largest DebConf ever. low price by Spanish standards, United Kingdom 27 However, it soon became obvi- and while 166 people requested United States of America 23 ous we would not be able to es- full food sponsorship, 105 de- France 15 cape the global recession. In the cided to pay by themselves. Austria 8 end 271 people reconfirmed There's a relatively high num- Venezuela 7 their attendance and 246 actually ber of vegetarians and vegans in Switzerland 6 attended the conference. This our ranks: close to 10% of the at- Brazil 5 was still a 10% increase from tendees are vegetarian or vegan, Argentina 4 the previous year. a much higher number than that Belgium 4 of the general population. Japan 3 Year Registered Confirmed Attended Finland 3 2007 544 456 394 Few things show as much di- 2008 500 252 223 versity as the geographic origins Mexico 3 2009 452 271 246 of our attendees. We had at- Italy 2 tendees coming in from 39 dif- Bosnia and Herzegovina 2 Even though DebConf is ferent countries; 160 attendees Hungary 2 fully sponsored for all of those were from Europe, 26 from Australia 2 who register on time, since Deb- North America, 19 from South Netherlands 2 Conf7 it's possible for attendees and Central America, 7 from Portugal 2 to help DebConf by covering the Asia, and 3 from Oceania. This Ireland 2 costs of their accommodation distribution has roughly held for Denmark 2 and food expenses, if either they past DebConfs occurring in Poland 1 or their employers could afford Europe, and shows what an inter- Israel 1 it. national effort DebConf is. Iran 1 Taiwan 1 China 1 Greece 1 Bulgaria 1 El Salvador 1 Peru 1 Luxembourg 1 Colombia 1 Russia 1 New Zealand 1 Norway 1 Latvia 1 Czech Republic 1 Romania 1

26 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT Mark Hymers Martin Zobel-Helas Peter Palfrader Stephen Gran Amaya Rodrigo Sastre Holger Levsen Joerg Jaspert Martin Krafft Steve McIntyre Richard Darst Ana Beatriz Guerrero López Damyan Ivanov Antonio Recio Gunnar Wolf César Gómez Martín Holger Levsen Martín Ferrari Michael Schultheiss Antonio Recio Moray Allan Ana Beatriz Guerrero López Steve McIntyre

Jonathan McDowell Antonio Recio Holger Levsen Antonio Recio Steve McIntyre Montaña Sanz Ana Beatriz Guerrero López Jimmy Kaplowitz Gunnar Wolf Michael Schultheiss Kurt Roeckx Margarita Manterola Michael Schultheiss Andrew McMillan Moray Allan Gerfried Fuchs Steve McIntyre Tomás Gonzalez Dowling Tiago Bortoletto Vaz

Andreas Tille Damyan Ivanov Daniel Silverstone Gunnar Wolf Enrico Zini Valessio Brito Gunnar Wolf Jimmy Kaplowitz Gunnar Wolf Joerg Jaspert Daniel Silverstone Andreas Tille Gunnar Wolf Phil Hands Vanessa Gutierrez Ana Beatriz Guerrero López Aigars Mahinovs

Holger Levsen Gabriela Manjarrez Joerg Jaspert Gunnar Wolf

DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT 27 Adnan Hodzic Ángel Vivas Axel Beckert Andrew McMillan Calamar Abisal Ben Hutchings David Arenas Holger Levsen David Farning Kurt Roeckx Eduardo Balsa Eva María Blanco Roque Adnan Hodzic Francisco Rivas Axel Beckert Fredy Rivera Christian Perrier Hector Oron Christoph Egger Jonathan Dupart Damyan Ivanov Jose Antonio Cordero García Daniel Glassey Judit Foglszinger Eddy Marian Petrișor Julian Daich Franklin Piat Kurt Gramlich Gaudenz Steinlin Lorena Iglesias Sánchez Gerfried Fuchs Matthias Schmitz Guido Günther Marco Antonio Gutiérrez Giraldo Gunnar Wolf Nattie Mayer-Hutchings Hector Oron Pablo Castellano Jonathan Dupart Patrick Bueker Jordi Mallach René Mérou Juan Andrés Gimeno Crespo Roberto Gordo Saez Judit Foglszinger Saúl Fernando Espinoza Castillo Karin Hedvig Kamp Safir Secerovic Martín Ferrari Tomás Martín Gonzalez Dowling Martin Zobel-Helas Uli Martens Matthias Schmitz Miguel Gea Ales Zabala Nattie Mayer-Hutchings Amaya Rodrigo Sastre Neil McGovern Andreas Tille Nicolas FRANÇOIS Ángel Vivas Pablo Castellano Axel Beckert Patrick Bueker Christoph Egger Per Andersson Damyan Ivanov Peter De Schrijver Frank Lin Piat Petrișor Eddy Marian Gerfried Fuchs Philip Hands Gunnar Wolf Rafael Martínez-Torres Jimmy Kaplowitz Safir Secerovic Jonathan McDowell Stéphane Glondu Maider Likona Tiago Bortoletto Vaz Noèl Gaudenz Tomás Martín Gonzalez Dowling Pablo Castellano Thomas Bliesener

28 DEBCONF9 FINAL REPORT