Posted on December 4, 2008 - by jono

FossCamp. UDS. Winner.

What an exciting week of events ahead!

Firstly, I will be attending FossCamp from the 5th – 6th December. There a variety of upstreams meet together in a number of free form sessions to discuss anything and everything about how we work together. Everyone is welcome, so if you can pop along to the Google offices at 1400 Crittenden Lane, Mountain View, CA 94043 do come and say hello.

Next up, and taking place at the same venue all next week (8th – 12th December) will be our Ubuntu Developer Summit. Over 200 of us will be gathering together to design, discuss and plan our next version of Ubuntu: version 9.04, the Jaunty Jackalope.

UDS is always the highlight of my travel calendar. Five days of sessions spread across seven tracks, every day chock full of brainstorming sessions on a range of topics and planning their implementation. Each track focuses on different elements of the Ubuntu platform and community, and I run the rather unsurprisingly titled Community Track. In our track we will be discussing all manner of governance, process, initiative, collaboration and participation issues. The track will touch on a variety of aspects of our community including MOTU, LoCo Teams, Hall Of Fame, Harvest, Councils, Upstreams, ubuntu.com and more. It is going to be an exhilarating week of discussion; I am chomping at the bit to get started.

But UDS is way more than just sessions. It is about people. UDS brings together a fascinating, inspiring and indelibly social group. There is a fantastic atmosphere at UDS and a very real sense of community. We work hard to try and make UDS feel as welcoming and open to ideas and discussion as we can. It is an opportunity to re-affiirm old friendships and make new ones. Every day we not only work hard together, but we play hard too. Anyone who has been to a UDS will be well aware of just how physically draining it can be: long days full of discussion and long evenings of socialising make for a pretty tiring week. I think my coffee intake increases as the week progresses.

I am particularly excited about this UDS. I am not only excited at the group who we know are coming (many of which we sponsored), but I think Jaunty offers so much opportunity across all Ubuntu editions. This is going to be an important release in the Ubuntu story. Everyone is welcome to be a part of it, and everyone is welcome at UDS.

See you there folks!