Out in Strength

I am writing this from Heidelberg, Germany, where I am attending DebConf, the annual world-wide meeting of developers for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. Although the meeting this year is called DebConf15, people are quick to point out that they started with DebConf0, because "all good programmers start counting at zero." Last night was the 22nd anniversary of Debian's birthday.

The conference is being held in a large International Youth Hostel. The largest DebConf so far, with over 550 people registered, close to half of the people are actively involved with the distribution. When I say "people," I mean people of all sizes, sexes, ages, sexual orientations, and abilities. The two things they have in common are a passion for community and Debian.

I thought the only other time I had attended was DebConf8 in Argentina, but recently I realized that I had also attended Debconf7 in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Phillip Hands developed a Debian tartan. The now famous Debian kilt uses the stripes of the pattern to spell out "Debian" in Morse code. I could not afford to order one that year, but thinking about it over the whole next year meant that when Phillip took order number two, I was there with my money. The kilt cost a bit extra for me, because in 2008 I weighed a "bit extra" – but it was worth it.

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