Ohio LinuxFest 2023 Conference Speakers | Hacker News Reader

Ohio LinuxFest 2023 Conference Speakers

olfconference.org

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I use to goto this conference on the regular (even talked at it a few times). To be fair, I knew the people that originally started it.

Always had a great experience. Interesting talks and I have sat down and had conversions with Maddog, Zonker, and a number of other interesting names in Open Source and Linux.

Fun time and great people, wish I had the time this year to visit!

I've always wanted to go to a conference like this. I've been to the more industrial ones like re:Invent, which are cool, but way less in the way of actually programming and the tech. How does one find events like this near them? I'm in New England, so I assume Boston would be the spot but I have no idea where to look. What sites do people use for this? Or should I even consider taking time off of work and traveling to some of these if they're further?

I'd love to hear about other's experiences with conferences like these. They seem wonderful.

https://confs.tech/ has a decent crowd-sourced list

I'm also in the New England area. In Boston, there's LibrePlanet, which is in March. I went for the first time this year; it was a lot of fun.

I'm still trying to figure out if I'll fly out to Columbus for OLF this year. I went last year and the year before. It's worth the travel to me, but I have a flexible schedule. The talks are good, but the people are the real reason to go. A lot of the people who go to these conferences work on really interesting stuff. There are of course also big names like maddog and Doug McIlroy.

They were a lot more popular in the 90s and early aughts when Linux was still new and people were looking for community. I usually would find out about them through local Linux User Groups (LUGs) at the time [1].

I remember a Linuxfest in 2002 in Southern Ohio (not OLF) and John "Maddog" Hall was also a keynote speaker. Looking at his speaking schedule is probably a good way to find similar events. My most distinct memory of it was someone had a table of NeXT computers setup to use.

Along with OLF, SCaLE (Southern California Linux Expo) [2] is another large Linuxfest type event. Much more of a technical and casual vibe, and satisfies personally instead if professionally. I did a GPG key signing party at it once and it was a nerdy and fun as it sounds.

1. https://wiki.ohiolinux.org/index.php/History

2. https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/21x

Probably more Meetups than larger and more formally-organized volunteer-events. As the sibling notes, there used to be more along those lines in the Boston area in the late 80s/90s but a lot of the more grassroots type of conferences have tended to fade out over time. (And I suspect COVID--and tightening of tech budgets--killed some more that were holding out mostly on the basis of momentum.)

DevOps Days is still around and there's a Boston one this year although I haven't been to one of those for a few years.

Philadelphia holds fosscon every year. Also a cheap conference, laid back, non corporate

Would love to hear maddog’s speech. He’s been in tech since like the 60s or so. Always has interesting things to say.

Presumably the content will be roughly similar to the article he wrote a few weeks ago: https://www.lpi.org/blog/2023/07/30/ibm-red-hat-and-free-sof...

HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37005937

I think the first time I ever heard of the nerdcore hip hop group Dual Core was their performance at this fest ~15 years ago.

I try to avoid traveling south into Ohio but this might make it worthwhile.

Why?

Zombie country.

I grew up North of Ohio and it was common to joke about driving down to Ohio as being more rural / farm stereotypes. Later I moved to Ohio and found out it was a great state with a larger economy (top 7) compared to most of the states which make fun of it.

Michigan will have beef with Ohio until the end of days. Ohio is like the butt of every joke here because it really doesn't have many redeeming qualities. I always breathe a huge sigh of relief when crossing back in and seeing a "Pure Michigan" sign. Finally, I can do 80mph without fear of going to prison.

As an Ohioan, I should have known this was the reason. :) I do love Ohio but Michigan really is gorgeous. I don't care about sportsball so I've never really gotten the rivalry much.

According to what I learned in grade school history, the rivalry goes back the the "Toledo War": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War

I wouldn't be surprised if early Michiganders had an inferiority complex due to rough pioneer living in a nasty swamp, and if Ohioans later resented MI's growth into an industrial powerhouse during the early 20th century.

> Finally, I can do 80mph without fear of going to prison.

Then, you get to replace your fear of prison, with the fear of losing a wheel in a pothole on I-75. Just kidding (mostly)! Both states have some pretty great qualities. Michigan certainly wins on natural beauty (although SE Ohio has a number of gems). As an avid cyclist, Ohio has a great number of trails to ride. The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail is probably my favorite.

I'm from the northern Midwestern US and there is a perception that southern portions of northern states bordering the US South (Mason Dixon line) are culturally more southern than northern, which carries a lot of current and historical significance and baggage - the perception that these areas are uneducated backwards hillbillies. Southern portions of these states also tend to be rural, which amplifies the uneducated backwards hillbillies perception.

There is still a very significant divide between Northern and Southern US states which isn't specific to the US. It's from media but there's a scene in The Sopranos where Furio (a mafia foot soldier from southern Italy) surprises the Italian-Americans of the rest of the crew by saying he hates Christopher Columbus because he's from "the north". It's very similar to the US - the perception that the north looks down on the south, that they have all of the money and power, etc. It's a less-than-friendly sibling rivalry.

I've also personally experienced this with various people from other countries - regions of the country with a superiority complex and regions of the country with a chip on their shoulder as a result.

I'm not saying there isn't any truth to this or I agree with it, just that it is a perception held by many.

That's true. Even though I grew up in Columbus, I've always felt more naturally at home among people from the Appalachian regions than I have with people north of Ohio. Still lots of great people but the atmosphere feels a tad more anxious / high strung (in my limited experience anyway).

I hope that’s north of Ohio and not northern Ohio because quite a few people living in Cleveland came up then Highway 21/US 19 (now Interstate 77) from WV and points adjacent during the 30s when there was no work.

Hillbillies != southern.

I can see how people would see surface similarities, i.e., conservative, pickup truck driving yeehaws. But southern Ohio is not Southern. In fact, as a native of southern Ohio, I'd like to point out that traveling to Mississippi or Georgia is a pretty big culture shock to me. Whereas Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin feels like home (especially food wise).

Southern Ohio is still decidedly "Midwestern". No matter how much other Midwesterners try to be rid of it.

You could argue about whether it fits better into Appalachia, culturally and demographically.

Not only a North/South rivalry but also West/East. Hip-hop musicians kill each other over it.

Please don't post regional putdowns to HN, regardless of what region you have a problem with. It leads to generic tangents and they usually turn nasty.

I know it's possible to read this as a sort of good-natured ribbing or neighborly rivalry but those subtleties don't survive on a large public internet forum.

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