The care of open source creatures

A mini Debian conference happened at the weekend in Cambridge at which I was asked to present. Rather than go with an old talk I decided to try something new. I attempted to cover the topic of application life cycle for open source projects.

The presentation abstract tried to explain this:

A software project that is developed by more than a single person starts requiring more than just the source code. From revision control systems through to continuous integration and issue tracking, all these services need deploying and maintaining.

This presentation takes a look at what a services a project ought to have, what options exist to fulfil those requirements and a practical look at an open source projects actual implementation.

I presented on Sunday morning but got a good audience and I am told I was not completely dreadful. The talk was recorded and is publicly available along with all the rest of the conference presentations.

Unfortunately due to other issues in my life right now I did not prepare well enough in advance and my slide deck was only completed on Saturday so I was rather less familiar with the material than I would have preferred.

The rest of the conference was excellent and I managed to see many of the presentations on a good variety of topics without an overwhelming attention to Debian issues. My youngest son brought himself along on both days and "helped" with front desk. He was also the only walk out in my presentation, he insists it was just because he "did not understand a single thing I was saying" but perhaps he just knew who the designated driver was.

I would like thank everyone who organised and sponsored this event for an enjoyable weekend and look forward to the next one.