Having a blast at OSCON

The OpenSolaris CAB had a need to get together with the Development Process Team, Marketing, and each other. After some consideration, and, to give credit where it is due, fellow CAB member Al Hopper's suggestion, it was decided that OSCON would be the ideal venue for the meetings.

I arrived in Portland, Oregan, on Manday August 1st, and made my way to our hotel (Portland's light rail system, the MAX, is great BTW). After hooking up with Casper Dik, Simon Phipps, and a few others, we went out for dinner. (As an aside, I think Claire and Sara and co are addicted to seafood!)

On Tuesday morning we had a CAB-only meeting, which lasted will into Bryan and Keith's DTrace tutorial. Incidentally, Tuesday was also mine and Jenny's wedding anniversary, so although we were apart, my thoughts were with her and Judge. The tutorial was great--lots of people asking interesting questions--and went on later than planned. Al and I had dinner in a nice Thai restaurant, whose name I can't remember, alas. There was a party held at the Sun hospitality suite, but I was too tired to attend.

On Wednesday I went to Jonathan Schwartz's keynote interview. I met him and a few other guys from Sun outside the hall, so we chatted for a few minutes. Jonathan's interview went well I thought, despite some sideways swipes made by some Linux guy before hand. The rest of the day was taken up by our (the CAB) meeting with the Development Process guys: very long, but very productive. After dinner we went to the OpenSolaris BOF, led by Bryan, Keith, and Liane. We were kicked out of the BOF room at about 23:00, so we went to the party at the Sun suite (again). It was at this party that Bryan and Wez cooked up their PHP DTrace probe stuff.

Thursday started with an 08:30 meeting with OpenSolaris marketing, where (amongst other things) the CAB members were presented with a very nice gift as a thank you for our work. After lunch we went to Bryan's presentation (called DTrace: Opening the Kimono), at which he showcased the results of the previous evening's PHP DTrace probe collaberation. When word of this spreads, I wouldn't be surprised to see SOlaris becoming the PHP developer's platform of choice. Bryan's presentation was, as always, funny, informative, and presented at a breakneck pace (I'm sure that guy talks at a million miles an hour!). In fact, when he's on a roll, Bryan talks (and types) so fast, I think several people in the room actually got whiplash! :-)

On Friday, it was time to pack and go home. I'm actually writing this sitting on the floor of the convention centre: it's the first real dowtime I've had this week, so time to catch up on some email and blogging!