Later this week, I will be in Los Angeles to speak at the Southern California Linux Expo, better known as SCALE. While my speaking at a conference is nothing unusual (I did it more than a dozen times last year), the conference itself is remarkable in its adherence to the spirit of Open Source.
I still have vivid memories of some of the Open Source conferences I attended 15+ years ago. Geeks gathered together on a weekend to talk about Linux and the great software they were creating. It is important to remember that back then, Open Source coders had no corporate backing, so coding and conferences had to be done on personal time.