Geekspace for Women

Posted by ubergeeke on July 27th, 2008 in blogpost

I went to the Open Source Convention last week for the same reasons I always do: I wanted to learn new things, be exposed to new apps and tech info, and collect shiny swag. Overall, mission accomplished, because I did all those things, but I also met other women who are molding the open source world to their will.

First, I met Rikki Kite, who is the Managing Editor of Linux Pro Magazine. Rikki mentioned me on her blog recently, and I wanted to thank her personally for her support. I was thrilled that we actually got a chance to talk about women in open source overall. I’ve been exposed to very keen things in Linux Pro Magazine - most recently, an article on Wireshark that has led to some rudimentary packet analysis - and I’m glad that Rikki has such a vital role in that publication. Huge kudos to the mag for covering openSUSE 11.0 in their August issue: Juliet Kemp breaks down the cool new features in the latest version of my favorite distro. I can even forgive her for her defection to Debian. I’ll keep y’all posted on the latest from Juliet Kemp and Rikki Kite in the coming months.

Next, since I mentioned openSUSE, let me say that I received a hero’s welcome at their booth on the OSCON Expo Hall floor. When I mentioned that I’d been a SuSE user back when 6.3 was new, they actually looked surprised. I was also a Novell fan back then (I must admit that I haven’t used any of the Novell products since intraNetWare 4.1 way back when), so I was one of those folks who was pleased when Novell bought SuSE. I chatted with Valerie Rabbo a bit about my experiences with both products, and she was very supportive of the ideas behind .51 - though she didn’t rig the drawing so I’d win the Chumby. (Some people insist on being “fair” or whatever.)

Although I’m not a Drupal user (something I hope to remedy quickly), I couldn’t help but hear the constant buzz at OSCON about Angela Byron. Angela was presented with the “Best Contributor” award at the opening ceremonies, and while I expected her to be somewhat standoffish (hey, I was a stranger!), she was actually very approachable and willing to chat with me a bit about .51 and my lack of exposure to Drupal. She even consented to a photo op, where we both pondered the origins of the universe and our role in the upcoming revolution. (Heh.)

Last but not least, I met Katherine Druckman, who has my dream job and is kind of my idol right now. Katherine is the webmaster for the Linux Journal, though she also recently wrote an interview piece for the mag, and she was very kind to me when I went all fangirl on her. Check out her work over at the LJ site, and be sure to give her your feedback. This woman *rocks*! She epitomizes the focus of .51 - what women are doing *now* is kicking ass all over the web, and Katherine is one the folks making that happen.

Many thanks to all the folks I met at OSCON. The experience was inspirational to me - I’m reading new books, trying new programming languages, looking at new products, and ready to take my tech to the next level.