webchick
Montréal 1, webchick 0
I should probably go start some LiveJournal to whine about personal crap, but I don't have one, and I really need to get some stuff off my chest, so this'll have to do. :)
On Saturday, Marci and I are embarking on what could be a life-changing trip for a week to Vancouver, BC. I'll be sans-laptop, so if you need something from me, please let me know before then.
If you care about the long, rambling back-story, feel free to read more.
Video/Slides from Women in Open Source talk at Open Web Vancouver 09
With huge thanks to Sarah Cruise from dyke it, here's the video and slides for the Women in Open Source talk at Open Web Vancouver 2009 a month or so ago.
View Slides (16 MB PDF)
Download Video (195 MB FLV)
If you've seen the old version of that talk, the content is fairly similar, but some additional tweaking, so it might be worth checking out. Like always, there's a new horror story (and of course this debacle happened the very next day *sigh*), and at the end there is a new section called "Myth Busters" that's an attempt to shatter misconceptions that a lot of would-be open source contributors have that make them think they're not "good enough" to participate. (I know, because I was one of those myself for about a decade.) The discussion at the end is also pretty fun, esp. for the Drupal crowd. ;)
I wanted to sincerely thank the organizers of Open Web Vancouver (esp. Malcolm Van Deist and Jeff Griffiths) for having me. The conference was absolutely awesome: a wonderful mix of technology, important social and political issues, and genuinely interesting people to talk to.
It was also great to re-connect with old Drupal friends. Made me all nostalgic for my very first Drupalcon back in 2006 that completely changed my life. :') Aw!! Thanks too for all the great recommendations that have come in for "Operation: Show Marci How Awesome Vancouver Is." 18 days to go... DUN DUN DUNNNN... Keep those suggestions coming if you have them. :)
UX Sprint this weekend!
Drupal's usability team has organized a User Experience (UX) sprint this weekend (June 27 and 28) in Utrecht, The Netherlands. A who's-who list of user experience experts, core developers, and front-end designers will be present in person at the sprint.
If you're not in the vicinity of Utrecht, fear not! There will be a virtual code sprint this weekend over IRC as well. Join #drupal and #drupal-usability on irc.freenode.net. Come and put your coding and reviewing chops to good use on important issues that were identified during testing. Check out http://sprint.drupalusability.org/ for specific areas of focus, rated by difficulty.
We only have about 10 weeks left until Drupal 7 code freeze (September 1), so we need everyone's help! Drop on by, and have some fun! :D
OSBR article on how the Drupal community ticks
Open Source Business Resource (OSBR), a free monthly online journal aimed at business owners, company executives and employees, and participants in the open source community, just published an issue centered around Women in Open Source. The issue was entirely written and edited by women, and contains lots of interesting content that ranges from highlighting work of women contributors, to examining the question of why there aren't more women in open source, to women talking about their experiences in their projects and cool stuff they're doing.
For my part, I wrote an article in the issue called Lessons on Community Management from the Open Source World that basically describes some of my own observations on what makes successful open source projects such as Drupal work. The short version: "It's the community, stupid!" ;) If you've ever been mystified about what makes Drupal tick, or wanted to harness some of that frenzied energy and put it to work within your own organization, it might be worth a read for you.
I highly recommend reading through the issue, as there is lots of great content from lots of smart, awesome authors including Drupal's very own Emma Jane Hobgin, who has recently become a core patch reviewer! :)
Big thanks to both Dru Lavigne and Rikki Kite for putting this issue together!
Speaking at Open Web Vancouver
On June 11 and 12, I'll be speaking at Open Web Vancouver, a community based, volunteer run event showcasing open source technologies, communities and culture.
Their speaker list includes a bunch of leading minds on open web technologies, and there looks to be a big Drupal presence. My speaking topics will be women in open source and "Drupal: Under the Hood." If there are things you'd like to me to talk about on either of those topics, leave a comment and I'll try and incorporate them into the presentations. :)
Vancouver's a wonderful place with a great local community. Hope to see you there!
Core patch review sprint this weekend!
Note: This is a re-post of http://drupal.org/node/443102 for Drupal Planet, since apparently a lot of you don't read the Drupal.org front page. ;) Sorry if it's old news to you!
Have you been looking for an excuse to play around a bit with Drupal 7, and have an interest in helping to directly shape it? Would you like to not only see how Drupal core contributors collaborate together, but become one yourself? Do you have an itch you'd like scratched and are willing to help scratch others' in return? Would you like to be exposed to new and interesting areas of Drupal you might not have otherwise experienced? Are you exceptionally good at finding faults and breaking things?
If so, drop by #drupal-dev on irc.freenode.net this weekend (April 25 and 26) for a patch review sprint! (What is a patch review sprint? / How to connect to IRC?) While somewhat informal, there will be people around all weekend to help get new patch reviewers started and to help guide seasoned contributors to important patches.
Our goal is to try and knock the core patches to review queue down to zero (or as close to it as possible) by trying out patches to see how they work, and recommending ways that they can be improved. The Patch review sprints page has more information on how patch reviews work, a handy cheat-sheet of all the commands you need, and a list of prerequisites in order to participate.
Please note that "coding skills" is not on the list of prerequisites. While people with coding skills can perform certain types of reviews better than non-coders, non-coders can also perform certain types of reviews better than coders. In short: everyone is welcome!
Hope to see you there! :)