DORS/CLUC 30, Zagreb, Croatia

Estimated reading time is 9-11 minutes.

Conferences

I wish there were more open space conferences in my city, or nearby. I don’t want to organize one, but I guess that’s the only way to have one.

This is probably not true only at conferences, but it’s obvious there. The more technical the talk, the more hair and/or facial hair the person has. Also, the clothes they wear are more casual. The less technical the talk, the nicer haircut and/or facial hair and more formal clothes.

DORS/CLUC

I have been to several DORS/CLUC conferences (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016). At two of them I was a speaker. At one of them I led a workshop. At another one I have recorded a few podcasts. For one I only posted a few photos. For one I was live blogging.

One of the things I have immediately noticed in the schedule is that there are no breaks between some sessions. Most of the sessions have only five minute breaks. (I have complained about the lack of breaks as early as my 2013 blog post.)

There was a retro corner with old computers on the first day. I wish I knew that it will be there only one day. I would spend way more time in the retro corner.

There were supposed to be workshop(s) in one room. Maybe I missed the announcement(s), but I never figured out how to participate in a workshop.

I wish the conference had more beaks and networking opportunities.

Preconference

There were two preconference events, State of the Map Croatia and Open 4 Business. Both were free with required registration. I have registered for both, but ended up missing both. State of the Map was at the exactly same time as Testival Meetup #73.Testival is more important, of course. I never heard back from Open 4 Business organizers so I didn’t even know when or where the event would be. (Now the event page says it was at the same time as Testival Meetup and State of the Map so I would not go anyway.)

Day One

The conference had a bad start. First I missed both preconference events. Then, at registration I got only lunch coupons. I didn’t even get a t-shirt. (I love conference t-shirts.) Long term, t-shirt would be a nice souvenir. In the short term, lunch was very much appreciated.

I guess for me the most important part of any conference is to talk with people. Meet new people. Meet old friends. The easiest was to meet people from DORS/CLUC, so I have met a few. I have also met people from Testival, WebCamp and Wikimedia communities.

Conference Opening Ceremony

They have mentioned a new photos site going back to 1994. It was a very fun talk. Organizers introduced themselves. They talked about the last thirty years of the conference. A few good stories and old photos. (It gave me an idea for a talk at the Testival conference. This year we’re celebrating fifteen years of the conference.)

Remember how there are no breaks between talks? Well, the very first talk was too long, so the second talk was already thirty minutes late.

European Processor Initiative - Mario Kovač

I’m not sure what to think about the initiative. I’m not a hardware person, so I really don’t know much about the topic. It’s great that Europe is making its processors. It’s sad that it takes a continent to make a processor, but that’s the state of the world.

A vision for software freedom in 2048 - Matthias Kirschner

Unlike the previous talk, this one was very interesting. I have heard about a few things.

• Device neutrality. I’m surprised I didn’t hear about the term earlier.
• Upcycling Android. I have a few old Android (and Apple) devices in a box. It would be a fun project to give them a new life.
• Ada & Zangemann. As far as I understood it, it’s a picture book about software and hardware. I’m ordering one.

Observability challenges in the era of AI - Radek Vokál

I started with the talk in the other track (33-Hour Rescue Mission – Juraj Vijtiuk) but I decided to switch to this one after a few minutes. I didn’t learn much.

Killing with Keyboards - Noah Jelich

The talk was a fun and scary story. Crime novel material. The talk still needs some work, but it was one of the best talks of the conference.

Zero-Lag Desktop switching - Hrvoje Čavrak

Pretty cool project (DeskHop). How to use one mouse across multiple computers using different operating systems.

Tokenizing the Myth of Openness: What Makes an LLM Truly Open? - Kristijan Zimmer

My notes for this talk summarize my current thoughts on LLMs. (There are no notes.)

OpenCode.Hr place where open code projects live - Dubravko Penezić

GitHub/GitLab competitor. I was hoping to see a demo. It was only a project announcement. opencode.hr is only a landing page.

Present: interactive Powerpoint alternative - Zlatko Bratković

PowerPoint/Google Slides competitor (present). Interesting project but it solves a problem I don’t have.

DC2025 Badge - Igor Brkić

A fun talk about making the conference badge. It’s not just a badge, it’s a piece of technology. According to my notes, no other talk got more applause.

Day Two

Tell Me a Story - Saša Jurić

One of the talks I was really looking for. I had family obligations in the morning, so I have missed it. Of course, it’s the only talk of the conference that wasn’t recorded.

Sustaining Open Source Through Monetization - Shannon & Parker

I was thirty minutes late even for this talk, but like on day one, the conference was late, so I didn’t miss the talk. This was the best delivered talk of the conference. (With the caveat that I didn’t see them all.) Speakers very obviously not presenting for the first time. The pacing was perfect. Each of them talked for a minute or two, then the other. I wish there were more talks like this. It both had an interesting topic and it was delivered with a lot of skill. They talked about various monetization models and explained why they chose one of them.

Keynote by Red Hat

The schedule still says only “Keynote by Red Hat”. My notes say Vadim Rutkovsky talked about Kubernetes. As far as I can tell, it was a decent sponsored talk. I was not impressed.

National Open Source Policies: Insights and Trends From the European Commission’s Open Source Observatory’s report - Jaakko Karhu

My notes say: “thankfully short”. I guess I was not impressed.

Lunch

I had a nice talk with some old WebCamp friends. I wish there were more opportunities to talk with people at conferences.

Opensource network ecosystem born in Croatia - how we liberalized 25G Ethernet and WiFi7 - Bruno Banelli

I have learned about Linux mainline and Wi-Fi 7. I have conflicting notes about this talk. I don’t care much about the topic. The speaker was pretty good. The demo was pretty good. Yet, I’m not sure what the talk was about. Open sourcing software that runs on a router? (I remember talking to the person sitting next to me. As far as I remember, they were equally confused about the topic of the talk.)

eBPF - Dinko Korunić

The room was full. I found the very last seat. The speaker had good delivery. Very energetic. It’s interesting how some people have good stage presence.

Vector Databases - Marko Lohert

Before the talk I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a vector database.

Open Source AI - Niharika Singhal

I have learned about the AI Act and that there is a job called IT lawyer.

LAMP Stack in Browser - Berislav Grgičak

I almost didn’t go to this talk. This was probably the most important talk of the entire conference, as far as I’m concerned. This is what my team should be doing.

Closing Ceremony

The most fun part was the plastic penguin award, awarded to a few people. The penguins were, of course, 3D printed. Possibly even during the conference. There was a 3D printer in the lobby printing something pretty much the whole time.