SELF pimping.

Once again this year I’ll be traveling down to the Southeast Linux Fest for a weekend full of informative talks, social fun, and exceptional collaboration opportunities with fellow Linux geeks from around the region and the nation. SELF has been an enormous hit since its inaugural outing in 2009. I’ll be joined by fabulous people from across the Fedora friendsphere, and of course there will be lots of free goodies at the Fedora booth for everyone. I hear tell of a tasty grilling event that will honor our favorite meaty champion of free software, and I expect to catch up with wonderful friends from all around the open source world.

My presentation on Friday is going to be on PyGObject, making the transition from PyGTK to the new world of introspection awesomeness, and what that means to people who do programming as a hobby and not for their bread and butter. I promise to keep things down to earth and accessible by newbies and hopefully not make those of higher skill levels cringe often. Except for bad jokes, those are pretty much a given, as those of you who’ve been to some of my other talks can attest.

By the time you read this, or shortly thereafter, the SELF schedule should be appearing on the web site, and you can see for yourself how valuable a trip to the conference can be. Linux community events like SELF are booming in popularity because they feature great speakers, invaluable learning opportunities, and fantastic social networking outlets for a pittance.

A big thank you to my employer, Red Hat, for giving me the time and funding to make it to the event, as well as being a Platinum sponsor of SELF 2011. (By the way, Linode, a Diamond sponsor this year, is where I run this blog… Did I mention how happy I am with their service?)

But no matter how many sponsors there are, it takes a lot of fine people dedicating a huge amount of time, expertise, and effort to put on any community event like SELF. That this event has become so popular so quickly shows not only that SELF is filling a necessary gap in the Southeast region of the US, but that it’s done so with style, ambition, and the sure, guiding hand of great volunteers. Hats off to you guys and best of luck for another incredible event at SELF 2011!

UPDATE: Unfortunately, previously mentioned grilling event was contingent upon Our Meaty Champion becoming the Fedora 16 namesake. So, no dice. But there may yet be hope for a related outing, stay tuned while at SELF. ?