Linux Picnic

Sunday was the annual Linux Picnic, aka picnix14, celebrating the 14th anniversary of Linux. Overall, it was less well-organized than prior years, despite increasing support from corporations.

For example, there was a long line for registration, which got one a name badge, a free t-shirt, and a raffle ticket for some stuff. I figured that since I don’t wear t-shirts, didn’t care about anything being raffled, and that most of the people already knew my name, I was antisocial and didn’t stand in a line in the hot sun. Not my idea of fun.

Examples of poorer organization: this year (in contrast to prior years), grill essentials weren’t provided to each cooking station (e.g. utensils, charcoal, starter fluid, etc.), power wasn’t provided to tables, and no one put tarps over the perforated metal roofs. Had I known that would happen, I would have stayed home. Even with SPF-30, a hat, and sitting under one of said roofs, I got sunburned.

The other aspect that was quite disheartening: people were much more inclined to “lift” stuff than prior years. For example, a friend pulled up, unloaded some of his stuff, then went to park. When he returned, all but one bottle of his beer had vanished. The server that was to be raffled walked off; while the guy who’d taken it said he’d misunderstood the sign, I dunno. Rick had glass dishes and food that he’d left out for a minute and someone took them (we did get them back, including our utensils that we’d brought).

There also seemed to be a lot of people who roamed through in search of food, but weren’t part of the linux community at all.

In all, I think I’ll skip it next year.

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