• Matteo Pasotti, from TiLUG, spoke about the philosophy of the Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux project.
• I and Luca Foppiano, both Fedora Italian Ambassadors, gave out a talk, followed by
  a very-interesting Q/A session, about The Fedora Project.
• Giovanni Condello, from TiLUG, spoke about 3D environments (gaming, drawing, compositing desktop effects) and tools under Linux.
• Marco Moraschi spoke about interoperability between applications under Linux and Microsoft Windows.
• Marco Graia, from Spike Reply,  gave out a technical talk about Web Applications/Web Services attacks.
• Last, but not least, Alessandro Rubini (Linux Kernel Developer) spoke about Open Source Licenses and Software patents.

It was a great chance to talk to lots of folks (about 40) about technical and non-technical things.
I’d personally like to congratulate everyone who attended and organized it (as well to The Fedora Project for its support in many ways).

Photo sets are available here and here.

The conference aims to make the public, IT experts and not, aware of the opportunities offered not only by the GNU/Linux OS, but also by many OpenSource applications.

Thanks to the workshops and the participation of many experts, users will have the opportunity to know best several topics such as network security, software licenses, OS interoperability and others.

During the afternoon, it will be also presented the latest Fedora release, the GNU/Linux distribution by the Fedora Project: an OpenSource project sponsored by Red Hat and supported by the community. A team of volunteers will be ready to install this OS on the computers of the participants.

Fedora is indicated for any uses since it contains all the most common tools a user will ever need in a server environment, as well as a bundle of graphical tools for the system configurations, useful to those users who are in search of a user-friendly desktop distribution.

If you’re interested, join us!

Another question for all the RHCErs: How old were you when you got it?

Ergo Italia Spa kindly offered us (many thanks to Alex!) 10 PCs (desktops + monitors) where we’ve installed Fedora 9 (both Gnome/KDE Live and the complete install media).

After few hours where we’ve worked very hard and even set up - open - wired/wireless connection, I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful the hall looked:

I think that my presentation has been well received and my Q/A session was, as always, the most interesting part of my speech

Mario Pascucci, probably one of the most smart person I never met (and many thanks for your great help!), gave a presentation about how Fedora is helpful for his daily tasks at work.

We counted 43 people walking through the door: Thanks to all the guys (Luca, Mario and Marco: this is especially for you) who make that possible.

• My complete photoset
• Mario’s complete photoset

I left Milan on Friday afternoon by using our national high-speed railway line: 580km in about 4h30min!
Arrived at Roma Termini’s railway station, a really good friend of mine was already there waiting me! He kindly hosted me at his house in Rome for two nights.

I spent the evening preparing my two presentations: the first one about “The Fedora Project“, the other one about “F9’s Release notes“. Previous to sleep, I set up all my toys: an XO machine (re-installed with its latest stable build, 656), a FON AP with its “Fontenna” (weatherproof indoor/outdoor directional antenna) and my shiny Lenovo Thinkpad X31.

Il “Fedora 9 Release Party” è un evento internazionale. Dopo il successo ottenuto dai ragazzi de LOLUG a Lodi la scorsa settimana, il mese di Maggio vedrà altre due città coinvolte:

* Fedora 9 Release Party - Roma (24/05)
* Fedora 9 Release Party - Firenze (31/05)

E’ un party informale e conviviale, un ottimo modo per conoscersi e passare la serata in allegria. Come tutti gli eventi Fedora, è dedicato a utenti e sviluppatori di tutte le distribuzioni.

Al “Fedora Release Party” si potrà:

• Mangiare e bere per tutto il pomeriggio (rinfresco)
• Ascoltare conferenze riguardanti il progetto Fedora
• Avere la possibilità di installare automaticamente Fedora Live sulla propria penna usb ( = , > 1 GB) scegliendo tra GNOME, KDE o XFCE come ambiente grafico.
• Parlare con alcuni Fedora Ambassador a disposizione per eventuali chiarimenti o domande in merito al progetto Fedora.
• Chiedere aiuto in fase di installazione e/o configurazione della distribuzione.

La partecipazione, previa iscrizione a questo indirizzo, è gratuita.

Lisa Lavie’s debut album - Everything Or Nothing - is simply amazing!

# Lyrics

I thought I knew you better babe
I thought we’d make it through
But the demons that control your mind
Got in the way of our love too
Memories till haunt my soul
I can’t seem to find the piece of mind I had before
before I met you and you changed my life

Chorus:
Now could this be heaven sent
Or could you be my soul regret
Could this mean everything or nothing
Wasting my time just thinking of you
I still hear your fragile cries
Somebody tell me why
Could this mean everything or nothing
Wasting my time just thinking of you, of you

Imagine knowing nothing at all
Then to witness that night
I pray to God you find yourself
Before darkness takes over your life
I wish I was dreaming
Cause I’d still be by your side
But the mirrored life you once reflected
No longer reflects that of mine, Yeah

Chorus:
Now could this be heaven sent
Or could you be my soul regret
Could this mean everything or nothing
Wasting my time just thinking of you
I still hear your fragile cries
Somebody tell me why
Could this mean everything or nothing
Wasting my time just thinking of you

Late at night my mind goes drifting
Images wake me up in fear
But I’d rather close my eyes
Than consciously knowing this feeling
And seeing that you can’t see clear
Could this be, my mind has me living this life again
But could be heaven sent

I pray to God you find yourself
Before darkness takes over your life

Chorus:
Now could this be heaven sent
Or could you be my soul regret
Could this mean everything or nothing
Wasting my time just thinking of you
I still hear your fragile cries
Somebody tell me why
Could this mean everything or nothing
Wasting my time just thinking of you, of you, of you

Last but not least, a lot of good food has been eaten! Did you see beer? If yes, you were probably wrong!

Luca Foppiano, Francesco Crippa and I gave all together a presentation covering all the new features of F-9, speaking about our community-driven development model and the role that SIGs have within our project. Q&A session after our speech was very very interesting: people there were very intelligent, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic about the Open Source ecosystem: Which distribution are you using doesn’t really matter.

Release Party wouldn’t be possible without the strong efforts made by a group of talented and passionate people. I’d like to say THANK YOU especially to:

• Byte-Code Srl guys (and Fedora Ambassadors): Francesco Crippa, Lucia Losi, Luca Foppiano, Raffaele Cigni, Samuele Storari.
• LOLUG guys: Matteo Castellini, that helped us with kobold and our usb live key station, and all the others (don’t hurt me, but unfortunately I can’t remember all the names, ).
• Daniele, Luca’s friend, that helped us  to have all the stuffs ready in time.

You can also read Francesco and Luca’s reports.

And now? Next appointment with Fedora Italian Ambassadors is scheduled for Saturday, 24th May 2008, 4 pm: Rome’s F9 Releasy Party. Keep rocking!

F9 Release Party in Lodi is scheduled for next Tuesday, 13th May 2008: I’ll speak about that event later today

• Lodi - Tue May 13, 2008
• Florence - official date not defined yet
• Rome - Sat May 24, 2008

In order to hit our objectives we should have everything ready as soon as possible. If you’re interested and want to be part of our team (by promoting the event and/or by helping us with technical/logistics issues), drop us an e-mail!