[talk] August NYCBUG Meeting

[Brian Callahan]

Hi talk --

I'm not trying to pre-empt Steven's upcoming July NYCBUG talk, but I 
want to give people here ample notice for the August meeting, especially 
those considering participating.

The August talk will be a hybrid talk-workshop on writing your first 
OpenBSD port. Let me be clear: you *do not* have to participate in the 
workshop to attend. You will learn plenty without participation and you 
are encouraged to attend even if you don't want to partake in the workshop.

This talk has been a long time coming, and stems from the following 
archetypal sentence I have heard way too often:
"I really want to get started contributing to OpenBSD and writing ports 
but I don't know how to get started."
I know there are multiple people on this list who have said this to me, 
virtually verbatim.

This is your chance to get started.

To make this as easy on potential participants as possible, the bar for 
entry is nothing more than your laptop and a desire to do it. If you 
find a piece of software you want to port, great. If not, I have been 
collecting software that makes for a good first port. It won't be the 
next Firefox or killer app but it will be something that isn't yet in 
the OpenBSD ports tree and will be something that you can be proud of. 
Ideally, by the end of the workshop your port will be in a state where 
it will be ready to be mailed to the ports@ mailing list for inclusion 
in the ports tree.

The goal of the talk-workshop is to get you familiar enough with the 
basics so that you'll be able to go forward and write ports on your own. 
It won't cover every little detail but you will come away knowing where 
to go to find the answers on how to do the more advanced things. Or at 
the very least, how to ask the right questions. And for those not 
participating, you'll come away with an appreciation into the work that 
goes into making your favorite third-party applications work so 
seamlessly on OpenBSD.

For logistical reasons, I'm asking that people interested in 
participating email admin at lists.nycbug.org by July 23 and declare their 
intent. I'm not going to turn away people who register to participate a 
day or two late but on the other hand I don't want 100 people showing up 
the day-of hoping I have software for them to port, because I won't. 
July 23 gives everyone two weeks of prep time.

Questions can also be directed to admin at lists.nycbug.org or directly to me.

Finally, feel free to spread this to BSD locals who may not be 
subscribed to this list.

I hope to see everyone in a couple of weeks for a great July talk on time.

~Brian