Hey all,
I thought I'd write up a quick summary of SCaLE, hopefully everyone else who was there can add to (and correct) what I've put here.
-- The Booth --
I was a bit concerned that this year we'd just run into the same people as last year. That was definitely not the case. On the most basic level, I'd say that 50% of the people we talked to hadn't heard of Inkscape. We definitely got the word out there. But, I think there were some other notable conversations.
- Both of the companies doing network monitoring are interested in doing network maps using SVG. I thought that was pretty cool. They were talking about SVG even before we talked to them.
- We got visits from two people from studios in LA. I don't really believe that either will turn into anything, but it was interesting, and probably good to get buzz into that community. Interestingly, one asked if Inkscape was in RHEL 4, and I didn't know. I talked to the Redhat guys, and they built the package right there. There is now Inkscape for RHEL 4 :)
- We met the editor of Linux Gazette, and his wife. Apparently she was needing vector illustration to make the move off of Windows. She was trilled to find a way to move to Linux.
- We talked with a guy who works at RPI and wants to remove the Adobe CS from their curriculum and replacing it with Open Source tools. Apparently they don't really teach the tools, as much as they use them to teach about work flow. So each student has to buy the full suite for a minor amount of functionality overall. He's working to change that.
- Linux.com stopped by. Their overview was pretty flattering, and now is on the Inkscape site. He asked if I'd do an interview, and I didn't realize it was going to be video. You can now watch me stumble over my words trying to say something insightful.
- I did an interview with the booth next to us (everyone else was scared). They hired a 'booth babe' to make a video asking stupid questions of conference attendees. It was cute. But I have to harass John Tabor for giving me misinformation about the whole thing :)
-- The BOF --
We had the bird of a feather which went very well. We were a bit shocked that they didn't leave the projector in the room, so Josh wasn't able to show all the artwork he collected from folks to show off Inkscape. John showed a little bit of mapping stuff as we had a good group of people huddling around his laptop. There were several people who just wanted to know more about Inkscape, but there were some experienced users also. In particular, there was a guy from Ticketmaster that uses Inkscape to prototype websites. Overall, it was a good crowd and discussion, and we could have definitely gone longer than the hour we were allotted.
-- The Talk --
I gave a talk about Inkscape Extensions, with the goal of inspiring new developers to jump on board. I was really worried that it was going to go long, but I was actually about 10 minutes short. They said that it was going to be recorded, but it was not. Josh has some video, but the audio isn't good. Hopefully some post processing will help. For those who want to flip through the slides, they are here:
http://gould.cx/ted/presentations/scale5x/
Overall, I think we did pretty good. It's always fun to get together with Inkscapers and hang out. Even promoting Inkscape some. Thanks go to everyone who helped out: Jon, John, Josh, Erin and Hillery.
--Ted