• 30th June: UKUUG Council meeting and venue viewing
• 2nd July: Association of History and Computing committee meeting and book proposal
• 5th July: OpenTech 2008
• 19th July: Campaign Against Climate Change steering group meeting

Plus a possible interview at some time in the next couple of weeks…

Anyone who can dance to Footloose whilst wearing a Jawa outfit deserves something, but I’m not sure ‘respect’ is the right word…

So, come October I will stepping up my freelancing to a full time job, though hopefully leaving time to continue my commitments to Friends of the Earth, UKUUG and the Classical Association. Since I’ll be doing it full time, it will probably be worth activating my company (which is currently dormant) and invoicing clients through that mechanism. I think if I’m honest about it, this is really what I’ve wanted to do most of my life anyway—when I was eight I had already decided that I wanted to be a hotel manager with a chain of branches across the UK, so running a business has always been at the forefront of m mind.

In other news, I have been really out of it the last couple of days, which I think is as a result of doing too much. I’ve forgotten agendas, arrived late for events and not brought notes to meetings, which is not like me at all. I’ve also felt ill on a worryingly regular basis since starting my PhD, which is part of the reason why I want to leave now rather than sticking it out for another two years.

Initially, we hadn’t expected many people to attend the talk, perhaps a hundred or so, and as a result a small room was booked for the event. However, my publicity spread both further and faster than I expected, with people from as far away as York and Birmingham saying that they were going to make the trip to listen to Stallman speak. Thankfully, a larger lecture theatre was booked in time, and even then there were people sitting on the stairs and standing at the back.

Stallman’s speech was generally informative and entertaining, and I particularly liked his Church of Emacs sketch (though as a vi(m) user, I naturally disagreed as to the One True Editor). There were lots of questions afterwards too, most of which Stallman answered very well, but in some places it was clear that he wasn’t aware of the area he was talking about (e.g. some of his comments about “intellectual property” were off the mark). The distinction he tried to draw between creative and technical works (you should be able to edit textbooks and software, but not novels, seemed to be the general point) was a bit flimsy, and fell apart completely when someone asked where computer games fitted into the picture. However, the discussion was interesting, if a little heated at points where Stallman clearly had missed the point of a question.

The only low point of the night was when I got up at the end of the speech to thank Stallman for his “enlightening” talk and ask if anyone had any questions, at which point he completely ignored me, and I ended up looking like a bit of a muppet in front of 300 people. I couldn’t believe he was so rude, but it seemed as if he genuinely wasn’t aware of the people around him—I got the same feeling when meeting him at the car and the fact that he didn’t say thank you at any point for the amount of work which had been put into organising the event.

Overall, I think the event was a success, and the people I spoke to afterwards seem to have enjoyed it, so it was probably worth all the hassle to get it happening. I don’t think I would invite Stallman again though, he’s great when he’s standing up and speaking but an absolute nightmare to accommodate with his huge list of requirements and lack of consideration for other people (e.g. only arriving five minutes before the speech was due to start due to changing his travel plans at the last minute).

A tip of the hat goes to Paul Robinson for putting Stallman up for the night (he will only stay in hotels as a “last resort”) and Dave Crossland for driving him up from Cambridge, plus all the people who forwarded on the publicity that I sent out which resulted in over 300 people turning up.

I was a bit nervous initially as most people at ManLUG far more about most aspects of system administration than I do, but I think I managed to answer the majority of the questions without too much trouble. Thankfully no one asked about the low level details of VPN implementations, which is the one area where my knowledge is almost non-existent. Most impressively, I actually managed to run to time, which is unusual as I generally finish talks far too quickly. There was a good turnout, which was encouraging, and I got some positive feedback afterwards, plus I learnt quite a bit from the questions and points raised by the audience.

Elsewhere, things are moving along reasonably well. I’ve helped to organise and publicise a talk by Richard Stallman of Free Software Foundation fame at the University of Manchester on the 1st May. Full details at Manchester Free Software, where I have been nominated as “minute taker, for life” (I’m not sure this is a good thing). Provided the BCS manage to book a large enough lecture theatre, it should be a successful event, with people coming from Leeds, York and other areas outside of Manchester. Finding a place for Stallman to stay had been giving me some sleepless nights, but thankfully Paul Robinson stepped into the breach, for which I am eternally grateful. I’m now looking forward to the event, hopefully it should be an interesting evening as well as an opportunity to catch up with people I haven’t seen for a while.

I do wish there were more hours in the day though, so that I could actually do all the freelance work which people keep offering me (I get numerous calls and emails about this, even though I’ve yet to print a single business card or do any advertising beyond word-of-mouth and my business site). I find it really hard to turn down offers of work, but I’ve managed to keep my schedule reasonably free and not take on any additional contracts. In terms of the next couple of years though, I’ve heard something interesting things on the grapevine which, combined with potential positions opening in some of the groups I’m involved in, could swing things in my direction when I’m reaching the end of my PhD.

Thankfully I am now off for a short five day Easter break, although the chances of me actually relaxing and not doing any work are about as slim as my waistline. The next couple of weeks are incredibly busy, with the Classical Association AGM, followed by three days of UKUUG conference, an Manchester FoE planning meeting and #manlug’s monthly currybeer. I also need to finish my talk on OpenVPN which I’m due to give at ManLUG next month. So it’s back to the grindstone and chasing people about exciting things such as agenda items and planning meeting actions…