Open Source Summit Tokyo 2017

I spoke at the Linux Foundation’s Open Source Summit in Tokyo, Japan. The event was co-located with the Automotive Linux Summit. This post is a (very delayed) report of the event as well as the trip to Japan. Amye and I did an updated version of the Linuxcon Berlin talk to a Tokyo audience. It had some audience, but it’s time we retired this talk.

I managed to wake up early enough to run one morning

Flying to Tokyo was pleasant. Bombay has a direct flight to Narita with ANA. I got one of the emergency row seats, so I didn’t have much of a view. Narita airport had the most efficient immigration and customs I’ve seen. I was out of the airport in 30 mins. I planned it out so I took the Keisei Access Express to Shimbashi and then the Yurikamome line to the hotel. Despite not knowing any Japanese, I could find my way. I was quite exhausted when I got to the hotel and I wasn’t looking forward to the 3 pm check-in. Luckily, the room was already ready. I considered ordering room service, but I went exploring at the mall nearby. The place had English menus and very nice food.

Lovely lunch during one of the conference days

I had no connectivity trouble despite the lack of a local phone connection. Most metro stations and malls have free internet. I was using Telegram, Twitter, and Slack all the time. The Hilton Wi-Fi was pretty strong too.

Dinner for Speakers, Sponsors and Press

I spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep. That night I made the mistake of going to bed with the curtains open. I jumped awake next morning thinking I’d slept in. It turns out that the sunrise in Tokyo is around 0430. So what felt like 0900 to me was actually 0500. It took a while to go back to sleep. I spent the morning finishing up our slides. Then, I went out exploring a bit of Tokyo and stationery shopping at Itoya. I wanted to do more touristy things, but carrying around bags of stationery wasn’t fun. By the time I got back, dropped off the stuff at the hotel, I was too tired to go back out exploring. I roamed around Odaiba instead and went hunting for the conference venue. I’m glad I did because I got lost. I found the venue, picked up my badge and met fellow Red Hatters who were setting up the booth.

One evening, I walked up to the bridge and went half way across it. It has very pretty views

Our talk was on the first day of the conference, which was a good thing. I was stress-free after the first half of the day. I met Arun at the event which was a pleasant surprise. The rest of the conference provided an opportunity for Bex and I talk to about documentation. We’re working on adopting the same documentation tool.

You can't beat this 'demo'

The Automotive Linux Summit had fantastic demos. I felt like the booths for the Open Source Summit aren’t as fantastic.. The ALS folks had displays and car simulators that should show how their displays work. I helped with the booth duty for a couple of shifts, but, again, we didn’t have enough interesting things to demo. While walking around those booths, I had idea for a Gluster demo. If all works out, I plan on putting that up for the next Open Source Summit in Prague.

Out of the talks that I attended, the ones that stood out are:

Image credit: Linux Foundation Speaker Party Lexus Demo (license)


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