Hey Folk,

Quick one since this isn’t really a production topic. I’m back from OSCON where I gave a talk about Tube. I talked a bit about the (very short) history of open movie projects, the motivations of making tube and some other topics that would in themselves make a nice post. I also showed some hitherto unseen work in progress shots, and demo-d a bit creating a crowd scene with the autowalking. Some of the ideas that I came to the conference with (about making open movies mainly) are probably best saved for their own post.

Due to the ‘giving a talk’ effect of preparing up till the last minute, I ended up missing pretty much the first half of the conference, and sat out most of the last day doing Tube stuff – I thus didn’t get to attend that many of the talks. Those that I did sit in were interesting – though some were not quite open source in topic. I was very interested by the panel on software patents, and I’m rather enamoured of Bradley Kuhn’s idea of a ‘free software patent troll’. I’m not sure this would work, but it’s fun to contemplate.

I also did an interview during the conference with Linux Format, and another with O’Reilly media:

During the week I met with several new and old friends, including some of the past and present Tube crew! Chris Webber (of mediagoblin fame) who coded reference desk (part of the mini-demo) and Oscar Baechler, who rigged a bit earlier in the project, and now returns as an animator. In the weekend following the conf, I took a train from Portland to Seattle, and met with our assistant producer and previous production manager Liz Ellis, who’s now launching a web series, also in the free culture vein, and with Oscar (again) and Nathan Vegdahl, who continues to be fabtacular.

I managed to destroy my achillis tendon (again) running a 5K, and then getting lost the next day and wondering around Portland for 3 hours. I took a lot of taxis after that. I also quite typically did not take a single photo of the conference itself, nor of any conference related activities. Here are a bunch of random snaps (mainly in Seattle, though a couple are in Portland). I’m not sure how I feel about that bus.

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