Status update, January and February 2023
Published on February 19, 2023
Table of contents
For the second half of January, I focused on getting ready for ANSOL meetings with the Portuguese Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). During the first week of February, I was in Brussels having meetings and attending FOSDEM. This week, I attended the Mini Debconf in Lisbon.
FOSDEM / Brussels
My visit to Brussels was mostly as a representative of ANSOL. We had scheduled meeting with the Portuguese MEPs with a focus on the Child Sexual Abuse Material Regulation proposal (also known as Chat Control). Before our meetings, I attended a panel discussion on the subject with a member of EDRi and two MEPs. This helped me understand how the European Parliament currently feels about the topic.
When the meetings were done, we helped the FSFE team organize their booth at FOSDEM and socialized a bit with them over the weekend. This year, I managed to meet and interact with a bunch of people. It was exhausting, but hopefully useful.
On Monday, I joined a LibreOfficeTech hackfest, which I used mostly as an excuse to give LibreOffice Impress a try. I have to thank Pedro Silva for the invitation.
MiniDebConf Lisbon
There was a MiniDebConf in Lisbon last week. I’ve been using Debian for almost 20 years now, and I never attended any Debian events. Since this one was so close to home, there was no excuse.
I submitted a presentation reflecting on the last 10 years of Porto Codes. The organization needed some help with the AV stuff, so I helped by handling the recording of each talk, operating the microphones and the camera. During the event, I restarted my attempt at updating the html-xml-utils package. This time, with so many knowledgeable people around, I was able to understand the tools and processes with which that package is managed.
Since the event included February 14, also known as the “I <3 Free Software Day”, I ordered some FSFE materials and set up a little booth distributing stickers and flyers. ANSOL also took the opportunity to recruit new members. I was responsible for handling these sign-ups during the event.
2023: the year of self-hosting
I started working on migrating Conversas em Código away from Simplecast. The first step was to download the current RSS feed and try to generate it from a set of yaml files and a ruby script. I didn’t have much time to work on it yet, but it’s a work in progress.
I’ve also been discussing with other groups the possibility of setting up a shared Mobilizon instance. There is a Gancio instance focused on Portuguese events, but I’m not sure if those two platforms serve the same purpose.
Porto Codes
On January 19, there was the first Porto Codes meetup in a while (excluding Hacktoberfest events). I had to postpone February’s edition due to a conflict with MiniDebConf, it’s now scheduled for March 2, 2023.