Last chance to vote for Flock sessions, Fedora @ FLISOL, Fedora Workstation podcast, Vacation Calendar, Ask Fedora….

5tFTW
Fedora is a big project, and it’s hard to follow it all. This series highlights interesting happenings in five different areas every week. It isn’t comprehensive news coverage — just quick summaries with links to each. Here are the five things for April 29th, 2014:

Last Chance to Vote for Flock Sessions

I know I’ve been posting these reminders for a while now, but this is the last one, since it’s also the last few days in which voting is open for the different sessions proposed for Flock (Fedora’s annual planning and development conference, in Prague this August). Fedora contributors can vote on the Fedora Elections page. Of course, it’s best if you can actually attend, but even if you won’t be able to, it’s helpful to vote on topics which you really think we need to be talking about.

Also, we know that the voting system is a little awkward with this many options — it was designed for elections with only a handful of choices. Hopefully that will be fixed for next year. In the meantime, pick high numbers for sessions you find interesting. And voting closes Thursday, May 1st, one second before midnight, UTC.

Fedora @ FLISOL

FLISOL is multi-country free software “install fest” which takes place annually across Latin America. This year, Fedora had representation in many different places, including Brazil, Panama, Peru, and Argentina. Fedora Ambassador Matias Kreder posted a short positive report from Buenos Aires, with plenty of pictures and a link to a video by the national news agency. And Alejandro Perez provides a report from Panama. As you can see, Fedora was very much in evidence!

Fedora Workstation on Bad Voltage Podcast

Last week, I mentioned Christian Schaller’s blog post about Fedora Workstation. This attracted the attention of the people behind the “Bad Voltage” podcast — an audio program covering “technology, Open Source, politics, music, and anything else”. They invited Christian to come on the show, and you can hear him answering questions about Fedora Workstation on Episode 1×14, at about minute 17. (Be warned that the podcast declares itself Not Safe For Work, and contains strong language.)

Fedora Contributor Vacation Calendar

This isn’t new this week, but… it’s new to me, so that counts, right? Fedora’s calendar system includes a contributor vacation calendar, where you can record times when you’ll be away. This is particularly helpful if you maintain packages, so others know you’re unreachable if there is a security or other problem.

Ask Fedora

This one is also cheating: it’s not new at all. But if you haven’t seen it, take a look at Ask Fedora, our community question-and-answer site. You can ask questions, of course, but also, look for unanswered questions where you can help.

Users build reputation by having their questions or answers voted on, and increased reputation increases what you can do on the site. If you’re a new user, or just ran into a frustrating problem, this is a great way to find solutions, and if you are more experienced, or know the answer to a frustrating problem, it’s a great way to give back (and can be fun, too).