From: Michael Hanke Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:46:37 +0000 (-0400) Subject: HBM report. X-Git-Url: https://git.donarmstrong.com/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=299f7d3288400d0f163ad5b86b7285d903e34257;p=neurodebian.git HBM report. --- diff --git a/sandbox/2011-07-10_booth_hbm2011.rst b/sandbox/2011-07-10_booth_hbm2011.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..903b78a --- /dev/null +++ b/sandbox/2011-07-10_booth_hbm2011.rst @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +:date: 2011-07-10 20:00:00 +:tags: debian, neuroscience, conference + +.. _chap_debian_booth_hbm2011: + +NeuroDebian@HBM2011.ca +====================== + +From June 26-30 the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping +(HBM2011_) took place in Quebec City, Canada, and we ran another booth +encouraged by our :ref:`positive experience at last year's SfN in San Diego +`. The setup was pretty much the same as last year: +Some chairs and tables, lots of people, our `tri-fold flyers`_, a Debian mirror +and some virtual machine images to show Debian in action. We had many curious +people have their first exposure to Debian, and long-time users expressing +their gratitude to Debian. But that is nothing new, so let's talk about the +differences to last year's booth. + +First of all, we had more people at the booth. Dominique Belhachemi volunteered +to help us out -- and that was very much appreciated. Although HBM has only +about a tenth of the attendees that SfN has, we had significantly more traffic. +While last year people were primarily interested in knowing about the project, +this time many of them wanted to give it a try immediately. People came with +their laptops, got the VM images and started playing with Debian. After a day +or so, some came back and asked for recommendations on particular software -- +after having been exposed to the wealth of the Debian archive. + +.. _HBM2011: http://www.humanbrainmapping.org/hbm2011/ + +What also had increased was the number of developers, or rather research labs +developing neuroimaging software that came to the booth to discuss how to get +their software into Debian and how to arange ongoing maintenance of these +future Debian packages. As we have our plates already quite full, we spend time +on mentoring interested developers to learn the art of Debian packaging and +making them familiar with Debian's procedures and standards (e.g. working on +`#609820`_). + +.. _#609820: http://bugs.debian.org/609820 + +.. image:: pics/hbm2011/BusyBooth.jpg + +Two promising new developments need to be mentioned. First, we were approached +by companies that develop hardware for brain-imaging and psychophysics +research. They were curious to learn about Debian as an integrated platform +that offers free software solutions that an increasing amount of their +customers demands (e.g. PsychoPy_). Apparently, the movement towards open +research software has finally made it into the business plans of companies, as +they seem to start perceiving compatibility with free software systems as a +competitive advantage. We explained how software gets into Debian and how its +release cycle is managed. Let's see whether we see more "Debian-certified" +research products in the future. + +.. _PsychoPy: http://packages.debian.org/psychopy + +Lastly, we started talking with folks from the INCF_ to explore possibilities of +collaborating on INCF projects using Debian as the integration and development +platform. The INCF is an `OECD-funded`_ organization that develops collaborative +neuroinformatics infrastructure and promotes the sharing of data and computing +resources to the international research community. At least one INCF project is +already relying on the efforts of the NeuroDebian project. We are going to continue +this discussion during a workshop in September. A report will follow... + +.. _INCF: http://incf.org +.. _OECD-funded: http://www.oecd.org/document/38/0,3746,en_2649_34319_35217721_1_1_1_1,00.html + + +.. figure:: pics/hbm2011/DDs.jpg + + Debian people at the booth (f.l.t.r): `Michael Hanke`_, `Yaroslav Halchenko`_, + `Stephan Gerhard`_, `Dominique Belhachemi`_. Not shown: Swaroop Guntupalli. + +.. _Stephan Gerhard: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=debian@unidesign.ch +.. _Michael Hanke: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mih@debian.org +.. _Yaroslav Halchenko: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=debian@onerussian.com +.. _Dominique Belhachemi: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=domibel@debian.org + + +Acknowledgements +---------------- + +This booth has been made possible by the generous support of Prof. James V. +Haxby (Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA). + +.. _Debian: http://www.debian.org +.. _Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com +.. _tri-fold flyers: http://neuro.debian.net/_files/brochure_debian-neurodebian.pdf diff --git a/sphinx/pics/hbm2011/BusyBooth.jpg b/sphinx/pics/hbm2011/BusyBooth.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58c2e34 Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/hbm2011/BusyBooth.jpg differ diff --git a/sphinx/pics/hbm2011/DDs.jpg b/sphinx/pics/hbm2011/DDs.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3450217 Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/hbm2011/DDs.jpg differ