While Red Hat executives, developers, partners, and customers are gathering at the Summit next week, there's an additional event running simultaneously. From Thursday, June 19, to Saturday, June 21, we're holding a Fedora Users and Developers Conference (FUDCon) in Boston.  There you'll find the Fedora community brainstorming, planning, and hacking on the future of our free, leading edge, community supported platform. 

On Thursday and Friday, FUDCon will be co-located with Red Hat Summit at the Hynes Convention Center on the third floor. We'll be holding “hackathon” sessions all day long that extend over many workgroups in several rooms in the FUDCon space. You can stop by, introduce yourself, and meet world-class developers, designers, and system administrators. Ask about the features or platform enhancements they're working on. Heck, you might even want to roll up your sleeves and get involved when you meet some of the brainiacs behind Fedora. In addition, you won't want to miss Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat President and CEO, who will be stopping by FUDCon on Thursday at 4:00 p.m.

On Saturday, we're moving to Boston University, where we'll hold a full day of BarCamp sessions. At a standard conference, some of the most rewarding conversations are those that happen in the hallways between or after sessions. BarCamp makes those conversations the entire focus of the day. Speakers pitch their talks first thing in the morning, and then the entire audience collaborates with them on shaping the schedule for the day. Sound like chaos? BarCamp may be a bit hectic, but out of that chaos comes one of the most energizing, captivating, and informative days of Fedora-related talk imaginable. 

This innovative and results-centered approach has made FUDCon a can't miss event for hundreds of Fedora community members and open source enthusiasts and professionals worldwide. We hope you'll join us while you're here in Boston and embrace the passionate spirit of free and open source software that Fedora is all about.

By the way, we'll also be at the Summit's Fedora booth, located near the Cool Stuff Store. If you bring us a 2 GB or larger USB key, we'll turn it into a portable Fedora 9 Live system you can use with any USB booting computer. And all without messing with your other data on the USB key. So even if you can't fit all the FUDCon innovation in around the other fun and learning at the Summit, you can still take a little souvenir home with you.