[TOS] mel at redhat.com --> mel at purdue.edu

Mel Chua mel at purdue.edu
Sun Dec 11 05:25:34 UTC 2011


Hi, folks -- this is going to hit the blogosphere shortly, but I wanted 
to give you a heads-up here first since I know not everyone reads Planet.

Yesterday was my last day at Red Hat. I'm fortunate and grateful to have 
spent 2.5 years learning from some of the best minds in the business - 
it's a fantastic company to work for, especially if you're passionate 
about doing open source right - but questions of *how* the open source 
way works, what practices can transfer to education, etc. have been 
nagging at me more and more, grad school has opened up a whole new world 
of opportunties to chase those questions down, and I wanted to be able 
to take them.

What does this mean for POSSE and TOS? That's what I wanted to talk 
about here with all of you. First, with my ex-Red-Hatter-hat on, here 
are some things we do know.

0. I'm still here - I've just switched to a .edu email address. ;-) One 
of the best things about open source is that leaving a company doesn't 
mean leaving a community; if anything, I might have more time to be more 
active on TOS. I'm still around, happy to coach, teach, work with 
classes, write, field questions, travel... the only real difference is 
that I no longer have the ability to push expense reports through Red 
Hat Finance.

1. However, people who *do* have that ability are also still on this 
list. Karsten (quaid on IRC) and Harish from the Community team at Red 
Hat (http://communityleadershipteam.org) are both here, and they and 
others can help you with any Official Red Hat Stuff you might need.

2. We've made sure that all Red Hat commitments to the 2011 POSSE cohort 
- coaching, course grants, etc - will continue to be fulfilled, and that 
folks will have access to the resources we promised them.

3. Similarly, we've already made a lot of TOS plans for SIGCSE 2012 in 
Raleigh, and those are still on - Red Hat is continuing to support the 
SIGCSE presence TOS has planned (pre-conference symposium, BoF, 
workshop, publications...) and I will be there - and hope to see many of 
you there as well! (I'll note that SIGCSE 2012 is practically next door 
to Red Hat's corporate headquarters, so there's opportunity for 
conversations there, if people have specific ones they'd like to have.)

I think that covers most of the bases - there are still some open 
questions (for instance, POSSE 2012) to tackle, but we can do that 
together as things come up. If you have any questions, comments, 
concerns, ideas, or really anything, please let me (or Harish & Karsten, 
or the appropriate party) know! If you'd like to talk more privately, 
drop me a line, ping me on IRC, send a carrier pigeon... I'm around 
(especially after finals period clears up at Purdue next week) -- but do 
think about "default to open" and use the list if you can.

By the way, some of you may have noticed my new email address - mel at 
purdue dot edu. Please update your address books - sending to mel at 
redhat dot com now forwards things to Harish. :)

Many thanks - I'm looking forward to continuing to work with y'all from 
the academic side of the fence.

-- 

Mel Chua
mel at purdue.edu
PhD student, Open Source & Education focus
Purdue University, Dept. of Engineering Education


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