Where Have You Been for the Last 20 Years?
A personal journey from 20 years of self-doubt to discovering the welcoming BSD community at BSDCan. Sometimes courage comes later in life.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/06/17/where-have-you-been-for-the-last-20-years/
Dear friends of the #BSDCafe and the entire community,
Unfortunately, sometimes things in life do not go as planned. Becoming an adult also means learning to accept this and to set priorities. Over the past few months I have had some family matters that required my attention. I waited as long as possible before making a final decision, but the moment has now come.
I have informed the BSDCan team that, sadly, I will have to withdraw from the event and will not be able to present my talk.
BSD conferences have become some of the most important events of the year for me. They bring joy, positivity, and motivation. When one ends, I already start looking forward to the next with enthusiasm. In Zagreb I said goodbye to everyone with "see you in Ottawa". This year, unfortunately, that will not happen.
The only consolation is that the situation fortunately seems to be moving toward a resolution, although more slowly than expected. Because of this, I cannot in good conscience keep things uncertain and hope that everything will work out in time. I need to take a step back for now, already feeling the enthusiasm for the next EuroBSDCon.
BSDCan: North America’s largest BSD conference is open for registration!
Tutorials: June 17-18, 2026
Conference: June 19-20, 2026
Full list of talks here:
https://blog.bsdcan.org/blog/
Register before May 1 and the closing reception is free!
https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html
#bsdcan #conference #bsd #unix #development #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #sysadmin #devops
Conferences - #asiabsdcon is only a couple of weeks away, the call for papers for #eurobsdcon starts tomorrow, and #BSDCan is on for June.
Read more via "What is BSD? Come to a conference to find out!" https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #freesoftware #development #networking #security
If you are in tech or interested and have not yet been to a regional #BSD conference, I would recommend you consider going to one.
A short description of the three major ones can be found in my recent piece "What is BSD? Come to a conference to find out!" https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (G-tracked https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-is-bsd-come-to-conference-to-find.html). Fun fact: I'll be at all three this year
#openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #asiabsdcon #bsdcan #eurobsdcon @bsdcan @EuroBSDCon
Episode 648 of @bsdnow contains a "#BSDCan Organisating committee Interview", starting at 20 minutes.
FreeBSD's Future, 18 years of greytrapping, PF vs Linux firewalls, and more.
As the @bsdcan lists of talks and tutorials have been posted, I can officially announce my presentation:
Don't Freeze in the Cloud: Reclaiming Home Control with NetBSD
In 2010, I was taking more flights than cups of coffee. After a two-week trip, I returned home to a nasty, albeit expected, surprise: an indoor temperature of 7.8°C (46 F). Possessing more time than money, I decided to solve the problem my own way. I built a custom Python-based control system, accessible only via VPN, to manage my heating.
In 2015, after moving houses, this system was demoted to a secondary role, replaced by a shiny, commercial "smart" thermostat. However, I continued to maintain and update my custom solution for fun.
Fast forward to October 2025: major cloud providers faced significant outages. My commercial thermostat became dumber than a mechanical switch. I was reduced to manual two-hour overrides, with no visibility into settings or usage. It was a wake-up call: keeping my home warm should not depend on someone else's server.
I dusted off my solution and adapted it to modern needs - powered, of course, by NetBSD, running on the very same hardware that served my previous home for years.
In this talk, I will share the journey, the technical challenges, and the architectural decisions behind the project. I will demonstrate how NetBSD’s stability and low footprint make it the ideal operating system for long-term, "set-and-forget" home automation, allowing us to reclaim control from the cloud.
#NetBSD #BSDCan #BSDCan2026 #RunBSD #OwnYourData #Presentation #Talk
Stefano Marinelli
Peter N. M. Hansteen
BSDCan
Diane Bruce
xinqu
BSDTV