I'm writing this while I'm flying over the Alps, seated on the Lufthansa A319 that is taking me back home after I attended this year's openSUSE Conference in Nuremberg.

I've been at a openSUSE Conference before, November 2024 in Tokyo; it was just very inspiring, like having a little finger-food before dinner. This time I feel satisfied, energized, riplet, like how you feel when you scrape a gelato bowl with a tea spoon to complete a seafood meal by a mediterranean sunny coast. It's a feeling that is also physical, because the organizers really got sure we weren't left without food and beer.

Of course the fact that I was in this edition's roster of speakers made all the difference, as I really felt I was participating to a collective endevour rather than peeping other's job. My talk was a simple one: I shared insights, achievements and status update for the rewriting of Distrobox I am contributing to. Not a breakthrough innovation, no wow-effect demos, but real-world experiences and data. And yet, I really felt I got the audience's interest, which shouldn't come as a surprise given how popular is the tool in the Linux developer community.

I'm flying back and I feel very happy. In retrospective, this conference has been the perfect closure for my two-years adventure in SUSE which is coming to an end (more on this when it's due time). Two years ago, I barely knew what zypper was, and now look at me, talking fearlessly about container internals, Linux package distributions, OSS maintenance. I am really proud of myself for how I was able to steer my career, and be humble enough to put my achievements aside and focus on learning rather than claiming status.

I hope I will attend more openSUSE Conferences in the future. This conference is a strange beast: of course the line between SUSE and openSUSE is blurred, and most of the speakers are SUSE employees; at the same time, it's the perfect platform for sharing ideas, interests, and meet extremely competent people that are also very prominent contributor in the software community. My regret is this conference is not sponsored enough amongst SUSE engineers, it should be the actual SUSE engineering meetup - in my humble opinion.

Lastly, I must share my gratitude with my fellas, because if I feel so good now it's only because I am harvesting the results of a team job. To Luca first, to be so kind to let a stranger touch his beloved creature; Alessio, for patronizing all my initiatives; and Fabrizio, who rage-boostrapped the project and paved the road for all of us.

The plane is starting the descend. I have only 3% battery left, and the hostess is yelling at me that I have to put my laptop in the luggage. Logging off.