Nice, I didn't expect that NixOS has its own conference. I have been at OpenSUSE summit twice, I will definitely go to DebConf once they come to a less exotic place (from my perspective). I was looking for an Archlinux conference, but could not find one. You don't need to be deeply involved in the project to benefit from a conference. I have been to Akademy twice when they happened to be in the area and I am not even a real KDE user. LinuxCon Australia is nearly a must for every engaged Linux developer, at least once in a lifetime. Still hesitating whether I'll do it a second time (I'm from Europe). I guess I need to go to my 9th Fosdem in 5 weeks.

Just today my daughter complained: Dad why do you always go to your stupid conferences? I answered: Most of my colleagues from 20 years ago are no longer in software development. One runs a laundry, another one a fitness studio, some are unemployed...

Yes, unfortunately speaking at a conference I haven't done for over 25 years any more. Back than I was a university employee and they only allowed attendance when you spoke. To speak you need to be really involved and I find it difficult to find the time on the side of my day job.

Well, Nix is a much wider ecosystem than "just" NixOS - the package manager has many other applications, too (for example I gave a talk about Nixery this year).

From that perspective I don't find it so surprising that there's a conference about it :)

> You don't need to be deeply involved in the project to benefit from a conference

Agree! Many conferences these days will have tracks focused on "beginners", too (NixCon did this year).

There has always been a big overlap of people I know from computer conferences, science-fiction conventions, hacking congressions, and musical concerts. So some times I'll slip up and say "Grateful Dead Conference" or "SF Concert" or "Chaos Communication Convention", or "Unix Congress".