

Red Hat touts Raleigh, NC as an open-source leader - wcchandler
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/01/06/1758019/city-red-hat-tout-raleigh-as-open.html

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tom_b
I am watching the Durham startup scene these days. There might be a
sustainable startup movement cranking up there.

The RTP area(Research Triangle Park, where Triangle=Raleigh, Durham, and
Chapel Hill for folks who don't already know) is full of smart people and if
the culture continues to shift from a "join the big corporates" (IBM, SAS,
even Microsoft has a presence) to a "build your own business" mindset, I think
hackers here will have great opportunities.

However, I'm not sure (and I would welcome correction) that Red Hat alone
makes us much of an open-source leader.

~~~
mdwrigh2
Red Hat alone is a pretty poor open source leader in the area, to be honest.
The headquarters is mostly support and business, with very little engineering
work being done, so they tend not to have much presence. I'm a member of the
NCSU LUG, and while they're on our campus (literally next door to the computer
science building), we've had a fairly difficult time maintaining a
relationship with them. As long as I've been a member, we've been unable to
get speakers from them.

On the other hand, they do provide a meeting space for a couple of local
groups (namely the TriLUG, though this is changing I believe), and hold a
couple un-conferences which are a lot of fun.

As for Durham as a startup scene, I think it has a lot of potential, but I
find that most of the capable developers I know are moving out west because
staying in NC means you end up working for one of the big corporates for the
most part (IBM, SAS, Cisco, etc). I've also been to a few of the startup
events, and it feels like a lot of business people and very few "hackers",
though perhaps this is just due to selection bias (it _is_ a social event).
Durham could use a new, really successful technical startup to give it a jump
start.

~~~
mindcrime
_they do provide a meeting space for a couple of local groups (namely the
TriLUG, though this is changing I believe), and hold a couple un-conferences
which are a lot of fun._

Hmm... I haven't heard anything about Tri-LUG moving, but I haven't been
terribly active lately. I know Tri-LUG did meet at SplatSpace in Durham for
the December '11 meeting, but that was a one-off deal. It's sort of becoming a
tradition for _Space and Tri-LUG to do a join December social gathering /
open-source show & tell. But AFAIK, the regular meetings remain at RH for now.

Tri-JUG meet at Red Hat's offices as well, FWIW.

_I've also been to a few of the startup events, and it feels like a lot of
business people and very few "hackers", though perhaps this is just due to
selection bias (it is a social event).*

Check out RTP Hackers & Founders[1]. We haven't had a "formal" meeting for a
while, mainly because I've been so heads-down working on Fogbeam Labs[2]...
but we will be meeting in 2012 for sure. In fact, almost every member of the
group should have "event coordinator" role to schedule events, and if anybody
on this thread wants to join and schedule an event, ping me and I'll make sure
you're able to do so.

 _Durham could use a new, really successful technical startup to give it a
jump start._

Yeah, not to mention this area could use a sort of "Paypal Mafia" of it's
own... a batch of people with plenty of $$$ from their own successful exit,
wanting to invest in the next wave of local startups. Who knows, maybe 2012
will be the year things really blow up here...

[1]: <http://www.meetup.com/RTP-Hackers-Founders/>

[2]: <http://www.fogbeam.com>

~~~
mindcrime
Bad for to reply to onself, I know... but just wanted to say, we just setup an
RTP Hackers & Founders meetup for the evening of Thurs., Jan 19th. That's the
night before the "Venture Outlook" event that SCV is putting on, so it
probably makes a good time to meet and talking startups, funding, VC, etc.

Panera Bread - Streets of Southpoint, 7:00pm.

~~~
robterrell
Sounds good! You need to allow more than 14 people, though. It's full up at
the momet. Need a bigger venue?

~~~
mindcrime
Yeah, that Panera doesn't handle large crowds very well. I'm working on
something for February that should allow a much larger crowd. Andy from Open
Software Integrators has said he's cool with us meeting at their offices, so
now it's just down to working out the exact details.

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rsanheim
Note that Durham, NC is home to Relevance, my employer, and by extension,
Clojure/core (though the Clojure original gangsta Rich Hickey lives in New
York).

We have 20% time and do lots OSS on fridays, amongst other things.

~~~
mindcrime
Yeah, Relevance people seem to be crawling all over the place here.

That reminds me, I need to schedule another TriJVM Hack Night for sometime
Real Soon Now as well. :-)

------
mindcrime
Well, Fogbeam Labs would probably be willing to setup shop in Raleigh. Might
have to talk to Red Hat about investing in us... :-)

