I arrived back from the US today, and am now coping with 8 hours of jet lag. However, I couldn't let this slide...
<< Seeing as he blagged loadsa t-shirts and stuff, how bout a free draw for us poor forum members to get our hands on one? / *really* wants a Debian shirt... >>
The Debian shirts were being sold, and I bought two at the same price anyone else would. I also stumped up for a NetBSD shirt, for an EFF membership (and got the shirt free as a result), and for Gnome sponsorship (again, "free" t-shirt).
Maybe if I flashed my Media badge I could have gotten free t-shirts, but who would it have helped? For a lot of these guys their income is quite limited, and buying t-shirts/sponsorships means we can all contribute back to free software projects and make a difference that way.
If you don't get to go to conferences often, you can download the same Debian t-shirt logos as the ones I bought from
http://www.paul.sladen.org/expo/lrlive- ... logos.html - it's the first two. But you can become a Friend of Gnome (for example) online, and still get the free t-shirt; check out
http://www.gnome.org/friends/
Paul