"BOF" : what does it stand for ?

[Morgan Collett]

On 9/13/06, Pete Ryland <pdr at pdr.cx> wrote:
>
> On 13/09/06, Christian Bjälevik <nafallo at magicalforest.se> wrote:
> > ons 2006-09-13 klockan 02:10 +0200 skrev Vincent Trouilliez:
> > > * Birds of a Feather
> >
> > That's the correct one. Connecting to the discussions that makes the
> > spec. The idea is the Feather and the spec is the Bird.
>
> There is a metaphor there, but this is not the correct one.  It's an english
> expression meaning people of the same ilk.  It derives from the expression
> "birds of a feather stick together" which means that similar types of people
> will congregate in the same places and support each other, often used by
> observers to explain or excuse the company someone keeps.

IMHO this comes from tech conferences which have presentations all
day, then a few informal get-togethers known as BoFs where people can
discuss common topics in a less structured way. Ubuntu gatherings seem
to be light on the presentations and heavy on the BoFs, so while the
name has stuck the metaphor doesn't apply as much as it originally
did...