I'm not being sycophantic but....

[swatts]

The last couple of years I've tried to give credit when credit is due, this is peculiar behaviour for an English man and doesn't come naturally at all.....

My last but one article was critical and Karma insists I correct the balance of the universe by kissing some butt.

So I'd like to heap praise on some people I've come into contact with from NI in the hope of making them uncomfortable,  first from over the pond.....

Mr S Mercer, Mr A Smith, Mr E Kerry, Mr D Nattinger, Ms C Rogers ................... All for having the guts to show us their code and ideas (this is a very hard thing to do), encouraging the open sourcing of tool kits, improving the examples, being so open in the community, spending so much time responding to me.

Mr B Powell, Ms N Hollenback ...................... For CLA summit efforts, buying me dinner in Paris

Ms K Hunka, Mr G Heimbach ....... for tireless Champion support

Ms M Martin ....... being constantly good humoured in the face of me grumbling about re-cert.

Mr R Des Rosier .... for inviting me to beer club and giving me excellent tequila. I'm sure he's owed technical thanks too

In the UK

Our past and present sales engineers especially Mr T Gibbs and Mr A Simms .....

Mr M Bailey, Mr S Emery, Mr N Williamson, Mr J McNally .... so smart and always eager to help.

Mr J Woodford .... for patience in the face of my unusual attitude to business.

All the guys and girls who help with CSLUG (including the 2 interns who showed stunning myRIO projects this time round, makes me very hopeful)

Everyone involved with the CLA summit in Geneva and the guys at CERN, a fantastic and inspiring event.

Anyone else I owe thanks to and forgotten to, because I'm an idiot!

Obvious thanks to the bosses.

So what's prompted this hippy behaviour? Well several things

1. CLA re-cert in 4 years!!!!
2. GOOP Dev Suite is open source!!!
3. Geneva CLA Summit was just incredibly good
4. Spring is in the air

I'm also liking the move towards more open APIs, listening to the community, engaging with the community that's been happening for the last few years.

I know this seems a bit strange but what the hell, we're quick to grizzle and moan and much slower to say nice things. Especially to large corporations.

Lots of random hippy peace and love (oh and anyone calls me a hippy I'll punch them!)

Steve