Last week, FreeNAS developers from around the globe arrived for 2 weeks of face-to-face discussions and coding sessions for FreeNAS 10.  Yes, Virginia, there will be a FreeNAS 10, divided into a series of planned milestone releases (M2-M5) for those who would like to assist in testing and development, or merely just to follow along as we progress
Hackathon participants came from Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Ukraine, several US states, as well as those local to the Bay area. The non-locals stayed at a historic ranch in the Livermore hills with enough seclusion, Internet access, and food that time could be spent coding, doc’ing, and ramping up on tools, architecture, and design elements. In case you ever wondered what it takes to fuel a hackathon, Jordan has a good idea regarding how many shopping carts are needed:

Days were spent using a whiteboard, reviewing design mockups, and nailing down timelines, blockers, and assigning features. Over the next few weeks, we’ll have more blog posts detailing the various milestones, how you can check out the developers’ progress, where you can get more information about the new architecture, where you can get developer previews in order to test new features and help find bugs, and how you can setup a development environment and contribute to the development process.