[maemo-community] Fwd: [loki at fosdem.org: FOSDEM 2010: Distribution Miniconf]

[From: Jeremiah Foster]

The following message has been popping up on the debian lists I  
follow. I wonder if we, i.e. Maemo, are interested in taking part in  
the distro rooms this year at FOSDEM? I know I will be there, it might  
be cool if we did something. I know lbt wants to discuss openSUSE's  
build system - it looks like a good opportunity to do so with openSUSE  
themselves. Perhaps Mer wants to participate too?

More details in the body of the email.

Jeremiah

>
> Hi all
>
> If you wonder why you receive this email, it's either because you've
> been a contact for your respective distribution at FOSDEM in the past,
> or because I'm looking for contacts with distribution projects where  
> we
> didn't have any in the past ;)
>
> If this email is best sent to another person, please forward it  
> accordingly.
>
> You probably all heard of FOSDEM before. If not, FOSDEM ==
> http://fosdem.org ;)
>
> The next edition is 6+7 February 2010, and it's also our 10th edition.
> As such, we've been reflecting on the evolution of the event (in the
> sense that our mission and what it has become is rather a platform for
> FOSS projects, much more than just a conference, or at least that's  
> what
> we'd like FOSDEM to become), and we are introducing a change regarding
> Developer Rooms for distribution projects.
>
> We would like to push the envelope of our mission even further by
> organizing something along the lines of a "distribution summit" during
> FOSDEM 2010 (incidentally, I had that idea long before I heard of the
> "distrosummit" that will be held at linuxconf.au, a few weeks before
> FOSDEM but hey, it's far away, and FOSDEM is the European event of the
> year ;D).
>
> The idea is that rather than having several distributions with their  
> own
> respective and individual Developer Room, we will host mixed  
> conference
> rooms where talks and sessions will be organized _by topic_, with
> contributors from all distributions attending and participating.
>
> The reasoning behind it is manifold:
>
> * most distributions have their own events nowadays (FUDcon, debconf,
> openSUSE conf, EuroBSDCon, etc...), which are already used for topics
> and matters that are specific to each of them
>
> * FOSDEM is an almost unique occasion to meet and exchange with
> contributors of many major FOSS projects, given the large amount of
> visitors (~5000) and projects present during the weekend — we believe
> that not taking profit of that constellation is a bad use of the tool
> that is FOSDEM :)
>
> * the number of distributions requesting Developer Rooms at FOSDEM is
> very likely to rise in the future, given that Gentoo didn't send a
> request in time last edition and that Ubuntu didn't ask until now (but
> I'm assuming that it is likely to happen at some point in time ;)), as
> well as Mandriva having unfortunately been turned down by us due to  
> lack
> of space (and there's really no reason to accept the usual suspects  
> and
> having to say no to Mandriva, or almost any other distribution project
> for that matter)
>
> To dive into a little more detail:
>
> * 3 (large) rooms will be allocated for that "distro summit"
> * sessions will be scheduled by topic (see below)
> * every project is welcome to join in :)
>
> Note that stands are not affected in any way and will be handled as
> previous editions (i.e. send us a request:
> http://fosdem.org/2010/call_for_stands)
>
> Topics are something I need your feedback and ideas on: whatever you
> think is appropriate as a topic that is recurring issue for
> distributions (governance, feature tracking, trust mechanisms,
> ambassadors, ...), or something where you would like to present your
> solutions for specific tasks to other distributions (e.g. package
> building, translations, bug tracking, community infrastructure, ...),
> especially if you're interested in feedback, ideas and collaboration
> from and with other projects... we'd love to hear about it :)
>
> Given that, when I'm switching caps, I'm myself deeply involved into a
> distribution project (openSUSE), I do have a few proposals in terms of
> topics — and please don't shoot if most examples I'm giving are  
> related
> to openSUSE, it's just because it happens to be the distribution  
> project
> I know best:
>
> * Packaging:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~
> - present different toolsets for handling the burden of packaging a
> distribution as well as additional repositories (e.g. openSUSE Build
> Service)
> - have a few packaging subsystem sessions, where the current state of
> RPM/yum/zypp/..., dpkg/apt, emerge, ports, etc... are presented, as  
> well
> as their respective roadmaps for the future
> - evolve/adapt repository metadata formats ?
>
> * Localization:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> - how to handle collaborative translations ? (e.g. transifex)
> - localization of distribution documentation, project wikis, etc...
> - how to coordinate with upstream ?
>
> * Community Infrastructure:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> - FedoraCommunity, opensourced LaunchPad, Bugzilla extensions, etc...
>
> * Test and QA
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> * Governance:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> - boards, elections, technical control of the distribution, ...
> - ambassador programs, LoCo teams, etc...
> - legal issues
>
> * Working with upstream:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> - have a few sessions with major upstream projects present at FOSDEM
> (Mozilla, GNOME, KDE, ...) on how to improve/optimize collaboration
> between downstream (distributions) and upstream (developers), e.g. for
> patches
>
>
> Unless somebody has some time to spare and steps up, which would be  
> more
> than welcome, we will take care of handling the coordination of the
> session proposals, as well as the schedule.
>
> If you're interested in participating, please contact us ASAP at
> devrooms at fosdem.org
> The most practical option will be to subscribe to a mailing-list:
> http://lists.fosdem.org/mailman/listinfo/dist2010
> And we will be able to discuss details, ideas, as well as the schedule
> there.
>
> If you do want to participate, please echo the event to your  
> respective
> contributor community, and poke them to subscribe to the above  
> mentioned
> list and make proposals or inquiries there.
>
> Thanks for reading so far, and hopefully we'll see you in Brussels for
> FOSDEM 2010 :)
>
> cheers
> -- 
>  -o) Pascal Bleser <loki at fosdem.org>    http://www.fosdem.org
>  /\\     FOSDEM 2010 :: 6 + 7 February 2010 in Brussels
> _\_v Free and Opensource Software Developers European Meeting
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