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

[From: Quim Gil]

Hi,

ext Jeremiah Foster wrote:
> 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?

Thanks for the heads up. Yes, it's time to think what to do in FOSDEM 2010

What is the kind of participation we want to have? Think big (but with
your feet on the floor). There is always time to cut down.

http://wiki.maemo.org/FOSDEM_2010
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=356121

-- 
Quim Gil
open source advocate
Maemo Devices @ Nokia

> 
> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> vcs-pkg-discuss mailing list
>> vcs-pkg-discuss at lists.alioth.debian.org
>> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/vcs-pkg-discuss
> 
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