Hi,
I just heard about he lack of any dedicated VoIP and XMPP devroom at FOSDEM 2014
I don't want to criticize the FOSDEM organisers or their decision, it is a huge task to manage such an event and all the projects that participate are very commendable. I have enjoyed attending FOSDEM for many years and I hope to do so again in 2014. However, for the wider community of real-time communications developers, there are some important points that I would like to raise:
- In 2013, like previous years, both the XMPP and Telephony devrooms were a huge success, thanks to the efforts of all those who participated, especially the speakers and devroom managers, of whom all did substantially more than myself.
- Telephony and XMPP groups have traditionally had dinners and other side events at FOSDEM every year, many people see it as an excellent place to meet and engage with the wider community and each other.
- Interest in free and open real-time communications (RTC) technology is at an all time high. The reason for this hardly needs to be mentioned. I would like to think it was due to FOSDEM 2013 running a panel on the topic in the main track. My own free communications software web sites all saw a spike in activity after FOSDEM - but since the media took an interest in this topic in June, many websites like Lumicall have been constantly running hot. It is an area of demand that the free software community would do well to tap into.
- The community of free and open communications software developers need to be particularly pro-active to ensure interoperability between free software solutions. Face-to-face (and beer-to-beer) communications is a crucial part of this.
One thing that comes to mind is the possibility of organising a follow-up to the 2013 panel in the main track. We posed the question "can we replace Skype in 2013?" and I regularly receive emails asking me whether it was a promise. There has been progress and there are several great speakers who could potentially come and talk about that, it could be any one of those individuals or another panel.
Another possibility is that we can look to expand off-site in 2014, especially if free real-time communications developers can find a local business or other venue that is willing to let us use some kind of meeting room. There is nothing to prevent people doing that, but it would be interesting to have some feedback from FOSDEM organisers as well, for example, could the schedule include events organised in a satellite venue? Given that FOSDEM rooms often have to turn people away due to the event's immense popularity, a DIY expansion may be the ideal solution, not just for this topic.
For those who are interested, the FSF Europe Free-RTC mailing list might be a good place to discuss such possibilities: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/free-rtc and I would invite people to join us there.
Thanks again to the FOSDEM team for your efforts for 2014
Regards,
Daniel
On 10/03/2013 10:36 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
I just heard about he lack of any dedicated VoIP and XMPP devroom at FOSDEM 2014
Hi Daniel,
As said in my reply to the unicast mail you sent me, deciding on which devrooms to accept/reject is very hard. Like every year, we received quite a lot more proposals than we have rooms at our disposal. We regret having to disappoint some people.
Another possibility is that we can look to expand off-site in 2014, especially if free real-time communications developers can find a local business or other venue that is willing to let us use some kind of meeting room. There is nothing to prevent people doing that, but it would be interesting to have some feedback from FOSDEM organisers as well, for example, could the schedule include events organised in a satellite venue? Given that FOSDEM rooms often have to turn people away due to the event's immense popularity, a DIY expansion may be the ideal solution, not just for this topic.
For those who are interested, the FSF Europe Free-RTC mailing list might be a good place to discuss such possibilities: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/free-rtc and I would invite people to join us there.
You're free to organise anything you want outside of FOSDEM, but I'm afraid it can't be included in our schedule, or be endorsed by the FOSDEM organisation. Dealing with the amount of sessions we have is already quite a lot of work. I can't even begin to imagine adding satellite venues to that.
Gerry
The realtime track at FOSDEM 2013 was by far the best conference track I've ever attended. It's a shame FOSDEM organizers didn't recognize how influential it was.
-lee
On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 4:36 PM, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.com.au wrote:
Hi,
I just heard about he lack of any dedicated VoIP and XMPP devroom at FOSDEM 2014
I don't want to criticize the FOSDEM organisers or their decision, it is a huge task to manage such an event and all the projects that participate are very commendable. I have enjoyed attending FOSDEM for many years and I hope to do so again in 2014. However, for the wider community of real-time communications developers, there are some important points that I would like to raise:
- In 2013, like previous years, both the XMPP and Telephony devrooms
were a huge success, thanks to the efforts of all those who participated, especially the speakers and devroom managers, of whom all did substantially more than myself.
- Telephony and XMPP groups have traditionally had dinners and other
side events at FOSDEM every year, many people see it as an excellent place to meet and engage with the wider community and each other.
- Interest in free and open real-time communications (RTC) technology is
at an all time high. The reason for this hardly needs to be mentioned. I would like to think it was due to FOSDEM 2013 running a panel on the topic in the main track. My own free communications software web sites all saw a spike in activity after FOSDEM - but since the media took an interest in this topic in June, many websites like Lumicall have been constantly running hot. It is an area of demand that the free software community would do well to tap into.
- The community of free and open communications software developers need
to be particularly pro-active to ensure interoperability between free software solutions. Face-to-face (and beer-to-beer) communications is a crucial part of this.
One thing that comes to mind is the possibility of organising a follow-up to the 2013 panel in the main track. We posed the question "can we replace Skype in 2013?" and I regularly receive emails asking me whether it was a promise. There has been progress and there are several great speakers who could potentially come and talk about that, it could be any one of those individuals or another panel.
Another possibility is that we can look to expand off-site in 2014, especially if free real-time communications developers can find a local business or other venue that is willing to let us use some kind of meeting room. There is nothing to prevent people doing that, but it would be interesting to have some feedback from FOSDEM organisers as well, for example, could the schedule include events organised in a satellite venue? Given that FOSDEM rooms often have to turn people away due to the event's immense popularity, a DIY expansion may be the ideal solution, not just for this topic.
For those who are interested, the FSF Europe Free-RTC mailing list might be a good place to discuss such possibilities: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/free-rtc and I would invite people to join us there.
Thanks again to the FOSDEM team for your efforts for 2014
Regards,
Daniel
Free-RTC mailing list Free-RTC@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/free-rtc
On 2013-10-04 11:53:40 (-0400), Lee Azzarello lee@guardianproject.info wrote:
The realtime track at FOSDEM 2013 was by far the best conference track I've ever attended.
Maybe you should get out more?
It's a shame FOSDEM organizers didn't recognize how influential it was.
What makes you think we didn't recognise that?
I fail to see exactly what you want to achieve with this post. The developer rooms for FOSDEM 2014 have been announced. No amount of trolling on mailing lists is going to convince us to kick someone else out to replace with you.
FOSDEM tries to offer a varied programme from year to year. That means not having exactly the same developer rooms every year.
The success of a developer room in one year certainly increases their chances of being scheduled again, but it's no guarantee. On the other hand, trying to engage stressed organisers in pointless discussions is an excellent way to make them forget the sucess of your developer room.
Philip
On 04/10/13 18:28, Philip Paeps wrote:
On 2013-10-04 11:53:40 (-0400), Lee Azzarello lee@guardianproject.info wrote:
The realtime track at FOSDEM 2013 was by far the best conference track I've ever attended.
Maybe you should get out more?
It's a shame FOSDEM organizers didn't recognize how influential it was.
What makes you think we didn't recognise that?
I fail to see exactly what you want to achieve with this post. The developer rooms for FOSDEM 2014 have been announced. No amount of trolling on mailing lists is going to convince us to kick someone else out to replace with you.
That goes without saying - and it was certainly not the intention of my original post
FOSDEM tries to offer a varied programme from year to year. That means not having exactly the same developer rooms every year.
The success of a developer room in one year certainly increases their chances of being scheduled again, but it's no guarantee. On the other hand, trying to engage stressed organisers in pointless discussions is an excellent way to make them forget the sucess of your developer room.
Are you suggesting the whole discussion is pointless, or just that one post? Nobody has called for any other devroom to be scrapped though.
My own post was aimed at finding a constructive way forward, for example, making it easier to engage venues offsite and promote them through the schedule, nothing more... think of FOSDEM expanding to the size of the Edinburgh Fringe perhaps, with hundreds of sites (279 venues in 2012). Maybe not feasible for 2014, but it is a nice thought.
It is not just devrooms that miss out each year, many participants are turned away too when the rooms are full. If extra people want to volunteer to provide solutions to that problem, it is a win-win situation.