Summits, Conferences and Meetups workgroup - 2019-12-03

Yes. We discussed it in here a couple of months ago. I've reached out to our contacts at Cisco, who confirmed that we were welcome.

In the last few years, I usually take point with Ralph in cc. There's no particular reason other than at the time, no-one else stepped up.

I've also started to make arrangements for the hotel. I still need to reach out to the restaurant for the annual dinner.

thx a lot Guus for this, every year

no problem!

Guus, it'd be great if SCAM was in on this I think

Even if it's not directly in CC (as much as I'd like to)

That is, written somewhere on the wiki, who to contact etc.

somebody told me it wasn't on the summit page

pep. you're absolutely right - I need to spend the time to write that all down

I've just been called by a service person who's on his way over to my house. Unsure when he'll be here, but chances have it it'll be right when we have our meeting.

Right, that's today

That's in 12 minutes 😃

I'm currently struggling with my movim setup. PHP is such a pain..

I've only recently dabbled a bit with PHP again

Yeah sorry I still don't have a phone, nothing to remind me :x

https://igniterealtime.org:443/httpfileupload/222c83ef-d3a9-4455-8808-ef3a3dd1f0d7/image.png

(I never had any calendar app on my laptop)

? 😛

Let me share now what I was going to share in the meeting

(it's not to much)

I've reached out to Thon for a quote

They've actually responded earlier today. I'll compose a message for the mailinglists, inviting people to sign up

on first sight, prices are a bit up from last year - but you can share a room against good discounts.

I have yet to reach out to the restaurant

I'm not expecting an issue there, other than how many exclamation marks ralphm insists need to be on the listing of one particular desert on the menu...

like clockwork, that guy just showed up

afk!

!

k

It's time

daniel, COM8, Nÿco

Guus is coming back I assume

1. Who is here

I feel overwhelmed by all your answers

If there is an issue with the meeting times, please say so and we should move it.

If it's just that you're not aware of it, please make a note somewhere

One sec

Sorry I'm here now. My 'one sec' got delayed because I was out of cellphone coverage

:)

Ok, assuming Guus is coming back soon-ish, let's go ahead

2. Agenda

3. 36C3 prep

hmm, before that, anything to add to the agenda?

(I need to work on my meeting skills)

Ok 36C3 prep then.

daniel, you're taking care of the flag pole?

I have plans to make one there

We did talk about organizing meetups right, should we take some time afterwards to properly register sessions etc. with interested people?

There is currently a room at xmpp:36c3@chat.cluxia.eu?join, though it may change soon, but for now people are idling there

I don't think you can already do that

We can setup some time to talk about it in like 2 weeks maybe.

I'll poke people here and in that other channel afterwards.

Let's move on

4. Sponsor sprints.

https://trello.com/c/2Q3RKyIT/11-sponsor-sprints-allow-people-to-expense-some-things-under-some-conditions

I sent something regarding this on the scam list and I've got no return.

I mean apart from daniel whom I spoke to directly. but none on the list, nothing in the room either.

(I'm here...)

Nÿco, hey!

am I on that list

I'd love the XSF sponsors some sprints

https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/scam/2019-November/000000.html

You need to register and get approved

https://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/scam

ok

thx

Since I wrote this I also obviously would like to sponsor sprints. It doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be all of them, but there are things we'd need to define first. What is a sprint, and on what grounds do we sponsor.

subscription request sent

(Guus ^)

I gave suggestions of a definition and criteria. I'd like to have people's input

I believe it would be better to find free venues also, the people/companies giving the offices could provide some food and beverage when possible I'd rather spend XSF money on travelling expenses, for example, or printing swag

I agree with Nÿco on that

Nÿco, travelling expenses such as?

Especially if you consider how expensive venues are compared to food

train, bus, maybe car, maybe not plane as usually a bit more exensive?

expensive

The question was probably for who

That's the thing. I think we should define "sprint" first.

ah

development sprints?

I personally don't especially want to encourage bigger ones. My goal is lots of small events all around

For sprints

since Sprints work quite successfully this year, I'd rather "invest" in that

and as written in the task description, "I have personally been using this term to describe "contributor" events, (that is mainly developers, translators, documentarians), of a few days, generally over a weekend, sometimes a bit longer)."

agree fr lots of small sprints everywhere

Sponsoring individuals to come to sprint is a very slippery slope

yeah...

I'm personally fine with limiting it to 'rewards' in form of foods and drinks

also, we could experiment "meetups", like one night, three talks of 20-40 mn each that means three speakers, probably need a projector, and a mostly passive audience we still need to experiment on that

Independently of that we could consider supporting speakers who go to conferences

I suggest non-alcoholic beverages

"speakers who go to conferences" probably, but it is not about "Sprints", is it?

No

That's why I said independently of that

ok :)

I all in favor of experimenting the XSF sponsoring of Dev Sprints

> I suggest non-alcoholic beverages I'm OK with that.

The overall amount of alcohol consumed during all the sprints I attended thus far was close to if not zero

lots of caffeine though :p

hehehe

pizza overload?

But I'm OK with codefying that if people feel the need

Ok I'm trying to come up with a definition

let's try

you draft something here?

now?

or offline later, for review?

hmm, how do we divide this? We can say that that's a direction we agree we want to go, judging by the chat today

For a start

back, reading up...

Then the two other milestones will be coming up with a definition of a sprint we agree on. Then on what grounds we sponsor, and what that sponsor money is for

pep. you lead this initiative? we feed back to you?

Yep I'm happy to lead this

+1

One sec, let ask properly

"There are no pending requests." on the SCAM mailinglist signup thingy. Did your subscription fail, Nÿco ?

Open to the public / announced in advance / primary focus to improve and develop open source software for the xmpp ecosystems / must be blogged about

Alternatively 'must be social mediad about'

Guus retried: SCAM Subscription results Your subscription request has been received, and will soon be acted upon. Depending on the configuration of this mailing list, your subscription request may have to be first confirmed by you via email, or approved by the list moderator. If confirmation is required, you will soon get a confirmation email which contains further instructions.

"social mediad" :) is it trademarked? Can i use it again? ;-)

I move we go ahead with deciding how to sponsor sprints.

+1

+1

+1

I agree to lead the initiative and I'll come back to you on the list with more questions (what I said above, what is a sprint, on what grounds do we sponsor, and what should the money be used for)

+1

(should or should not be used for*)

But I strongly agree with what daniel said: this is a slippery slope

...if we sponsor people

Guus, I'm happy to say something like "we only sponsor N events per quarter / year" or things like "first come first served". We can all discuss that later

also, from another perspective: there is a upside to not having big amounts of XSF money for this: commercial companies are often willing to pitch in. This happened with the London and Den Haag sprints, for example. Maybe we should also try to help sprint organizers engage with local businesses.

the added bonus of that is that we might pull in such businesses in the XMPP community

wait, sprints are for development meetups are for pitches and commecial announcements

Note that I'm not against the XSF doing sponsoring at all - but these could complement eachother

Nÿco, eventually everything it useful for marketing and bringing people in..

Many commercial organisations are very happy to host developers

if only to woo them.

Guus, we can do that in parallel

yes, absolutely

This assumes that you know people

well, the host of such sprints will be duly thanked, I hope

Which raises the barrier for sprints

Yeah also. what daniel says

I'm not sure what you mean, Daniel?

I think coming to the XSF asking if you can do a sprint is a good first step

not sure either

We're not there yet

With this I mostly want to make noise saying we're doing things for the community

There often are local developer groups (at least, around here) that already have frequent meetups, often tied in with venues at organizations (think Java User Groups, stuff like that).

And have people know. it's not just isolated events that core members organize

Yeah, absolutely

In any case, I see there is not strong disagreement, I guess we can move this to the list

oh it all suddenly becomes blurry, I can't follow that conversation anymore...

I'm just saying that if you need to find a venue, calling up a local medium-sized tech company and explain who you are, what you want to do, and ask if they can host it, you'd probably get positive results.

Nÿco, daniel reacted to what Guus said, that the XSF should also encourage people to contact their local companies.

I see the sponsoring of food and drinks as a reward for doing something and making buzz on social media

ok, so it's orthogonal to the current agenda item, right?

It also shows the common developer that the xsf is there for them

Nÿco, yeah it's complementary

ok

daniel, agreed

ok, so we can also build a policy on that

No more agenda items.

5. AOB

POSS?

Anything SCAM should decide on for POSS?

Or can we talk about it after the meeting

yeah, who's joining? what do we plan to do?

There are lots of developers not tightly associated with the xsf ✏

why outside this meeting?

because SCAM people might not all be involved and we might want to take that to interested people, assuming there's not budget or anything else to be agreed on

I'll not be at POSS

daniel, are you going in the end?

(also, I'm running late for the next meeting 🙂 )

pep.: no

Nÿco, me, Link Mauve

Nÿco, ok we can talk about it afterwards then :)

Ok, other AOBs?

Guus > I'll not be at POSS can you say that instead of: I won't be at POSS ?

Ok, closing then

ok

Thanks all!

thx all!

thanks!

difficult start, but we made somthing out of it

the routine will refine, slowly but surely, if we are consistent and engaged

I'll send minutes soon

I'll not be I won't be Both short for "I will not be" I think. But i'm not a native speaker.

thx

And back fixing that moving setup..

Guus I had to confirm by email: Awaiting moderator approval You have successfully confirmed your subscription request to the mailing list SCAM, however final approval is required from the list moderator before you will be subscribed. Your request has been forwarded to the list moderator, and you will be notified of the moderator's decision.

Guus, thanks for organizing things for Brussels btw.

I was curious why the XSF always choose the Thon hotel.

What's special about it? I see it as a really expensive hotel

Not especially close to the venue

"le thon, c'est bon"

:)

:)

private joke for the French: it was a TV ad in the 70s https://www.ina.fr/video/PUB3212621118 means "thuna, it's good!"

Yeah that hotel is ridiculously expensive. Even for Brussels. For comparison the thon hotel (same chain) in the city center (equally not close to the venue is 20 or 30% cheaper). And even in the EU quarter I'm paying for a similar 4* business hotel (also some big chain) 30% less or so

Also I stayed at the other Thon hotel for a work trip recently and it didn't feel that special. So assuming the thon EU is similar I don't get it

People had money and were sponsored by companies that didn't care, I guess

I don't think that reflects the current situation

I missed the opportunity to join Thon EU, and when I phoned, the lady explained that we start on Wednesday night, when people are still massively working in this area, prices go down on Fridays also other Thons are cheaper

Yeah. I mean luckily I'm no longer in a situation where I have to pick the cheapest hotel in the red light district. But a) a 30% difference is still relevant for me b) we have people in our community who still live on a students budget

I live on no budget currently so yeah that'd be cool to be able to join the majority of the people without having to pay a fortune :)

(I mean, no income.)

> also other Thons are cheaper Yes that's what I said. Same hotel chain. Different (equally bad location for getting to Cisco). Lower price

some communities and companies use large houses (via Airbnb)

Having rented a large airbnb house recently that was a pain that I don't want to repeat. Also having breakfast served to you and stuff. I'm OK with hotels. Doesn't have to be a shoestring budget

I mean they share a large flat

But does it have to be the most expensive one?

agree

I mean personally I'm OK with making my own choices (I already booked a few weeks ago). But chosing the most expensive hotel creates a divide between those who bill their companies and those who don't

I'm not sure how we ended up with Thon EU. The biggest benefit is that we know what to expect there, I guess. I'm open to changes, but don't have the time now to look for suitable replacements.

Right now, I'm preparing dinner

I've not entered into an agreement with Thon yet, so if we want to change it, we can.

But afk now

I'll point to you the Thon I've been to, two-three years in a grow

Nÿco: the one close to Gare du Nord?

huh...

Thon Hotel Brussels City Centre

found it

I don't know

far from Brussel-Zuid

Nÿco: yes that's the one

ok

From what I can find, Thon EU was suggested by dwd

Before that, we were in the Aloft, relatively close by

That's where I stayed during said business trip recently

so this Thon was fine for me

I guess we can still find even cheaper, well let's say less expensive :)

The reason why we chose the EU area, was that it is in between the city centre and the ULB, and also relatively easy to get to from outside the city (and back out, for dinner, Cisco)

but Thon City Center is even further than Thon EU from Cisco and FOSDEM

And I think also because it is more likely we can park a van closeby

> I guess we can still find even cheaper, well let's say less expensive :) Well Brussels is expensive af. So finding something cheaper than _that_ thon is hard if you still want good quality

ok

you know better, I have too few experience with Brussels

I spent a little too much time researching this...

:/

My last work trip paid me a flat fee for travels so I had incentives to look for something cheaper but with decent quality

One of the criteria is bacon at breakfast, I hear. :-)

I don't mind getting my own breakfast fwiw, or no breakfast.

I am sure there are different needs between people

As long as I don't have to spend a fortune to get a place that is essentially to sleep

In any case I'll be publishing where I'll be staying (like I did in recent years) and then people can make their own choices and might join me

a decent internet connection is a much higher priority than bacon, but I don't want to upset our chair :)

with internet connection, you can watch Kevin Bacon movies...

Nÿco, board chair hasn't been voted yet

ah

future-former chair

But wait, there's 4G everywhere in Brussels. Don't tell me you rely in hotel WiFi?

pep. for clarity, until that vote, I remain Chair, so we still have one :-)

regarding me being upset, I love bacon, but it wasn't my requirement

k