Re: Contributor Summit planning

From: Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 14, 2018, 04:31 UTC
Message-ID: <CAP8UFD11BTfkw3pP_F9O5miRw2wtcE7Unnhj0DMEPwo+LW=Dhw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAGZ79kYMV0DCd89Pw3v4d48GyQN9iQzt=XZ9=aGswHFHWhas3g@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 7:46 PM, Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> wrote:

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> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:31 AM Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
>>
>> For the past several years, we've held a Git Contributor Summit as part
>> of the Git Merge conference. I'd like to get opinions from the community
>> to help plan future installments. Any feedback or opinion is welcome,
>> but some obvious things to think about:
>>
>>   - where, when, and how often?
>>
>>     Plans are shaping up to have Git Merge 2019 in Brussels right after
>>     FOSDEM in February (like it was two years ago), with a contributor
>>     summit attached.
>>
>>     Are there people who would be more likely to attend a contributor
>>     summit if it were held elsewhere (e.g., in North America, probably
>>     in the Bay Area)? Are people interested in attending a separate
>>     contributor summit not attached to the larger Git Merge (and if so,
>>     is there any other event it might be worth connecting it with,
>>     time-wise)?  Are people interested in going to two summits in a year
>>     (e.g., Brussels in February, and then maybe some in North America
>>     later in the year), or is that diminishing returns?
>
> We have been kicking around the thought of reviving the GitTogethers
> like back in the olden days (I only know them from hearsay), in
> Mountain View or Sunnyvale at the Google Campus, but we have not yet
> spent enough thought to make it so.

I think it would be great to have GitTogethers again around the time of the GSoC Mentor Summit like we did a long time ago!

> I think twice a year is fine for the community and has not reached the
> point of diminishing returns.

I agree.

> As most contributors are from North America (estimated), I would not
> mind a conference somewhere here.

Yeah, it looks like the Git Merge is most of the time in Europe, so it would be nice to have something in North America too.

> I'd be looking forward to Brussels next February!

Looking forward to it too! I think it is a great idea to have it around the time of the FOSDEM.

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>>   - format
>>
>>     For those who haven't attended before, it's basically 25-ish Git
>>     (and associated project) developers sitting in a room for a day
>>     chatting about the project. Topics go on a whiteboard in the
>>     morning, and then we discuss each for 30-60 minutes.
>>
>>     We could do multiple days (which might give more room for actually
>>     working collaboratively instead of just discussing). We could do
>>     something more formal (like actual talks). We could do something
>>     less formal (like an all-day spaghetti buffet, where conversation
>>     happens only between mouthfuls). The sky is the limit. Some of those
>>     ideas may be better than others.

If we have GitTogethers again, I think it would be nice indeed if we could do 2 days. For example maybe one day unconference and one day working collaboratively or discussing in smaller groups. 2 days instead of 1 would make it more valuable for developers based in Europe (and maybe in North America and elsewhere) to come.

> Personally I think the way is fine; we could collect topics in advance on
> the list to have a head start, but the whiteboard is totally fine, IMHO.

Yeah for the GitTogethers we used to collect topics in advance, but we still had a whiteboard and voted on them at the beginning of the actual GitTogether.

Thanks for starting this discussion.