FOSDEM 2017 - Distributions Devroom Call for Participation (new deadline)

The Distributions devroom will take place 4 February, 2017 at FOSDEM, in room K.4.601 at Université Libre de Bruxelles, in Brussels, Belgium.

Distributions are more than just hosted collections of software from various upstreams. Each distribution is responsible for problem-solving in building, testing, and releasing software as well as managing the lifecycle of each application in the collection. Additionally, distributions do very important work in ensuring that various versions of upstream software work well together and can co-exist. Distribution are also, often responsible, for “de-vendoring” upstream software so that security fixes can be applied more quickly.

We welcome submissions targeted at contributors interested in issues unique to distributions, especially in the following topics:

  • Managing Build/Test/Release processes around shared ideas and resources

  • Lifecycle management, especially in the areas of sandboxing, containerization, vendoring, and bundling

  • Distribution construction tools and infrastructure development and implementation (building, signing, testing, distribution, etc.)

  • Cross-distribution collaboration on common issues, eg: content distribution, infrastructure, and documentation

  • Working with vendors and including them in the community

  • Building trust and code relationships with the upstream components of a distribution and between distributions

  • The future of distributions, emerging trends and evolving user demands from the idea of a platform

  • The place of distributions in today’s world (including concepts of containerization, IoT, etc.)

  • Onboarding new users and mentorship, facilitating technical growth within the contributor base

  • Solving traditional problems like package management, and content management (eg. rpm/dpkg/ostree/coreos )

  • Integration technologies like installers, deployment facilitation (eg. cloud contextualisation )

  • Principals of Rolling Releases, Long Term Supported Releases (LTS), Feature gated releases, and calendar releases

Ideal submissions are actionable and opinionated. Submissions may be in the form of 25 or 50 minute talks, panel sessions, round-table discussions, or Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions.

Due to popular demand, We are extending the CFP for the Distributions Devroom until Friday 02-December-2016. We plan to maintain the rest of the schedule (e.g. notification dates) as-is. We look forward to your submissions.

Revised Dates

Submission Deadline: 02-Dec-2016 Acceptance Notification: 5-Dec-2016 Final Schedule Posted: 11-Dec-2016

How to submit

Visit https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM17

1.) If you do not have an account, create one here 2.) Click ‘Create Event’ 3.) Enter your presentation details 4.) Be sure to select the Distributions Devroom track! 5.) Submit

What to include

  • The title of your submission
  • A 1-paragraph Abstract
  • A longer description including the benefit of your talk to your target audience, including a definition of your target audience.
  • Approximate length / type of submission (talk, BoF, …)
  • Links to related websites/blogs/talk material (if any)

Administrative Notes

We will be live-streaming and recording the Distributions Devroom. Presenting at FOSDEM implies permission to record your session and distribute the recording afterwards. All videos will be made available under the standard FOSDEM content license (CC-BY).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the devroom organizers: [email protected] (https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/distributions-devroom)

Cheers!

Brian Exelbierd (twitter: @bexelbie) and Brian Stinson (twitter: @bstinsonmhk) for and on behalf of The Distributions Devroom Program Committee