[loki at fosdem.org: FOSDEM 2010: Distribution Miniconf]

[Jeremiah Foster]

On Oct 23, 2009, at 20:35, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 10:01:38AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
>> Executive summary: there will not be a Developers' Room for Debian at
>> the next FOSDEM (nor for any other distribution, for that matter),  
>> but
>> instead there'll be a "distribution miniconf" that we'll be able to
>> participate in. They still need to flesh out the details on that one,
>> though, and input is requested.
>
> I, for once, think this is a bad idea, at least in the "extremist"  
> form
> (i.e. no devrooms at all) it has been presented. I surely agree that
> having only devroom was bad and that FOSDEM can push a lot for
> cross-distro collaboration this way. Nevertheless, devrooms were also
> offering an amazing service to distro, and the argument that distros
> have their conference anyhow is not convincing (Debian has one per  
> year,
> and alternate it around the world, having the additional devroom in a
> fixed place once per year was definitively a plus; other small distros
> do not have their own yearly conference, etc.).
>
> If I'm not the only one feeling that way, I think we can try to make a
> more reasonable proposal to the FOSDEM organizer: having the devroom
> *and* the cross-distro meeting room. That can be coped with a simple
> room: if you want a devroom for your own, you should participate in  
> the
> cross-distro room *as* *well* filling a number X of slots.

As someone who works with the maemo team I strongly agree that the  
current FOSDEM solution is sub-optimal. I would also like to see both  
the dev rooms and the distro rooms. Maybe that will take some of the  
pressure off the crowded dev rooms.

Jeremiah