[LGM] LGM 2021 Process

[Frank Trampe]

Thanks, Pathum. That seems to me to answer the questions in play. Let's
wait a few more days to see if there are any more. If not, I'll propose a
vote to accept the hosting proposal.


On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 10:00 AM Pathum Egodawatta <pathum at mooniak.com>
wrote:

> Hey everybody,
>
> We are very excited about moving our proposal forward. Even if you do not
> have any questions or concerns, please let us know here if you support this
> proposal to hold LGM in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
>
> Since we did not see any public comments on the list regarding our 2021
> proposal from Sri Lanka <https://hackmd.io/m4nzIvaPTpmWB-LT64GJSA> we
> thought we will address some of the considerations raised at the
> organisational meeting on 30th May 2019 at LGM - Saarbrücken, notes here
> <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libre-graphics-meeting/2019-June/002496.html>.
> One of the reasons that we withdrew our proposal from 2020 is that we need
> a two year timeframe to work on organising the community here in SL and the
> region. We look at LGM 2021 in SL as an opportunity for LGM to go ‘Global’
> and an opportunity for us to organise the community in Sri Lanka and
> promote free culture and FLOSS in creative fields.
>
> *1. Familiarity of the organisers *
>
> >  It is very much in our interest to approve a 2021 proposal in the near
> future so as to let the team start planning and to work alongside the 2020
> team for practice
> > It is important that anybody hosting LGM be familiar with it and know
> people in the community to facilitate communication in both directions.
> Several people want to be assured that the prospective 2021 team have at
> least one representative at the 2020 event.
>
> I will shadow the 2020 team and also plan to attend the conference in
> Rennes. Unless there is a visa issue I will be there.
>
> To give some background, the two main communities that will be part of the
> local team are Hanthana Linux <http://hanthana.org/> community and Akuru
> Collective <https://akuru.space/>. The both communities have relevant
> experience and expertise. Hanthana Linux project which celebrates 10 years
> in 2019 has experience in community organising, running free software
> projects and training for both community and the government officials,
> specially in the education sector. Akuru Collective which is relatively
> young has organised two international type design and typography
> conferences and has a good team. One of the first activities of Akuru
> Collective was Sinhala Typography Design Competition
> <https://github.com/akuru/akuru.github.io/blob/1d3d61cd1ce0a25fe7b9df52315e6bcb6ab2007c/index.md> which
> only accepted work done with Free software. We gave out 10 tickets to
> Typoday 2016 conference to winners. And we have worked with the hosts,
> Faculty of Architecture Research Unit and the Department of Integrated
> Design, University of Moratuwa very closely on two conferences already.
> Department of Integrated Design has asked us work on a workshop programme
> for the students. We planned this
> <https://hackmd.io/OqxY5DM8TyevcXvSWucVxg?both> for last year and we can
> pick it up when we have confirmation.
>
> However do I am the only person who has attended a LGM before (LGM 2016 in
> London, I did a lighting talk on language support
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWSwgtdKiNQ>:) in the local team.  I
> usually follow the discussions on the LGM list, even though I have not
> contributed much in the discussions. The other two members of the local
> team have experience in working in and with free software and mobilising
> communities and running events at both local and international scale. I am
> confident that we understand the expectations of LGM and can cater to them.
> Danishaka <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Snavin> and Lohan
> <https://lohangunaweera.tk/> both represent the Hanthana Linux project.
>
> *2. Low turnout from the regulars*
>
> >  Turn-out in general matters, but turn-out among people on existing
> teams is also important, as a large part of the purpose of the meeting is
> to coordinate the activities of project teams.
> >   Due to travel cost, unless our fundraising continues apace, some
> people who come to LGM when it is in Europe would almost certainly not go
> to Sri Lanka.
> >   Others may have other concerns that would keep them from going.
>
> As ’large part of the purpose of the meeting is to coordinate the
> activities of project teams’ it is important to do everything to facilitate
> the attendance of project teams. However it really doesn’t make sense to
> fly all the way here when most of the project teams are based in Europe.
> Can we justify burning precious funds to come all the way here to Sri
> Lanka? Local team can do a few things to add value for a project team
> flying down here.
>
> 1. Regionally important and relevant extra events
>      - Translation hackathons
>      -  Hackathons specially focused on text layout support for South
> Asian scripts.
>         We hope to reach out and promote the event in India and other
> regional communities. This might be a good opportunity for project teams to
> meet different group of users.
>     -  User meetings
>
> *SIDENOTE*: Also we are discuss facilitating usual pre-conf and post-conf
> hackathons next to the beaches in Down South Sri Lanka :) Get in touch with
> us if you are interested in planning. There is a strong FOSS presence in
> the education sector in the Southern Sri Lanka. Hanthana Linux has its
> roots in the South. We held our first outreach programme last week; a two
> day workshop on ‘Art and Design with Free Software’ for 30 high school
> teachers (ICT and Graphic Design subjects) of the Southern Province. Here
> <https://hackmd.io/eIGY87OuQO-Mf0ZnAmGjsg> are some pics and notes. They
> will start teaching GIMP and Inkscape instead of proprietary tools. I will
> write a bit more on this below.
>
> 2. Potential contributors, collaborators and GSoC contributors
> Sri Lanka has been in the top 10 countries in highest number of GSoC
> contributors
> <http://digit.lk/sri-lanka-tops-list-at-google-summer-of-code-for-7th-consecutive-year/>
>  for many years
> <https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/06/google-summer-of-code-2017-statistics.html> and
> the prospective host of LGM 2021, University of Moratuwa has had the
> highest number of applicants in 2008
> <https://foss.lk/blog/university-of-moratuwa-tops-google-list-of-summer-of-code-programmers/>
> .
> Well, this is not necessarily an indication of anything greater. We will
> promote contributing to Libre Graphics projects as part of our outreach
> plan in the universities and hope we can work on getting a few contributors
> to
> participating projects. I guess, statistically it makes sense to come here
> if you are looking for contributors ;)  I am not going to go into detail
> about potential in India and the wider region. Im thinking about projects
> like Pratham Books <https://storyweaver.org.in/>,
>
> 3. Help with any travel and sightseeing plans;
> If you are the traveling type, we can help to arrange travel and
> sightseeing plans here in SL if you get in touch with us in advance. If you
> travel all the way here a few extra days travelling would be nice.
> Sri Lanka was ranked top country to travel in 2019 by the Lonely Planet
> <https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/oct/23/sri-lanka-ranked-top-country-for-travel-in-2019-by-lonely-planet>,
> if you care about rankings and such :)
>
> If you are planning on coming to Sri Lanka and have any concerns you can
> get in touch with me. There’s a lot to do in Sri Lanka if you are
> interested in spending some extra time to make the most out of your trip.
>
> >  On the other hand, all present agreed that it was acceptable to make
> some sacrifices with regard to attendance by regulars if proportional to
> the engagement opportunities provided by venturing outside our traditional
> realm.
> >  We all want the event to be truly global and want to find a way to
> involve people from around the world.
>
> Yes! So the our local team with the global orgnisers should work towards
> making sure that we exploit all the opportunities so we outweigh the cons.
>
> This significant departure from traditional realm means a few things;
> - Usual timelines has to be adjusted to allow ample time for planning
> - Composition of the audience will change (developers:users proportion
> mostly)
> - Being truly global means localising (structurally) the event to some
> extent ( ie: the usual Free Culture Aware Educators Meeting could be an
> introductory workshop for educators)
> - It will be expensive (concerning the reimbursements)
> - There are cultural differences, obviously
> - We can use the knowledge and lessons from this to do future global
> events down the line
>
>
> *The opportunities we see in hosting LGM in this part of the world;*
>
> i. Opportunity to meet users neglected by the commercial graphics software
>    - Most of Sri Lankan and Indian publishing industry still use
> non-Unicode system because of bad language support and stuck with licensed
> older versions of popular proprietary apps because of the expensive
> subscription models.
>    -  Even the industry can not afford proprietary licensing (There are
> few major banks using LibreOffice)
>    - Graphic design was introduced to highest school syllabus last year.
> GIMP is also in the syllabus :)
> ii. Opportunity to work on improving complex script support in projects
> iii. Opportunity to meet participants from a different geographical area,
> culture and background
> iv. Meet with current collaborators, contributors in the region and meet
> potential new collaborators
>
> We think a loose theme with idea of ‘Going global’ for the event would be
> interesting. This will open up an opportunity to curate some talks and
> presentations on
> taking Libre Graphics and Free Culture global. And also focus on
> supporting global writing systems in projects.
>
> *Target audiences are the following; *
>
> 1. International: project teams, contributors
> 2. Regional (SA and SEA): FOSS initiatives, users, GSOC contributors
> 3. Local: FOSS initiatives, users, teachers, GSOC contributors
>
> I thought How to get contributors to your Free/Libre/Open Source project
> from Vietnam and Asia
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bYxP_IvB0g&list=PLe-w9p--aJKt_71MyUwDSh2hRfCogBy5B&index=13> from
> LGM 2010 is relevant to what I wrote here.
>
> As of now, we have the following planned;
>
> ACTIONS
> - Sign an MoU with the University once we get go ahead from the LGM Global
> - Grow the local organisational team
> - Contacting LGM project teams directly to preliminary confirmations on
> attendance
> - Build a list potential projects and people in the region who can
> present/ participate
> - Build a list of people in the region who contributed to LGM member
> projects
>
> 2019
> - Workshops at major design universities
> - Continue teacher training programmes around the country (Primarily GIMP
> and Inkscape, with other projects)
> - Hanthana Linux 10 year anniversary event (September 2019)
> - A design competition (We would love to work with projects teams on this
> :)
>
> 2020
> - Mentor at-least 10 potential presenters to prepare projects and
> proposals from Sri Lanka
> - A Libre Graphics event on Software Freedom Day
> - 30 Days of Akuru <https://www.instagram.com/30daysakuru/> with Libre
> Graphics Tools
>
> We have specific questions about responsibilities of the local team and
> the global team; that is a discussion that already happening on another
> thread.
> We hope that this proposal will move forward and this info is sufficient
> at this level to evaluate.
>
> Hope to hear your comments!  And hopefully you are excited to visit bright
> and sunny Sri Lanka for LGM in 2021 :)
>
> Regards from Colombo,
> Pathum
>
> *෴*
>
> *Pathum Egodawatta*
> Type Designer, Font Engineer and Researcher
> MA Typeface Design (UK), BA (Hons) Graphic Design (LK)
> *website* <https://pathumego.github.io/> | *twitter
> <https://twitter.com/pathumego>  | *pathum at moonaik.com
>
> Co-founder and Design Director,
> Mooniak - a font and and editorial design studio in Colombo
> mooniak.com  <http://mooniak.com/>/ hello at moooniak.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Jun 2019 at 18:43, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:
>
>> On 6/6/19 5:36 AM, Pathum Egodawatta wrote:
>> > This is all really good news and we are excited! Thanks Frank for
>> reporting back!
>> > We have nothing to add at this point. Colombo team is on the list and
>> looking forward to your questions and requests.
>> >
>> > We have a meeting this week and will respond in detail.
>> >
>>
>> Hi Pathum,
>>
>> One thing I wanted to make sure that was understood about the 2021 site
>> selection is that there was strong feeling that whoever is selected for LGM
>> 2021 should become involved in the process of preparation for LGM 2020, so
>> that they can learn as many details as possible about the requirements and
>> challenges of hosting an LGM. Ideally, someone should attend LGM 2020 to
>> become familiar with how LGM is organized and carried out, in particular
>> the space and technical requirements.
>>
>> Greg
>>
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>
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