Is there interest in Fedora-related fringe event for FrOSCon Aug 5-6, 2023?

Project Discussion
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Hi, all,

I’d like to gauge the interest of the Fedora-related event around the FrOSCon this year (2023).

Event Overview

FrOSCon (Free and Open Source Software Conference) is a yearly event which is scheduled for 5-6 August this year at the University of Applied Science Bonn-Rhein-Sieg near Bonn (in Germany).

The organizers often describe it as a “smaller and warmer version of FOSDEM” for several reasons:

  1. It is smaller and happens in summer,
  2. it is organized at the university,
  3. there are multiple parallel tracks for talks on variety of FOSS topics,
  4. there is an area for booths for Open Source projects,
  5. there are food trucks and outdoor grill & beer after-party

Additionally, it is also a very kids friendly event with some kids participating and giving talks about their FOSS contributions and some just playing in the game room.

The talks and booth work both happen in German OR English. While I still not really able to talk in German freely, I had no troubles communicating with people at the event.

You can see the last year’s recordings at Index of /events/froscon/2022/

Here is also a couple of photos (the participation last year was much smaller than usual, for obvious reasons)

fedora-booth
fedora-booth1243×932 268 KB

froscon after-party
froscon after-party1243×932 418 KB

Location

While “University of Applied Science Bonn-Rhein-Sieg” may sound unfamiliar to you, the place is located 20 minutes by a local tram (not train) from the Bonn Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). Which means it has easy access to long distance trains and to the Köln/Bonn (CGN) and Düsseldorf (DUS) international airports. And Bonn city center provides plenty of accommodations for different tastes.

(There is also a nice and easy bicycle path along that tram line, by the way)

Idea

We had nice booth presence with four Fedora Ambassadors this year but we would like to get more Fedora contributors coming to the event. For example there were questions and interest about collaboration on CoreOS side which we couldn’t cover.

Thus we were thinking of how we can possibly make the event better known and more interesting for the Fedora crowd.

Obviously, we can do better with the promotion of the event, announcing it on fedora-devel for example. But I was thinking that we maybe also should consider having some Fedora-related action on Friday. Basically the same way as CentOS Connect happens right before FOSDEM.

The Ask

If you reached the end of that long story, I have some requests:

  1. if you are interested in visiting FrOSCon this year, you can vote on this post with :white_check_mark: Note that I may use that info to add you to a CC list for the future communications.

  2. If you have ideas for what will make you more likely to come to the event - write a comment.

  3. If you just have an idea for an activity you would like to do the day before the event - write a comment as well. Brainstorm a topic, give a talk, run a hackaton, have a beer…

So far since we know very little about possible audience, I am considering doing something social rather than technical, like going to a Drachenfels castle, which is also easily accessible via a local tram. With a note that we may discuss latest Fedora Changes on our way down from there. (Talking on the way up is a bit harder to do…)

CC @py0xc3 @lupinix @andilinux and @raphgro who were organizing the booth last year.

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Hi,
I assume atm that I will be in Bonn in August so that I can join. I still have the remaining swag from last year. Maybe it makes sense to use the opportunity to find someone to take it after the next FrOSCon (given the possibility that I move out of the area), just in case that we will have swag left then :wink:

Feel free to add me CC :white_check_mark:. At the moment I have a full schedule but after May I can help organize things, especially if something is necessary to be done in the area.

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That might end up overlapping with Flock…

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If y’all want to fly me out, I’d probably be happy to go (especially as someone who is in higher ed, works with containers, etc). My passport is in process of renewal right now. I’m fairly certain you might find others who are closer and would incur less travel costs, but if not, let me know. :grinning:

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That’s one of the reasons I wanted to start this conversation early.

It it overlaps it will be unfortunate, but if it will end up being two consequent weekends - it may be an opportunity.

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I just received a mail from the froscon organizers:

Please register before June, 11th 2023 to give us enough time to organize your project’s participation. We’ll get back to you shortly after.

I could do the registration if we want to participate.

Even if taking place during Flock, I guess the FrOSCon is more interesting for those who are not able to travel to Ireland. I don’t think these two are in competition.

The question is only if we have sufficient people who know already before the deadline about their participation.

I have myself not yet excluded to join in Cork because there is a possibility that I will be in UK nearby anyway. But I still expect that FrOSCon is more likely.

Do we have people who already know that they would join at FrOSCon?

The marketing material, swag, … will be no problem. I will find a way to get it there.

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Still one week left for CfP of FrOSCon. I’m definitely interested to join Fedora booth in St.Augustin again if we plan and register to do so.

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The last minute is to become a FrOSCon tradition :smiley:

However, I still cannot guarantee if I will participate. Also, at the moment, I cannot invest much time. So someone else would need to handle the pre-event tasks (including the registration within this week).

But I could definitely find a way to get the remaining swag stuff to there. So no worries about that.

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@py0xc3 Thanks for fast reply. Well, let’s see if there’s some more interest in booth participation. A single person (maybe me only) is definitely too few staff to run that optional booth.
Yes, swag could be placed somewhere in prior to get catched.

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@py0xc3 Could you provide some swag from last year as suggested? Booth does not work for this year, unfortunately. Though and propably @lupinix and me are going to join the event, partly for Fedora.

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@raphgro you might review my post from last week here:

So we will have the swag at FrOSCon available. You can get some and distribute it at your own discretion. But I guess we are close to the point where we have more plans than swag :smiley: So the amount everyone can get/distribute will be limited.

I hope to see you there :wink:

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Thanks for information. Well we could try to organize a table to have some space for swag officially there unattended. Let’s have a great event.
Btw. Flock is dated before FrOSCon so that may explain few really interested people of Red Hat.

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Though there’ll be no official Fedora booth, I filed request for another badge anyways.
https://pagure.io/fedora-badges/issue/914

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@jbley @ludwigd @bachenberg you might add yourself as well if you want to have badges :wink:

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