Re: Virtual conferences and hackfests to replace physical events?

["Alex G.S." <alxgrtnstrngl gmail com>]

Hackfests and summits are where a lot of our progress gets made.

Okay, so do you have any recommendations on how additional virtual events could be added that complement these physical events?

Please don't take this the wrong way I'm just trying to maximize participation opportunities and make it easier to attend. For example it's impossible for me to attend any events due to scheduling and such.  So I can only imagine that I'm not alone and that this problem exists for others.

On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 11:43 AM, Matthias Clasen <matthias clasen gmail com> wrote:

>
> There should only be a single physical conference, GUADEC most likely, that
> is held every single year.  But all other events should be virtual and
> online. Engagement should get together and get a list of current events and
> hackfest and begin the process of converting them to virtual events.
>
> Let me know what the team thinks...
>

I couldn't disagree more.

Hackfests and summits are where a lot of our progress gets made.
Getting enough interested people out of their daily routing and in a
room together for one, two or three days enables the high-bandwidth
communication that is needed to reach consensus around designs and
direction. It also just plain fun, and keeps us together as a
community of friends and not just a group of software developers who
happen to work on the same piece of software.

With my GTK+ maintainer hat on, the hackfest in Cambridge in April
2013 is almost solely responsible for the toolkit improvements in the
last year.

I do agree with is that we should strive to lower the barriers to
online participation in development; a large part of that is just
communication - publishing roadmaps,
replying timely and constructively in bugzilla, reviewing patches,
etc. But as much as we all like to think of ourselves as digital
creatures, abandoning physical get-togethers is not going to help.

Matthias