- FOSDEM - lists.fosdem.org

encouraging diversity
by Daniel Pocock 30 Dec '15

30 Dec '15

It is all very well to talk about the Code of Conduct and negative situations, but what about approaching things from the other direction, creating positive situations? Does FOSDEM have any policies, resources or budget to actively encourage participation from people who are not white males, for example, to pay travel grants for female speakers? Does anybody keep track of any third-party sources of funding that could be helpful for bringing speakers and participants from groups that are under-represented? I've heard that Google offers some funding for example[1] and it would be good to encourage women to apply for this. Some other ideas that come to mind: - Offering some sort of public speaking seminar, aimed mainly at people from such groups who haven't had a lot of experience, on the Friday before FOSDEM. - Pairing first time speakers with an experienced mentor some time ahead of the event. - Offering some kind of reward to the dev-room that does the most to encourage diversity (e.g. giving the dev-room a guaranteed place or bigger room for 2017 or giving the dev-room managers input on a main-track selection in the following year) Regards, Daniel 1. https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/edu/scholarships/google-travel-and-confer…

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non-profit status, waiving visa fees
by Daniel Pocock 29 Dec '15

29 Dec '15

Apparently the visa fees are waived for people under 25 who travel to an event organised by a non-profit organisation Is FOSDEM incorporated as a non-profit entity and could this be added to the About page and also the FAQ info about visas? http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/china/travel_to_eu/visa/index_en.htm It says there is an exemption from the visa fee for "representatives of non-profit organisations aged 25 years or less participating in seminars, conferences, sports, cultural or educational events organised by non-profit organisations.".

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Re: [FOSDEM] contacts for organisational issues
by Kristoff 24 Dec '15

24 Dec '15

Daniel, The ham-radio info booth of 2015 was the result of the devroom gnuradio/software defined radio of 2014 where we had a number of people saying "concidering the audience for this devroom, why not try to promote ham-radio a little bit while we are there". So that is why we where in the building where that devroom was held. But, of course, as ham-radio is all about communication, signal-processing and with some homebrew electronics thrown in, you could probably link it to multiple devrooms at FOSDEM. But feel free to make a little bit of publicity for our infobooth / demonstrations in your corner of FOSDEM :-) Cheerio! Kr. Bonne. (or, in ham-radio speak) 73 kristoff - ON1ARF On 09-08-15 18:10, Daniel Pocock wrote: > On 09/08/15 17:39, Kristoff wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> >> The Belgian Amateur radio organisation (UBA) had a small infobooth at >> FOSDEM 2015 promoting ham-radio. For 2016, we like to expand this with >> some practicle demos and a permanent station. >> >> >> Concidering FOSDEM is an event with many thousands of visitors, there >> might be some practicle and safety issues we would like to discuss. >> Who in the FOSDEM organisation and/or the ULB can we contact for this? >> > Hi Kristoff, > > There has traditionally been a real-time lounge for real-time > communications technologies (VoIP, webcam, chat, etc) > > As both a developer of real-time technologies and a radio amateur myself > I feel there could be some value in having some of these things in > proximity to each other. I'm not sure if there is any formal mailing > list for co-ordinating the real-time lounge, there are usually some > private emails about this between a few of the developers from the > relevant projects. > > I realize this doesn't answer all of your question though - hopefully > one of the FOSDEM team will get back to you about the issues you raise. > > Regards, > > Daniel > >

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Improve main picture on website for use in social media
by Pander 23 Dec '15

23 Dec '15

Hi all, Could the website offer a nice main image for usage in social media? If you share a link to http://fosdem.org/2016 on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and so on, the map of the campus is being shown as image, which is not the most representable image for the event. It is possible to indicate in the website (hidden or not) which picture/logo should be picked up by social media when sharing the link of the site. Could someone have a go at improving this? Thanks, Pander

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Virt & IaaS devroom schedule published
by Mikey Ariel 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

I am happy to announce that the schedule for the Virtualization & Infrastructure-as-a-Service devroom at FOSDEM 2016 is finalized and published. Link to the detailed announcement and call for volunteers: http://community.redhat.com/blog/2015/12/fosdem16-virt-iaas-devroom-schedul… Cheers, Mikey -- Mikey Ariel Community Lead, oVirt www.ovirt.org "To be is to do" (Socrates) "To do is to be" (Jean-Paul Sartre) "Do be do be do" (Frank Sinatra) Mobile: +420-702-131-141 IRC: mariel / thatdocslady Twitter: @ThatDocsLady

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Re: [FOSDEM] visas and invitation letters, trains
by Daniel Pocock 21 Dec '15

21 Dec '15

On 21/12/15 20:06, Benny Siegert wrote: > FWIW, there is no direct train from Zurich to Brussels anymore. You have > to change trains at Basel or Paris; the latter involves taking a Metro > from Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord. I caught that train to FOSDEM once, sorry for misinforming people now that it appears to be gone. The change in Basel is definitely a lot easier than the change in Paris, there is also City Night Line (sleeper train) with a change in Frankfurt. Regards, Daniel

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visas and invitation letters
by Daniel Pocock 21 Dec '15

21 Dec '15

Can anybody comment on the visas and invitation letters for people who need such things? I hate having to waste time on such things instead of doing real development work but I've had some contact from developers in our community who need this assistance and there is a lot of pressure to do it quickly so they can make flight reservations before the prices shoot up. I found an old FOSDEM FAQ that says FOSDEM only provides the letters for main track speakers and that other participating organizations should provide the letters for any other guests. Is that still the case? Searching further, I found Belgium's embassies all publish slightly different guidance on this and obviously not all of it is in English, some is in Belgian languages or local languages served by the embassies. Some refer to a requirement for a guarantor who is resident in Belgium. Does that mean invitation letters also have to come from organizations with an address in Belgium? Are there any other free software organizations with addresses in Belgium who will do such letters? Does every invitation letter have to be a letter of guarantee as well, or can invitation letters be issued without specifying any guarantor? What exactly needs to be in the invitation letters? Could anybody from FOSDEM provide a template that other organizations could use to make up letters? Could this even be done on a self-serve basis with a web-form in future?

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Minix 3 conference in Amsterdam taking place subsequently to FOSDEM
by Andreas Kupfer 09 Dec '15

09 Dec '15

Hi everyone, there will be a Minix 3 conference in Amsterdam on the Monday after FOSDEM *Date, Time, and Location Monday, 1 February 2016 from 09:00 to 18:00 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (about 4 km southwest of Central Station) Details on: http://www.minix3.org/conference/2016 -- The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god). -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

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Reminder: Virt & IaaS devroom CFP ends tomorrow, Dec. 8
by Mikey Ariel 07 Dec '15

07 Dec '15

I'd like to remind all that the extended CFP for the Virtualization & Infrastructure-as-a-Service devroom at FOSDEM 2016 ends tomorrow. If you're still on the fence or working on a draft proposal, now is the time to take the leap and join us! Please review the original CFP announcement[1] for submission guidelines, speaker mentoring program information, and important dates. Feel free to email the devroom mailing list iaas-virt-devroom at lists.fosdem.org if you have any questions. See you in Brussels! [1] http://community.redhat.com/blog/2015/10/call-for-proposals-fosdem16-virtua… -- Mikey Ariel Community Lead, oVirt www.ovirt.org "To be is to do" (Socrates) "To do is to be" (Jean-Paul Sartre) "Do be do be do" (Frank Sinatra) Mobile: +420-702-131-141 IRC: mariel / thatdocslady Twitter: @ThatDocsLady

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Reminder: Microkernel-devroom CfP deadline is on this Sunday
by Jakub Jermar 07 Dec '15

07 Dec '15

Hi folks, the CfP deadline for the Microkernel devroom at FOSDEM 2016 is due this Sunday. See the original CfP [1] for information on what to do if you would like to give a talk about some microkernel-related topic. At the same time, I would like to encourage you to submit a talk proposal. It would be shame not to let the wider microkernel community know about the latest and greatest developments in your project. Lastly, please forward this reminder to whoever you think may want to give a talk in the devroom and is not among the recipients of this message. Thanks, Jakub [1] http://trac.helenos.org/wiki/Devroom2016

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