Re: [Microkernel-devroom] Fwd: [FOSDEM] Devrooms for 2012
Hello all, [..taking this discussion to microkernel-devroom@lists.fosdem.org] thanks a lot to Jakub for arranging the devroom and for having invited our project. I'm excited about the prospect of getting in touch with you all and the chance to bring forward our common understanding of the participating projects. I am sure there are a lot of things we can learn from each other and possibly ways to work more closely together in the future. Maybe it would make sense to coordinate the traveling arrangements between the HelenOS develpers and us? We are located at Dresden, which is not far away from Prague. What do you think? Cheers Norman On 11/11/2011 04:59 PM, Martin Decky wrote:
Hi folks,
FYI, our `multiserver/microkernel` devroom has been accepted, waiting for more details to come.
That's great news! I believe we have some time to brainstorm/discuss what to do in the devroom in our respective groups now, but we should start to discuss some common lineup no later that in December. Mind that February 2012 is not so distant future and mind the Christmas :-)
Looking forward to our cooperation.
Regards
Martin Decky
Hi Norman,
[..taking this discussion to microkernel-devroom@lists.fosdem.org]
Acknowledged. I have already subscribed to the list as well.
I'm excited about the prospect of getting in touch with you all and the chance to bring forward our common understanding of the participating projects.
Yes, this is definitively going to be an important aspect. To get to know better the other kids on the block and learn from their good ideas (and mistakes, too :)). I am also excited about that.
Maybe it would make sense to coordinate the traveling arrangements between the HelenOS developers and us? We are located at Dresden, which is not far away from Prague. What do you think?
Good idea. AFAIK, there are no direct flights from Dresden to Brussels and Prague is probably the closest airport with non-stop connection to Brussels. Thus I can imagine that we meet in Prague. Moreover, we can even provide you with a free room to pass the night at Prague if you agree to have a talk at out department's seminar at our University. Don't worry, we simply have a budget to host foreign speakers at our seminar, so why not use it :-) Alternatively, we can go to Brussels by train and meet in Dresden. But the train trip does take some time and it is probably not much cheaper than the flight. Was perhaps this coordination on your mind? Anyway, let's take our time to think about the traveling arrangements, there are several ways how we can coordinate it. M.D.
Hello,
Good idea. AFAIK, there are no direct flights from Dresden to Brussels and Prague is probably the closest airport with non-stop connection to Brussels.
Thus I can imagine that we meet in Prague. Moreover, we can even provide you with a free room to pass the night at Prague if you agree to have a talk at out department's seminar at our University. Don't worry, we simply have a budget to host foreign speakers at our seminar, so why not use it :-)
That sounds intriguing to me! Thanks Martin for the kind offer. I'd be pleased to give a talk at your group.
Alternatively, we can go to Brussels by train and meet in Dresden. But the train trip does take some time and it is probably not much cheaper than the flight. Was perhaps this coordination on your mind?
Train tickets for long distances have become crazily expensive in Germany. I suspect that taking a flight from Prague will be cheaper when booked reasonably early. Has anyone of you have been to previous editions of FOSDEM and participated in a dev room? If yes, what are your experiences? Which kind of preparations would be worthwhile to take? Cheers Norman
On 14.11.2011 15:16, Norman Feske wrote:
Has anyone of you have been to previous editions of FOSDEM and participated in a dev room? If yes, what are your experiences? Which kind of preparations would be worthwhile to take?
From what is happening around, it looks like the devrooms are expected to send out their call for participation in some form. As of this writing, only one devroom has already done so via the fosdem mailing
This will be my first FOSDEM experience. I still need to figure out the inner workings of FOSDEM, so bear with me please. list. I feel like I am still missing some pieces of information or at least some guidance from the FOSDEM organizers about the exact where's and when's of our devroom. We already have representatives of all projects (i.e. MINIX 3, GNU Hurd, Genode and HelenOS) on this mailing list so we can at least start talking about how we would like to structure the devroom. My idea was quite simple (but I'd definitely like to hear from other people about their own ideas). I'd like to partition the devroom time into approximately the following segments (that themselves need to be further worked on and prepared): - short technical overview of each project so that the others who are not so familiar with it can quickly get the taste for the project in question (no marketing please :-) - technical talks / demo's prepared by members of individual projects (subject to devroom acceptqance?); this should be something rather technical, related to interesting features or problems of the respective projects - panel discussion about interesting topics of the day; the projects can put together their specific list (one or two items each) of what's hot in their world and bring it to the panel discussion (ideally preceded by some form of introduction if needed) - not sure if there will be any public, but if there is, we can have Q&A's session with the public - coding session; the developers prepare something small enough which can be put together in the timeframe of a couple hours; before the coding session starts, everyone has a chance to briefly say what he would like to do; would be interesting to see other projects at work and also meet and work with people from own project who we know only from over e-mail Ok, I will leave it there for now as this e-mail is getting too long. Looking forward to hearing what others think of this. Jakub
- panel discussion about interesting topics of the day; the projects can put together their specific list (one or two items each) of what's hot in their world and bring it to the panel discussion (ideally preceded by some form of introduction if needed)
- not sure if there will be any public, but if there is, we can have Q&A's session with the public
The presence of public really matters a lot here. If we do it without the public, we can probably focus on our technical topics in a great detail, but then again, what's the point of going to Brussels? On the other hand, with the public we would probably also have to talk about the differences between the monolithic (and currently dominating) OSes and microkernels. Possibly in a more abstract and not-so-technical way. But in the long run, explaining the general motivations behind our development efforts and our shared goals in public might be even more important than comparing our specifics. Even the coding session can be split into two halves: A hard-core hackaton for us and more introductory "classes" for the public which would demonstrate that you don't have to be a guru to understand an OS (if it is well written, that is :-)). M.D.
Hello, I like your suggestions and I agree with Martin that we should always try to ignite the interest of visitors that come by to look what is going on. If I image stumbling into a room of people working on crazy stuff that I'm not familiar with, I'd like to see two things: A way to quickly find out whether this room is of interest to me and worth to stay, and a hook to get somehow involved with the scene. I don't know exactly how to achieve both but one thing that I would find attractive is some toy to play with, e.g., a running microkernel-based OS, an interactive demo - something that is fun to explore. Maybe we could dedicate one corner of the room to get people hooked? For the technical parts geared more towards developers like ourself, I'm very interested in exploring the different technologies and learn about the people and motivations behind them. So the introductory talk for each project as suggested by Jakub makes much sense. In addition, I see many technical challenges that each of our projects more or less have to deal with. For example, I could imagine to give an informal talk about our experiences with using C++ as implementation language, in particular about the troubles we experienced and the benefits gained from this approach - things like replacing an IDL compiler by C++ templates. I would love to hear HelenOS' experiences with implementing a custom TCP/IP stack. What was the reason for this decision and has it paid off in hindsight? Also, I see that there is activity going on to get HelenOS self-hosting - a goal that Genode also pursues. However, I think the approaches taken are pretty different and I would appreciate getting insights into the respective developments. An ever-lasting topic is user-level device drivers. With Genode, we went a pretty long-winded route including the use of the DDE-approach, custom drivers, and device-driver OSes. Maybe these experiences are worth sharing? These are just four topics from the top of my head. I am sure that everyone of us has some story worth telling. :-)
- panel discussion about interesting topics of the day; the projects can put together their specific list (one or two items each) of what's hot in their world and bring it to the panel discussion (ideally preceded by some form of introduction if needed)
That is a very good idea and maybe also a chance to discuss ways to work more closely together in the future.
- not sure if there will be any public, but if there is, we can have Q&A's session with the public
I don't think there will be much public demand of a scheduled Q&A session. In my opinion, the topic is both too much of a niche (to most people, microkernel-based OSes are just obscure) and at the same time too broad.
- coding session; the developers prepare something small enough which can be put together in the timeframe of a couple hours; before the coding session starts, everyone has a chance to briefly say what he would like to do; would be interesting to see other projects at work and also meet and work with people from own project who we know only from over e-mail
Great idea! Cheers Norman
On 15.11.2011 22:30, Norman Feske wrote:
I like your suggestions and I agree with Martin that we should always try to ignite the interest of visitors that come by to look what is going on. If I image stumbling into a room of people working on crazy stuff that I'm not familiar with, I'd like to see two things: A way to quickly find out whether this room is of interest to me and worth to stay, and a hook to get somehow involved with the scene.
I don't know exactly how to achieve both but one thing that I would find attractive is some toy to play with, e.g., a running microkernel-based OS, an interactive demo - something that is fun to explore. Maybe we could dedicate one corner of the room to get people hooked?
At this point, it would be essential to hear from people on this list who have already attended one of the previous FOSDEMS and have a devroom experience, otherwise, I am afraid, we may start with wrong assumptions. If there is any public present - no problem. On the other hand, I was under the impression (and the original plan was) that this is going to be primarily the developers' meeting. I hoped to be able to do without the mandatory 'What is a microkernel' introductory talk and rather focus on the more technical stuff (which can also be of interest to any public, if present).
For example, I could imagine to give an informal talk about our experiences with using C++ as implementation language, in particular about the troubles we experienced and the benefits gained from this approach - things like replacing an IDL compiler by C++ templates.
Sounds interesting.
I would love to hear HelenOS' experiences with implementing a custom TCP/IP stack. What was the reason for this decision and has it paid off in hindsight?
We could talk about this too, perhaps wrap it together with some similar topics.
Also, I see that there is activity going on to get HelenOS self-hosting - a goal that Genode also pursues. However, I think the approaches taken are pretty different and I would appreciate getting insights into the respective developments.
Sure, why not.
An ever-lasting topic is user-level device drivers. With Genode, we went a pretty long-winded route including the use of the DDE-approach, custom drivers, and device-driver OSes. Maybe these experiences are worth sharing?
Definitely. We can communicate a rather different experience with developing our own device driver framework. Jakub
participants (3)
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Jakub Jermar -
Martin Decky -
Norman Feske