Dear speaker,

Thank you again for agreeing to speak at Virtual FOSDEM 2021!

CHECKLIST
=========
- Check the schedule still shows what you expect
- If you didn't already:
  - Upload your video as soon as possible
    If you cannot do this by the end of Sunday 24th January you need to
    get in touch with us.
  - Order your complimentary T-shirt (voucher sent in separate email)
  - Upload a photo, biography and a logo for your talk.
- Look out for an email inviting you to the matrix platform that
  we are using for the event.
- Read carefully the new details about the platform in the second half
  of this message.
- Keep this message for reference!
 

SCHEDULE
========
Firstly, this is what the database thinks is your schedule:

.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| day        | time     | room    | state     | role    | title                                  |
+------------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------------------------------------+
| 2021-02-06 | 16:30:00 | D.infra | confirmed | speaker | Scaling Release Management with GitOps |
'------------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------------------------------------'

All times are Brussels local time - CET - UTC+1.

Please let us know immediately if the day or time needs to be changed.
If no day or time is shown, please arrange one urgently with your track
or devroom manager!  For standard presentations, you should be available
before the start time to make sure your connection is working and
afterwards for an extended discussion session.

If the status is 'unconfirmed' then please respond to confirm that
you will be able to take part.

Please check the links here carefully for events that are scheduled
and confirmed (others won't yet be valid):

.-----------------------------------------.
| links                                   |
+-----------------------------------------+
| https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/ |
'-----------------------------------------'

You can login and update the information at:
  https://fosdem.org/submit

If you have never logged in before or forgotten your password, go to
  https://penta.fosdem.org/user/forgot_password
to receive an email to set a new password by entering the username:
  abdennourtoumi


T-SHIRTS
========
A voucher for a T-shirt has been sent in a separate email from
treasure@fosdem.org.  If you haven't already ordered and still intend
to do so, please don't delay so that we can reach the threshold
required to place a second order sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately it might not be possible for our suppliers to ship to
every country - we will get in touch if this applies to you.  We are
also setting up shopfronts to sell T-shirts to attendees but due to
the complexities involved these are unlikely to be ready until at
least later next week.


PHOTO AND BIOGRAPHY
===================
Please upload a photograph of yourself if you have not already done so
and enter or update your biography.  You can use markdown formatting
within your abstracts and biographies, as described here:
  http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

Changes take a few minutes to reach the website (once the talk is
scheduled and the status is 'confirmed') - the time it was last updated
appears at the bottom of this page:
  https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/events/

NEW - You should also upload a small image to be displayed with your
talk both on the website and with the matrix chat room.  (For example,
if the talk is about a project, you might use the project logo.)


RECORDINGS
==========
As you'll already be aware, all presentations must be pre-recorded this
year.

Once your talk is scheduled, 'Upload' and 'Review' links will appear
(the words themselves are the links) when you view it at:
  https://fosdem.org/submit
Choose the event from the list and you'll see it lower down the page
on the General tab above the Room.
  https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM21/events
 
There is some guidance here:
  https://news.perlfoundation.org/post/fosdem_2021_speaker_guidance

Technical requirements:
    resolution: 1280x720
    frame rate: 25 fps
    video codec: h264 video codec, main profile
    video bitrate: <= 2Mbit/s
    audio codec: aac audio codec
    audio sample rate: 48 KHz mono
    audio bitrate: 128 Kbit/s
    media container: mp4

We recommend you make and upload a short test video first to check
it comes across OK.  (A simple way to make one is to record a free
online video conferencing session.)

So long as you don't use the button to confirm that the recording is
ready for us to use, you can do the upload again and replace it with
the real one - or a better one, if you don't like what you see.

For queries about videos, please ask your host or devroom manager or
use the video@fosdem.org contact address.


TIMING
======
Each session has two time fields.  The Duration is the amount of
time you will have in the live stream.  This is what is advertised
in the public schedule.  A second field gives the length of the
pre-recorded video, which must of course be shorter.  This field
is filled in automatically after your video has been processed.
The difference between the two times is what you have for live
broadcast Q&A.  (Some additional seconds will be lost for switchover.)
Extended "hallway" discussion afterwards is not included in those
times and will vary depending on who shows up and how long you are
willing to stay, but our rule of thumb is that we anticipate it
will last for as long as the original session.  (We believe it will
be one of the most important features of the event.)


POST-EVENT VIDEOS
=================
The live, broadcast, Q&A will be recorded and available to watch
from video.fosdem.org afterwards.  The extended "hallway" discussion
will not (though it is a technical impossibility to prevent someone
attending from recording it locally).

Note that recordings will be published under the same licence as all
FOSDEM content (CC-BY).  You are agreeing to this by taking part in the
event.


SLIDES
======
Any slide decks you present should be uploaded (into pentabarf) by about
half-an-hour before the start of your talk so that people watching the
live stream can follow them locally if their video resolution or
poor bandwidth leaves slide content indistinct.  (Our system does not
hold back publication, so if you don't want people to see them too far
in advance, don't upload them yet or leave the 'public' checkbox
un-ticked and tick it later.  You could also omit from the uploaded
version any surprises or answers you don't want to reveal in advance.)


THE MATRIX PLATFORM
===================
This year FOSDEM is going online using Matrix (https://matrix.org)
as the primary communication fabric to provide the social and
participatory aspects of the conference.

Matrix is an open communications protocol, providing IRC/Slack/Discord-
style chat over an open global network of servers.  Conversation
history is replicated over the servers of the participating users,
avoiding any single points of control or failure.  Matrix lets you
embed arbitrary web content (called 'widgets') into chatrooms, which
we're relying on heavily in FOSDEM in order to present the same view
of livestreams, video conferences, upvoted questions and schedules to
all participants.

This plan of action is still a work in progress and is subject to
change, but our current expectations are as follows:

What you need to do ahead of FOSDEM
-----------------------------------
Speakers should expect the following:

 * You will shortly be invited into the "backstage" room for your
devroom or track, so you can coordinate with the devroom organisers
and exchange tips with your fellow speakers.  For instance, the
backstage room for the Python devroom is
  #python-backstage:fosdem.org
  https://matrix.to/#/#python-backstage:fosdem.org

You will also be invited into the speakers support room
  #speakers:fosdem.org
  https://matrix.to/#/#speakers:fosdem.org ,
where we will be available to help with any problems.

 * This invitation will be an email titled "FOSDEM has invited you to
a room on Element", sent from noreply@element.io to the email address
you use on penta.fosdem.org (unless you already have a Matrix account
associated with that email address, in which case you will be invited
directly).

 * Element is the name of the Matrix client we're recommending for
FOSDEM, and the email contains a link which will set you up on Matrix
using the Element instance at https://chat.fosdem.org.

 * For FOSDEM, we recommend using Element as a webapp on desktop from
https://chat.fosdem.org, which contains tweaks specific to FOSDEM.

 * On mobile, you can get the native Android or iOS app from
https://element.io/get-started.  If you don't already have a Matrix
account, enter the server as fosdem.org (*not* chat.fosdem.org) to
sign up for an account on the FOSDEM server.

 * We do **not** recommend using the Electron desktop app for FOSDEM,
as it will lack the webapp customisations we've done for
chat.fosdem.org.

Having received the invite, please follow the above instructions and
join the backstage room for your track this week so you can get
familiar and comfortable with Element and Matrix plenty of time before
FOSDEM begins.

If you are failing to join Matrix successfully, please seek help in
  irc://irc.freenode.net/#fosdem
  #fosdem:fosdem.org   https://matrix.to/#/#fosdem:fosdem.org
or contact experience@fosdem.org.

What you need to know for FOSDEM itself
---------------------------------------
 * Each talk has a specific private chatroom in order to coordinate
between the speaker and their host.  You and your host will shortly be
invited into the room for your talk.

 * Each devroom/track and stand also has a public chatroom for the
audience (e.g.
  #python:fosdem.org
  https://matrix.to/#/#python:fosdem.org
for the Python dev room.

     * The public rooms will be bridged to IRC as
irc://irc.freenode.net/#fosdem-python (or equivalent), and also
available via XMPP as xmpp:#python#fosdem.org:matrix.org?join. 
The public rooms should also work well from other Matrix clients
(e.g.  weechat-matrix, nheko, FluffyChat, NeoChat, Quaternion, etc.)

     * The private rooms are unfortunately not bridged, as they depend
on widgets to work, and are unlikely to have a way to authenticate
widgets to bridged users yet before FOSDEM (and if we did, it'd amount
to running a mini-Matrix client just for widgets anyway)..

 * There are also a bunch of social and support rooms, visible on the
public room directory of the server (use the 'compass' icon on the top
left of Element Web's user interface), or from the welcome page on
chat.fosdem.org.

 * In the private talk room, you should be greeted by your host, who
will be organising the live question and answer questions at the end
of your talk.

 * If you don't join the private talk room well in advance of your
talk, you should expect to receive nagging emails until you do :)

 * When it's time for your talk to be broadcast to the devroom, you
should join the video conference embedded in the room to coordinate
with your host and watch the talk in the devroom together (as if you
were in the audience).  The audience (and you!) will be able to see
the recorded talk on the livestream embedded in the public devroom.

 * Shortly before the end of your recorded talk, the video
conference in your private talk room will be switched to broadcast to
the livestream, so that everyone in the devroom can see and hear the
host relay questions about the talk from the public devroom chat.  You
will be warned of this in advance in the chatroom.

 * Important: the livestream will lag the video conference by roughly
3-4 seconds (subject to network conditions causing client buffering).
Because of the lag on the broadcast you will go live *before* you
see the video reach its end and so you will not see the last seconds
of the video on the livestream.  (The broadcast lag for some viewers
chatting in the public devroom might be as much as 30 seconds.)

 * After the official Q&A session, once the next talk has begun, the
private talk room will automatically become open to the public (not
sharing prior chat history), letting the audience join to ask further
questions if they want - much as they might by grabbing you on the
side of the stage or in the hallway after a talk at FOSDEM proper.
They can join your video conference to ask questions, or do so via
chat, or just watch the subsequent questions via a 'local' livestream
(which will not be broadcast outside of that chatroom).

 * Your talk's room will then live on for as long as you like, as part
of the history of FOSDEM 2021 :)


For more context on how FOSDEM came to be running on Matrix this year,
please see:
  https://matrix.org/blog/2021/01/04/taking-fosdem-online-via-matrix.


Best wishes,

The FOSDEM Programme Team