[Open-source-gamedev-devroom] "Call for Speakers" draft

[Arthur Huillet]

Hello everyone,

thank you Nils for taking the time to set up a devroom. FOSDEM has been missing
game-related talks for years and it was time someone did something about it! :)


On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 12:00:17 +0100 Nils Kneuper <crazy-ivanovic at gmx.net> wrote:

> add/remove some topics). Personally I am not 100% sure how long each slot
> should be, personally I'd say either 55min + 5min break or 25min + 5min break,
> but this will be a question for the call for speakers, too.

Alistair's suggestion of 45mn + 15mn break worries me for a simple reason: it
allows too much time where nothing happens. Visitors walking by the room will
statistically see it "unused" for 25% of the time and I think it's not a good
situation to make them want to join.
Besides, the room is in building AW1. which if I remember correctly is located
across the "street" from the main building, in other words not the most crowded
location - I strongly suggest that we do not make the room look like a place
where people chat and nothing happens.

Naturally the organizer needs to be very strict about the timeline, like they
do for lightning talks where you get thrown out if you exceed your talking time
by half a second.

My suggestion is that speakers shall try to aim for 40 or 45mn + 10mn demo +
5mn break (which does enable some "networking" to take place).

> At FOSDEM2012 there will be a devroom centered on the development of Open
> Source Games. For this room we are currently looking for speakers and possible
> topics. The game development devroom takes place on Sunday, February 5th,
> 09:00 - 17:00 in room AW1.120 (74 seats).

FOSDEM2012 will be host to a devroom [...]
Possible speakers (and topic suggestions) are invited to make their proposals.

> The talks should, if possible, not just be a presentation of a single game project
> (though you can and should of course mention the project that you work with as
> well as what the project is about). Since FOSDEM is a conference centered on
> technical topics it makes sense to present problems and their solutions which
> might be relevant for other projects, too. 

I think I understand what you're trying to say here, but the wording is quite
strange in my opinion. As far as I am concerned I am 100% qualified to talk
about FreedroidRPG, but I'm not a teacher of open source video game
programming, and I suspect this kind of statement is going to make speakers
uncomfortable.

"FOSDEM is a conference centered on technical topics, as a result, the talks
ought to cover technical issues that are relevant to open source game
programming. Speakers are encouraged to draw on their own experience as game
developers in order to convey a message that is of interest to the game
development community as a whole."

(Ì don't love it honestly - the word "developer" seems to exclude quite a few
people, and it sounds like "general interest or nothing at all" and this isn't
really what we want I suspect. My idea is that people *are* going to talk about
their project, but in a manner that makes it possible for others to gather
ideas and a better understanding of what are the successful methods for game
development.)

> The sessions are not limited to just holding a talk. If you have an idea for e.g. doing a short competition or
> a discussion round, this can also be a session.

Err... for a first devroom, I guess things should be standard. :)
Nothing prevents us from officially setting up a meeting in a
bar/restaurant/street later in the day or at noon.

> - - Their name
> - - The project they are associated with
> - - A (short) bio, to be put on the website along with their speaker name
> - - (optionally) a picture of themselves
> - - The title of their session (which will go on the website and in the
> booklet)
> - - A (short) abstract describing the session in further detail.
> - - The desired approximate duration for the session.
> - - The desired timeslot in which they want to hold the session.

What are the criteria to ensure that the project is relevant? I hate speaking
of it this way but there are quite a lot of game projects out there (about one
per free software developer, give or take), and most of the not-so-successful
ones may not have a lot to say. If you don't specify *something*, you're going
to make arbitrary decisions which will lead to a lot of hurt feelings.
Not that I can suggest anything, however. :)

> Suggested times for the duration are 55min or 25min. The last point is
> intended to prevent conflicts from happening. Conflicts with other devrooms
> for people holding sessions in more than one devroom.

I don't understand the last two sentences.

> So much about the draft for the "Call for Speakers". Please provide me with
> feedback regarding content as well as wording. I plan to ask the fosdem people
> to publish this call for speakers in some days and I plan to also publish it
> in the Wesnoth boards. It would be great if you could also create a news about
> this in your respective communities to spread the word.

I'm taking this opportunity to state again my utmost interest about your
initiative, and indicate that I will be making a talk proposal pertaining to
FreedroidRPG.
I haven't yet picked what an interesting topic would be - perhaps simply
presenting our development process (though this can be controversial), or
covering topics such as OpenGL debugging and performance improvements, or some
of the latest things our Summer of Code students did that can interest a lot of
people.

Thanks
-- 
Greetings, 
A. Huillet