Organising Guix Days

Organising Guix Days

[Julien Lepiller]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2277 bytes --]

Hi Guix!

I think it's time to start organising the Guix Days, traditionally held
around Fosdem.

During our guix-europe assembly, we discussed some options and everyone
agreed they wanted a two-day event, online just as Fosdem. I attached a
proposed blog post that we should put on the website as soon as we
agree on the first details.

I suggest that we have these days right after Fosdem, Monday and
Tuesday. This should give us just a few more days to prepare, as I think
we're starting pretty late already. If you prefer to have them before
fosdem, I can change the blog post of course.

As for how it'll be organised. I propose to do something similar to
what we need in November 2020. I'd love to get some talks from people
outside the usual maintainers and commiters, to have an overview of the
diversity of people and usage around Guix.

Last year, we asked speakers to prepare a video in advance, and they
would only have an extended Q&A/discussion session. I think this year
we should have the same process, but ask for a short (3-5 minutes) talk
at the start of the session to refresh our minds on the main points of
the presentation before discussions start.

Of course, one of our co-maintainers should have a session on a
retrospective (what happened last year in Guix) and lead discussions on
the future of Guix. We should reserve plenty of time for this session.

In addition, I'd like to invite people to submit discussion ideas and
be free of having to make a presentation if they prefer (BoF). I'd also
like to "innovate" and have a session of lightning talks, where people
would only have to give a short, live presentation on any topic related
to Guix (I'm thinking short presentation of a project where you use
guix, of something you're doing with guix, how you found guix, a story
of your first days with guix, ...). We can also replace that with a
presentation round at the beginning of the conference if we don't have
enough lightning talks.

The Guix Days have never been a "real" conference, and always had a lot
of room for discussions that start on the spot. I'd like to emulate
this by keeping a lot of time out of the talk sessions to discuss
whatever comes up naturally during our discussions.

Also, we need to secure a BBB instance :)

WDYT?

[-- Attachment #2: online-guix-days-2022-announce-1.md --]
[-- Type: text/markdown, Size: 5329 bytes --]

title: Announcing the second online Guix Days Conference
date: 2021-12-10 00:00
author: Guix Hackers
slug: online-guix-days-2022-announce-1
tags: Conference, Community
---

The Guix hackers are very happy to announce the second online Guix Days
Conference on **7 & 8 February 2022**.  This conference is open to everyone
and will be held entirely online.  Want to speak?  Submit your proposal!

Important dates:

1. **January 21**: Deadline for talks proposal.
1. **January 28**: Deadline for releasing your pre-recorded talks.
1. **February 2**: Release of the schedule.
1. **February 7**: Conference day!
1. **February 8**: Conference day!

![Guix Days logo](/static/blog/img/Guix-Days-online-2022.png)

The agenda of these two days is:

 - pre-recorded talks with live question and answer sessions
 - birds of a feather (BoF) sessions
 - lightning round talks, if possible
 - retrospective and future of Guix
 - hack together

Talks will be released **before** the conference day, **watch them as soon
as possible**! And **no registration fee**.

##### Until January 21: talks proposal

Propose your talks by sending them to `guix-days@gnu.org`.  Feel free to drop
in `#guix` on irc.freenode.net to discuss what you would like to talk about
before submitting. :)

You can choose one of the following formats:

 - Standard talk. 15-45 minutes pre-recorded presentation and a 5 minutes lightning talk.
   The 5-minute presentation will be live, to refresh our minds, followed by
   a 30 minutes live Q&A.
 - BoF (birds of a feather, for a session with a small group who wants to talk
   about a specific topic) with no presentation. You may prepare something live
   to spark conversations.
 - Lightning talk with a 5 minutes live presentation

In addition to the format you would like to choose, please describe your session
with 10 lines or more (for lightning talks, at least 1 sentence).

Once you have sent your proposal, you will be notified in the coming days
whether your talk be part of the Guix Day. Submit earlier to get more time to
prepare your session!

Even for live presentation, please prepare a back-up pre-recorded talk, so
we can play it if you cannot attend or have a technical problem during the
Guix days. The deadline for short presentations (5 minutes) is February 4.

We welcome all kinds of topics from the community, especially your own experience
with Guix, your cool projects that involve Guix in some way, infrastructure around
guix (translations, continuous integration, ...), and any subject you feel
should be discussed during the conference.

Have a look at the topics from [the last conference](/blog/2020/online-guix-day-announce-1/)
for ideas, but don't hesitate to innovate in your proposals!

##### January 21 (or before) - 28: prepare your talk

The aim of the pre-recorded talks is to demonstrate new features, what you are
hacking on, introduce the subject for easing the live question and answer
sessions or BoFs.  These pre-recorded talks should be **15-45 minutes
long**.  Feel free to ask if you need help with the recording.

You are free to choose whichever storage platform you want (e.g., your own
website, a PeerTube instance, a Nextcloud instance, etc.), but we will need to
have access to the original file so we can publish it later on
[audio-video.gnu.org](https://audio-video.gnu.org).  Your video must be
released under a license that at least allows anyone to copy and share it, for
any purpose.

You will have to release the video publicly before January 28, so everyone
has a chance to see it before the conference.  If you are not able to do so
(for instance your server cannot handle a huge load), you can alternatively
send us a private link to the video and we will upload it on
[audio-video.gnu.org](https://audio-video.gnu.org).  If you decide to do so,
you will need to have the video ready by January 26.


##### January 28-February 6: watch the talks

But don't miss the [Fosdem](https://fosdem.org) conference either!

Be sure to watch the pre-recorded talks before the conference.  There will be
**no presentations** on the 7 nor 8.


##### February 7-8: participate

Coming soon!  Stay tuned.


#### Code of Conduct

This online conference is an official Guix event.  Therefore, the [Code of
Conduct](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/CODE-OF-CONDUCT)
applies.  Please be sure to read it beforehand!

#### About GNU Guix

[GNU Guix](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix) is a transactional package
manager and an advanced distribution of the GNU system that [respects
user
freedom](https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html).
Guix can be used on top of any system running the Hurd or the Linux
kernel, or it can be used as a standalone operating system distribution
for i686, x86_64, ARMv7, and AArch64 machines.

In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports
transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management,
per-user profiles, and garbage collection.  When used as a standalone
GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to
operating system configuration management.  Guix is highly customizable
and hackable through [Guile](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile)
programming interfaces and extensions to the
[Scheme](http://schemers.org) language.

Re: Organising Guix Days

[Gábor Boskovits]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2798 bytes --]

Hello Julien,

Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu> ezt írta (időpont: 2021. dec. 11.,
Szo, 2:37):

> Hi Guix!
>
> I think it's time to start organising the Guix Days, traditionally held
> around Fosdem.
>

Super good initiative.


> During our guix-europe assembly, we discussed some options and everyone
> agreed they wanted a two-day event, online just as Fosdem. I attached a
> proposed blog post that we should put on the website as soon as we
> agree on the first details.
>
> I suggest that we have these days right after Fosdem, Monday and
> Tuesday. This should give us just a few more days to prepare, as I think
> we're starting pretty late already. If you prefer to have them before
> fosdem, I can change the blog post of course.
>

Sounds good to me.


> As for how it'll be organised. I propose to do something similar to
> what we need in November 2020. I'd love to get some talks from people
> outside the usual maintainers and commiters, to have an overview of the
> diversity of people and usage around Guix.
>
> Last year, we asked speakers to prepare a video in advance, and they
> would only have an extended Q&A/discussion session. I think this year
> we should have the same process, but ask for a short (3-5 minutes) talk
> at the start of the session to refresh our minds on the main points of
> the presentation before discussions start.
>
> Of course, one of our co-maintainers should have a session on a
> retrospective (what happened last year in Guix) and lead discussions on
> the future of Guix. We should reserve plenty of time for this session.
>
> In addition, I'd like to invite people to submit discussion ideas and
> be free of having to make a presentation if they prefer (BoF). I'd also
> like to "innovate" and have a session of lightning talks, where people
> would only have to give a short, live presentation on any topic related
> to Guix (I'm thinking short presentation of a project where you use
> guix, of something you're doing with guix, how you found guix, a story
> of your first days with guix, ...). We can also replace that with a
> presentation round at the beginning of the conference if we don't have
> enough lightning talks.
>
> The Guix Days have never been a "real" conference, and always had a lot
> of room for discussions that start on the spot. I'd like to emulate
> this by keeping a lot of time out of the talk sessions to discuss
> whatever comes up naturally during our discussions.
>
> Also, we need to secure a BBB instance :)
>

Should you need any help in organizing, feel free to reach out to me, I
will try to do my best.


> WDYT?
>

Thanks for the effort that went into this so far,
I am looking forward to participating.

Best regards,
g_bor

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3837 bytes --]

Re: Organising Guix Days

[zimoun]

Hi Julien,

On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 at 02:37, Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu> wrote:

> I think it's time to start organising the Guix Days, traditionally held
> around Fosdem.

Nice initiative!  Count on me for helping. :-)


> As for how it'll be organised. I propose to do something similar to
> what we need in November 2020. I'd love to get some talks from people
> outside the usual maintainers and commiters, to have an overview of the
> diversity of people and usage around Guix.

I agree.


> Last year, we asked speakers to prepare a video in advance, and they
> would only have an extended Q&A/discussion session. I think this year
> we should have the same process, but ask for a short (3-5 minutes) talk
> at the start of the session to refresh our minds on the main points of
> the presentation before discussions start.

In your views, the presentation is 3-5 minutes exposing the topic then
live discussion/Q&A.  Or 3-5 minutes video then 10-20 minutes of live
presentation and then live Q&A?

(The post provides a better explanation but I am not sure to fully get
what you have in mind.)


> The Guix Days have never been a "real" conference, and always had a lot
> of room for discussions that start on the spot. I'd like to emulate
> this by keeping a lot of time out of the talk sessions to discuss
> whatever comes up naturally during our discussions.

A LibreAdventure [1 ]instance could help here.

1: <https://vcs.fsf.org/?p=libreadventure.git;a=summary>


> title: Announcing the second online Guix Days Conference
> date: 2021-12-10 00:00
> author: Guix Hackers
> slug: online-guix-days-2022-announce-1
> tags: Conference, Community
> ---

[...]

> ##### Until January 21: talks proposal
>
> Propose your talks by sending them to `guix-days@gnu.org`.  Feel free to drop

This alias received a lot of spam, IIRC.  Do we use the same than past
year?  Or do we use guix-days2022@gnu.org?  And then drop it a couple of
weeks after the event.

> in `#guix` on irc.freenode.net to discuss what you would like to talk about
> before submitting. :)
>
> You can choose one of the following formats:
>
>  - Standard talk. 15-45 minutes pre-recorded presentation and a 5 minutes lightning talk.
>    The 5-minute presentation will be live, to refresh our minds, followed by
>    a 30 minutes live Q&A.
>  - BoF (birds of a feather, for a session with a small group who wants to talk
>    about a specific topic) with no presentation. You may prepare something live
>    to spark conversations.

Although BoF is often used, last year, some people raised it is not so
common.  Naming is hard. ;-)  I am fine with this name, just to be sure
it is fine.


>  - Lightning talk with a 5 minutes live presentation
>
> In addition to the format you would like to choose, please describe your session
> with 10 lines or more (for lightning talks, at least 1 sentence).
>
> Once you have sent your proposal, you will be notified in the coming days
> whether your talk be part of the Guix Day. Submit earlier to get more time to
> prepare your session!
>
> Even for live presentation, please prepare a back-up pre-recorded talk, so
> we can play it if you cannot attend or have a technical problem during the
> Guix days. The deadline for short presentations (5 minutes) is February 4.
>
> We welcome all kinds of topics from the community, especially your own experience
> with Guix, your cool projects that involve Guix in some way, infrastructure around
> guix (translations, continuous integration, ...), and any subject you feel

  ^ Guix

> should be discussed during the conference.
>
> Have a look at the topics from [the last conference](/blog/2020/online-guix-day-announce-1/)
> for ideas, but don't hesitate to innovate in your proposals!
>
> ##### January 21 (or before) - 28: prepare your talk
>
> The aim of the pre-recorded talks is to demonstrate new features, what you are
> hacking on, introduce the subject for easing the live question and answer
> sessions or BoFs.  These pre-recorded talks should be **15-45 minutes
> long**.  Feel free to ask if you need help with the recording.
>
> You are free to choose whichever storage platform you want (e.g., your own
> website, a PeerTube instance, a Nextcloud instance, etc.), but we will need to
> have access to the original file so we can publish it later on
> [audio-video.gnu.org](https://audio-video.gnu.org).  Your video must be
> released under a license that at least allows anyone to copy and share it, for
> any purpose.

Ahah!  Maybe one day, the ones of last year will be there first. ;-)


> You will have to release the video publicly before January 28, so everyone
> has a chance to see it before the conference.  If you are not able to do so
> (for instance your server cannot handle a huge load), you can alternatively
> send us a private link to the video and we will upload it on
> [audio-video.gnu.org](https://audio-video.gnu.org).  If you decide to do so,
> you will need to have the video ready by January 26.

No, it is not possible to upload to auido-video.gnu.org.  Instead, let
create something as videos.guix.gnu.org pointing to one of Bordeaux or
Berlin machine and put all the videos we have around.



Cheers,
simon

Re: Organising Guix Days

[Pjotr Prins]

We also have a devroom at FOSDEM 2022 (online). Last year was a great
succes with many cool talks and a social during the day, see

=> https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/track/declarative_and_minimalistic_computing/

We still have slots for 2 or 3 speakers. If you are interested in
talking about your work for 15 minutes and promote Guix do tell us
this weekend. You can write Manolis, Julien, Oliver or me directly and
we can see if it fits the day.

Check out the existing talks for examples. There is no need to be shy
- we are among friends.

Pj.

Re: Organising Guix Days

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu> skribis:

> I think it's time to start organising the Guix Days, traditionally held
> around Fosdem.
>
> During our guix-europe assembly, we discussed some options and everyone
> agreed they wanted a two-day event, online just as Fosdem. I attached a
> proposed blog post that we should put on the website as soon as we
> agree on the first details.
>
> I suggest that we have these days right after Fosdem, Monday and
> Tuesday. This should give us just a few more days to prepare, as I think
> we're starting pretty late already. If you prefer to have them before
> fosdem, I can change the blog post of course.

No strong opinion, but I wonder if some might prefer to have it a few
days later, so they can give their eyes and ears some rest.  :-)

> As for how it'll be organised. I propose to do something similar to
> what we need in November 2020. I'd love to get some talks from people
> outside the usual maintainers and commiters, to have an overview of the
> diversity of people and usage around Guix.
>
> Last year, we asked speakers to prepare a video in advance, and they
> would only have an extended Q&A/discussion session. I think this year
> we should have the same process, but ask for a short (3-5 minutes) talk
> at the start of the session to refresh our minds on the main points of
> the presentation before discussions start.

[…]

The whole program sounds great to me!

> Also, we need to secure a BBB instance :)

I think we can still use the same one as last year (zimoun?).  If that
doesn’t work, there’s a couple of options, such as Inria’s instance.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Organising Guix Days

[zimoun]

Hi,

On Mon, 20 Dec 2021 at 18:51, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

>> Also, we need to secure a BBB instance :)
>
> I think we can still use the same one as last year (zimoun?).  If that
> doesn’t work, there’s a couple of options, such as Inria’s instance.

If you refer to Fosshost instance,

    <https://guixbbb.fosshost.org/>

well, I am not currently able to reach it.  And I have not re-read all
their recent updates but they changed a bit their way, and IIRC, they
removed not-used instances, as ’guixbbb’.

INRIA is an option.  Others* could be too.

Cheers,
simon

*others: asking people behind Guix Café.

Re: Organising Guix Days

[Blake Shaw]

Hi folks,

Regarding the presentation I'm putting together on the Guile
Documentation, while I have enough material right now to send out a
basic presentation that covers what I believe to be the dominant,
glaring issues of the composition and organization of the docs as well
as how I would go about restructuring them if everyone agrees with the
proposed edits, I'm also starting to uncover some more nuanced
issues with some of the pedagogical folly that appears throughout the
text, and so a few more weeks would probably result in a more
comprehensive study.

So I was thinking, in that case, should I just make the presentation for
Guix Days? That way it could also be presented at a time when other,
perhaps related projects and issues are coming to the fore.

-- 
“In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni”

Re: Organising Guix Days

[adriano]

Il giorno gio, 30/12/2021 alle 09.53 +0700, Blake Shaw ha scritto:
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
> Regarding the presentation I'm putting together on the Guile
> Documentation, while I have enough material right now to send out a
> basic presentation that covers what I believe to be the dominant,
> glaring issues of the composition and organization of the docs as
> well
> as how I would go about restructuring them if everyone agrees with
> the
> proposed edits, I'm also starting to uncover some more nuanced
> issues with some of the pedagogical folly that appears throughout the
> text, and so a few more weeks would probably result in a more
> comprehensive study.
> 
> So I was thinking, in that case, should I just make the presentation
> for
> Guix Days? That way it could also be presented at a time when other,
> perhaps related projects and issues are coming to the fore.
> 

I'd say:

if it's not too much hassle for you, prepare the "reduced" version for
the Guix Days

In such version, you could just hint that there's more to come

As for the more nuanced version, you could take your time and do it
when you feel it's ready 

I can't wait <3

Thanks !

Re: Organising Guix Days

[zimoun]

Hi Julien,

On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 at 02:37, Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu> wrote:

> I suggest that we have these days right after Fosdem, Monday and
> Tuesday. This should give us just a few more days to prepare, as I think
> we're starting pretty late already. If you prefer to have them before
> fosdem, I can change the blog post of course.

What is the final decision?  No strong opinion on the date, so let pick
the ones your proposed.  How does it sound?


> Also, we need to secure a BBB instance :)

Well, I think we will find one.  Fosshost is not an option though.


Cheers,
simon