The 8th Free and Open Source Software Communities Meeting (FOSSCOMM) took place in Athens (Greece), November 6-8th 2015 at the Technical Educational Institute of Athens.

The Conference started early on Saturday morning welcoming the participants and with the key note. Various presentations about open source software, hardware constructions and some workshops took place. Presentations such as Raspberry Pi arcade, openstack, OSGeo, ownCloud, Bitcoin and many more were quite interested by the visitors.

Greek openSUSE community was there with a booth and some presentations. On Saturday Alex P. Natsios presented “Enlightment on openSUSE”, an alternative GUI, and the other presentation was about “openQA”. Since openSUSE Leap 42.1 was very fresh, Alexandros Vennos took the opportunity to present what are openSUSE Leap 42.1 and Tumbleweed, the differences and what to install on what occasions. Presentation had title “openSUSE – Leaping Ahead”.

The booth was quite crowded. We had some left over DVDs of 13.2 but we proposed the visitors to install Leap 42.1. The question we were asked most was what is the difference between openSUSE Leap and Tubleweed and why to install and on what ocasion. We even created couple of bootable USBs from the ISOs of Leap. We had a Banana Pi running Tumbleweed with MATE playing a video loop of openSUSE Leap 42.1 KDE review. We gave almost all of our promo materials to the visitors since they were interested on openSUSE.

For more pictures check Flickr

Local open source community is bigger now and next step for you is to organise (or join) global conferences. One part of the organisation is the promotion of the conference. You want to have as many visitors as you can.

I will try to write down what I did during openSUSE global conferences and some local events.

BEFORE THE EVENT

0. Web page

There MUST be a web page and a system that accepts registration, paper submission, information etc. Write everything that visitor should know about the conference.
We use OSEM in openSUSE. Check out https://events.opensuse.org

1. Blog blog blog.

You’ll have some announcements for the conference. Dates, the place, new website, call for papers announcement, hotels that visitors can stay, schedule, keynote speakers etc. Usually, every open source project has a central blog or news site. You can write the articles there. Try to make fuzz by publishing your articles often.
Global communities can translate the announcements to their language and promote the conference locally.

Local communities are formed by members with blogs who publish on different planet sites. You can make a schedule so everyone can publish the announcement every other day. More eyes will see the announcement and will apply either as speaker or visitor.

Two things you want to have is contributors+visitors and sponsors. If your project is famous, then it’s easy. If not, then you better publish the initial announcement to magazines, newspapers, technical blogs-sites. If you don’t have access, then you better send it by e-mail or fax and then call them and ask them if they got the text. If they publish it, you’re lucky.

Translate those announcements and publish them, so local population will see that there’s a conference coming.

2. Promote to other FOSS conferences

There are plenty of FOSS conferences around the world.
* Community (local or global) has to apply for a booth and/or, if it’s possible, present why someone should attend.
* At the booth, you should have promo materials of your conference and give away to local LUGs or hackerspaces to hang posters at their places.
* Another cool thing is to have free coupons for beer at the conference. If beer isn’t the solution, then find another thing that can be found only at your conference and give free coupons.
* Wear special T-Shirts with the logo or #oSC or “Ask me for the conference”. You show people that you’re organizing something and can ask you questions.
* Finally, go to other project’s booth and invite them. You can ask them if they want to have a booth at your conference or apply for a presentation.

3. Messages to post

Create a list of messages you’ll post to social media.
First of all, you should post the announcements.
Then create a list of general messages that you should post before the conference. Content will be related to the subject of the conference or the country etc.
When you have the schedule ready, create a post with the name of the person (mention him/her on the social media), the title of the presentation (mention if it’s a famous project).
The messages can be 2-3 per day but not the same time. Try to have 4-5 hours time delay between tweets.

4. Twitter

Create a twitter account that will be used for the conference. Everyone can use it as hashtag (#) and also can communicate with you before and during the conference. For openSUSE we had #opensuseconf as hashtag. The account was @opensuseconf
The same account can create the Lanyard event (you’ll see next).

5. Facebook event page

Create a Facebook event page under the official account of the project. Post the tweets here as well. Post the messages (no 2). If you have some cool documentation of the subject that will be presented, just post it.

Since the address will be difficult to remember, create a subdomain under your project’s name (eg facebook.conference.opensuse.org) that will forward it to the event page.

6. Google Plus event page

Do the same as facebook. Some people hate to use facebook, so google plus is the solution. Do the same also with the URL.
Google Plus event notifies to e-mail every user about changes. So if you post, they’ll get a notification.

7. Lanyard event page

This isn’t very famous but it’s very cool. It uses twitter accounts. You setup the event and when you have the schedule, you can add the subject and mention the speaker. You can also use it to post announcements.
Here is the lanyard of openSUSE conference 2014

8. Meetup.com event

If money is not an issue for your project, you can create an event at http://www.meetup.com

9. IRC, mailing lists, forums

You have to create an IRC channel where you reply all possible questions. There’s also mailing list for that.
To promote the conference, you should post the announcement to mailing lists, forum of all possible projects (eg if we’re oprnSUSE, then post to GNOME, KDE, ownCloud etc). And try to inform the posts with the new announcements.

10. Flickr

Create a group where people can upload their pictures, so everyone who blogs can use those pictures. You can create it before the event starts and post picture from the venue, before you set it up.

DURING THE EVENT

1. Messages to post

Create a document with messages to post with all the presentations. The message has to be:

Presentation title (with mention) @ #Room_name. Not @ #oSC15 #openSUSE? Live @ Stream_URL

Create a table. Columns will be the rooms, rows will be the timetable. So you’ll check the time and post the right one.

WARNING: Check with program team if there was a day change of the program. Also check the right Stream URL.

2. Twitter

Here you start posting the messages per time. Don’t forget the mentions to people, projects and the #. Here you mention someone by using @username.

3. Facebook event page

Same as Twitter, don’t forget to mention. Here mention is with @Project name. Here you can use more characters that twitter. So here you can also add the hashtag of your project (eg #opensuse, #opensuseconf)
Ask people upload pictures here. Also ask people to post their reports.

4. Google plus event page

Same as Twitter, don’t forget to mention. Here mention is with +Project name. Here you can use more characters that twitter. So here you can also add the hashtag of your project (eg #opensuse, #opensuseconf).
Again, ask people to upload pictures here. Also ask people to post their reports.

5. IRC

You can post here as well. Some people didn’t join you or they just see live streaming and use IRC to ask the speaker. So it’ll be nice if theres the program of what’s in every room with the streaming URL.

6. Streaming

The social media guy is responsible to handle all the above. He checks if the streaming is working and if not, then warns the video team. It’s good for him because he can see all presentations but it’s kind of “I’m locked somewhere and I don’t mingle with people”.
Users who didn’t make it, they can see the conference over the Interent.

7. Flickr

Try to gather all pictures and upload them in the afternoon, so everyone who wants to blog, can use the pictures from there (there are Google Plus and Facebook events as alternatives). It’s very cool if the pictures are up very soon, so everyone can view them.

1. Read the tech news
Read the news (RSS, social networks, mailing lists). There are many conferences that you can join (some conferences are annual). Unfortunately, the organizers might skip to sent you invitation because you’re either too small project without any marketing section or they forgot you for their reasons. You should contact them and ask them to join as community-project. Most conferences have call for papers period, where you can apply for a presentation.

2. Community Meetings
Now that you made the first contact, you should sent an e-mail to your project mailing list, informing them about the conference and asking for an IRC meeting. At the kick off meeting, someone MUST be the coordinator of everything (the tasks are following). Another thing that should be clear is how many members of the community will join. You have to decide early because you can book your trip and accommodation (if the conference is quite big, there won’t be any rooms available for you). Travel as a team. If you decide early, you can ask for sponsorship, like openSUSE Travel_Support_Program or GNOME Travel sponsorship (GNOME for smaller events).

3. Ideas for the coordinator
Coordinator doesn’t mean that he/she does everything himself/herself. It means that he/she knows everything about the trip and contact the organizers:

* First of all create a wiki page about the event. See some examples at openSUSE or GNOME. Ask members who will join, to write down their name and what materials can bring (even if they’ll have their laptops).

* Contact organizers for the booth. How many people will help at the booth. How many plugs do we need. If there’s a possibility to provide us with projector or monitors or tv.

* Blog post at community’s blog. Re post from members of the community to their personal blogs on different days (we want many people to read it on different days).

* Social media team. Find the conference’s facebook and google plus events and join. If they don’t have, contact them and ask them if it’s OK to create one. Ask members of the community to join the events. Ask members of the community to post everyday something about your project at the social networks event pages (something like: DON’T MISS THE PRESENTATION BY … AT …). Don’t forget to use a hashtag you want for the specific conference (like #project_is_coming). Remember to use also the “normal” hashtag (example #project). Ask members of the community to retweet you.

* Don’t forget to bring a camera. Bring one or more cameras to take pictures or videos. Those pictures will be used for reports (blog posts), upload them to your facebook-google plus groups. Also ask everyone that brought his/her own camera to upload the pictures to your groups or send them directly to you, so you upload them to public place. Don’t forget to take the family picture.

4. Swag for the booth
If you’re lucky and there’s a global project that sponsors your swag, then ask them to send you promo materials. Here comes the coordinator. If the conference is away from your home, then he/she can contact the organizers and the project’s marketing materials coordinator to mail them directly to the organizers’ address. If you want to keep some promo materials for future events, then you can ask them to mail them to your place. Regarding openSUSE, they can sponsor you to create some promo materials yourself with the openSUSE Travel Support Program.
If your project is small and you don’t have enough money to support it, try to have some brochures about it and maybe some promo cd/dvds.
Other promo materials are stickers, posters, T-Shirts, buttons, cubes, caps, plush toys etc.
Here comes the confusion. In my country (Greece), people think the swag is free. On the other hand, they ask us “how the community-project earn money?”. Well, personally, I think someone who wants something should “donate” to project. Unfortunately some countries have strict financial rules and it’s hard to “sell” something unless you give receipt. Well, I won’t analyze this now since it’s out of the scope of this post.

5. We’re at the conference
Tips to remember:

* Try to wear the same T-Shirt, so everyone will know that you’re from the same project and can come talk to you.

* Remember only one person stays behind the table and all the others in front of the table and speak with visitors. It’s better to stay 2 of you in front of the desk so it’ll be easier for the visitor to talk to you and ask than just one person and wait for the visitor to talk to him (it’s psychology). Remember to smile.
Another idea is how to setup your table at the booth. The best solution to have as many visitors as possible is to setup you table behind you, at the wall. That way you’ll have free room to stand and talk with visitors. You’ll make them to pass you to get some swag as well and either you or the visitor can start talking. Also this setup is just like hug someone and make him feel welcomed (thanks to Jos Poortvliet for this tip).

* Visitors like people from the projects to “goofy” around. Try to play games each other or with friends from other projects. Visitors are very bored of serious guys with suits to try to “sell” them products.

* If a smaller project cannot be present with a booth, you can host them at yours. Let them bring their swag. It’ll be cool for visitors to know about their existance and also they’ll talk to you about your project.

* Another cool thing you should do (if the room for the booth is enough), you can organize small talks (10-15 mins each). Make a small schedule and print it. Then go to put it on the wall around the venue. Everyone will notice that you’ll have short presentations and also your project’s logo.

Check out my presentation at openSUSE conference 2012:

Non verbal communication (presentation file)

* It’s prohibited to sit and work at your computer. Visitors aren’t interested on projects with someone watching his laptop screen at the booth. You’re there for a reason. Talk to people. If there’s emergency and you have to chat or reply mails or write code, go to a presentation and do it there. No one will notice.

* Someone should be at the social media. Repost what the official channels post and also do the same if someone from your team is at a presentation and uses his/her social media. That person could be from home (someone didn’t attend) since he/she can view online streaming all the presentations. If the person is at the conference, try to upload the pictures right after the photographer took them.

6. Aftermath, afterparty, after after…
You’re back. What happened? People MUST know about it. Write a report (even short one) at your community’s blog and the wiki page. Use the pictures you took. Send the link to the channels you promoted your party (facebook, google plus, twitter, mailing lists, forums etc) and ask members of your community to repost to their blogs-social media accounts (on a different days).

The fun side of community and technology was inspiring people all over, in opposite to some situations I remember on the last years conference where we had to deal with unpleasant topics. This seemed to have completely went away, instead people were aiming to solve problems together in a constructive way or, even more fun, worked on new things without so called stop-energy.

It seems to me that a kind of openSUSE core-community stabilizes. People know each other, it has sorted who finally really is interested in openSUSE and continously contributes. That builds trust, and to that adds the self confidence which results out of the good quality of the recent distros we as a community were able to release. This nicely turned out for me in the strategy discussion lead by Jos. People were supportive, sorted out issues here and there, but moved ahead and came to decisions together on a topic which had endless and partly unpleasant discussions on mailinglists before. The power of meeting face to face on the one hand, but also signs that we learned from the last years and grew up.

From the talk quality the conference for me personally was one of the best FOSS conferences I have attended until now. All keynotes were done with great passion, uniquely and addressed specifically on current topics in our community. Hennes on the first day painted a good frame for the whole conference in his unique style. Cornelius and Vincent on day two were also great, they did not play friends just to let the sun shine on the conference, but for me they proofed that the openSUSE community has built a fundament were we not only accept each other but can work together werever it makes sense to tackle the higher challenges. Gerald speaking on Friday was repeating facts of the relationship between Novell and openSUSE. It was good hear it again that Novell wholeheartly supports the openess of the openSUSE project and what that means from a corporate point of view. Today Frank was introducing the project Brezen which will increase the ease of use of openSUSE a lot for the user and free software developers. Great that there is already code, I am really looking forward to see stuff coming into our distro.

You see, quite a lot happened on osc10. I will continue writing but I am too tired now…

The main thing that happens on conferences is learning. While sitting in workshops and presentations you can learn so much about technologies, and since you take the time to really listen to it, it sticks very good in your mind. If questions remain open, you can be sure to immediately find people who can help to clearify.

Learning often results in motivation because if you learned something you want to try it out. Since you again have time after the conference presentations and you are surrounded by others who are interested in the similar topics, the motivation grows to really put the hands on the keyboard and try things out.

Another motivational factor can be that people adjust your opinion about your own contribution, if you already did some. You might think your contribution is only small, not comparable and not so important. After having three people met who were thanking you for your work and telling you how important it was for them, you will feel the motivation boost. But attention – that sometimes works the other way round as well

But that guides us to the most important thing: Meeting people in person, get to know each other, make friends. I know so many people from visiting conferences, and the quality of “knowing” is so much higher if a face, a smile, a good presentation or other things like funny clothes can be put to a name. Even people I do not know know me because I visited a conference once.

Working for and with people you know in person is much more pleasant as if you only know their email addresses. And we’re not talking about conflict situations which are so much easier to solve if you have met before.

Last but not least the possibility of influencing things must not be forgotten. Often on conferences things move forward, because the right people are on the same spot and discuss things and come to decisions. Believe it or not, it happens quickly that you end up in the circle of people if you want.

Ah yes, there is another reason why people like to come to conferences: It’s called ‘having fun’. I am not sure what is that about, but it must be cool

Very soon the second international openSUSE Conference takes place in Nürnberg, Germany. If you are interested in the openSUSE project, the distribution or upstream projects, I really like to encourage you to conferencing give FOSS conferencing a try if you had never done it before. If you had, you will be there anyway

Please do not hesitate and register now.

Why man have to choose a free beer? Because it’s open and free to use. Everybody can give some feedback on the freebeer’s twitter page.

The project was started by Wädi Bräu in Switzerland like “open source beer” project. On the home page you can get more information about this project, for example, news and last updates.

License: creative commons.
Alcogol vol: 4.8 %
Size: 0.33 L

Be free… drink free beer

p.s. Who know, maybe Novell will be sponsored this great open source project (?)

One of the nice things this year is we have submissions from other distributions and projects, which is great The submissions from all parties cover a wide variety of topics from very technical to very fun, and it isn’t going to be easy to select which ones to accept.

Thank you to all who submitted a proposal and we will let you know on 20th August whether you are succesful or not.

The second openSUSE conference takes place in Nuremberg, Germany from october, 20th to 23rd. After its great start last year, we will continue the concept of a user and developer conference around the openSUSE Project including talks, workshops and BOFs. Expect everything between technical workshops about bleeding edge linux distro technology over user presentations about software to inspiring discussions with other projects, especially since the motto for the conference is Collaboration across Borders.

The first conference has also shown how important the openSUSE Conference is for the steering of the openSUSE project. Lots of ideas could be discussed and implemented quickly but also difficult or controversal community internal topics came up in a very contructive way and are worked on since then, some until today.

That brings me to the core message of this post: You should be on the conference if you are interested in the openSUSE project in any way. If you want to help moving the project forward and influence where the journey is going, there is no better place to go.

Now is the time to shape the conference – be it with a talk proposal, a proposal for a workshop, some hack session or interact with other projects to make you project a half day track or so. Everything is possible, please approach the programm committee with your ideas!

After multiple calls for help and nudges from the marketing team, I decided to see if I could slot it in anywhere (yay me, I’m such a hero :-P) Thankfully I had some brilliant help from SankarP who refreshed my memory on how to edit video, thanks chief!

Currently only Day 1 of the conference is available, you can view online (flash) or download (ogg) the talks from the openSUSE TV channel on BlipTV. I am working on getting a channel on YouTube to enable a wider reach, as some people have bandwidth issues with Blip. You can also subscribe to the feeds in multiple formats – rss, miro, itunes.

If anyone has any openSUSE related video that they would like put on the channel, then please let me know

FOSDEM is probably the most developer-oriented European Free and Open Source conference/event. As usual it was in Bruxelles, Belgium on first weekend of February. I was there with another Novell/SUSE employees. Majority of they are responsible for work with community. For example, boosters team.

On 5th February we went from Nuremberg at 12 am (by bus) and was in Brussel at 9 pm. At half past ten we (Holgi, Dinar and me) were on the beer event. What can I say about this evening? It was really nice to meet and speak with another developers for a cup of beer

The main thing that happens on conferences is learning. This was main reason why I was there and why Novell/SUSE help me to visit FOSDEM. A lot of presentation/talks about KDE, or packaging (RPM), or BuildService or… a lot about another open source projects…

I like such events It’s not only interesting presentations through which you open/learn a lot of new, but also possibility to get acquainted with other developers or is simple with enthusiasts whom it is unconditional as bring the contribution to development free and open source software.

The next evening I have devoted to walk across Bruxelles. It was very interesting to speak with people there. I have made a lot of photos.

For sure, I’m going to visit FOSDEM in next year, but for next time it will be depends on money. Anyway I will recomend to visit this event for every Linux-/*BSD- user/developer.