Subject: FOSDEM16: Graphics DevRoom: call for speakers.

From: Luc Verhaegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2015 17:43:49 +0100

Hi,

At FOSDEM on sunday 31st of january 2016, there will be another graphics 
DevRoom. URL: https://fosdem.org/2016/

At first, I wanted to skip another year (like in 2011), as speaker 
turn-out was disgracefully low last year. But when i heard from some 
usual speaker suspects earlier this month (the first time anyone asked 
me about a FOSDEM16 devroom btw), followed by the fact that the devroom 
request deadline was sheduled a month later than the last few years, i 
did end up filing, but this time for a single day only. Claiming two 
days would simply not have been fair towards all the other projects 
that usually get rejected (FOSDEM typically rejects half the requests, 
leading to only about 25 devrooms in parallel). Anyway...

The focus of this DevRoom is of course the same as the last few years, 
namely:
* Graphics drivers: from display to media to 3d drivers, both in kernel 
  or userspace. Be it part of DRM, KMS, (direct)FB, V4L, Xorg, Mesa...
* Input drivers: kernel and userspace.
* Windowing systems: X, Wayland, Mir, directFB, ...
* Even colour management, low level toolkit stuff, and other areas which 
  i might have overlooked above are accepted.

Slots are 50 minutes long, and scheduled hourly. This partly to avoid 
confusion and people running all over the place all the time. As a 
speaker, you do not have to fill your whole hour, gaps are never wasted 
time.

Slots will be handed out on a first come, first serve basis. The best 
slots will go to those who apply the earliest. The amount of slots is 
currently not known yet, but there are only 8 slots available, so act 
quickly.

Talk Submission:
----------------

Like the last few years, the pentabarf system will be used for talk 
submission. It is not perfect from a devroom organizer and talk 
submitters usability point-of-view, but the new interface is not fully 
implemented yet, and the fosdem organizers have reverted to the old one 
for this year. It is however workable and it ended up working out 
pretty well these last few years.

https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM16

Remember that FOSDEM is not like XDC, it's not some 50 odd people 
meeting with a sliding schedule which only gets filled out on the last 
day. Upwards of 8000 people are visiting this event, and most of them 
get a printed booklet or use the schedule on the FOSDEM website or an 
app for their phone to figure out what to watch or participate in next. 
So please put some effort in your talk submission and details.

Since this an open source community event, please refrain from turning 
in a talk that is a pure corporate or product commercial. Also, if you 
are unsure on whether you can come or not (this is FOSDEM, why are you 
not there anyway?), please wait with submitting your talk. Submitting a 
talk and then not turning up because you could not be bothered is a 
sure-fire way to get larted and then to never be allowed to talk again.

Also, all talks will be recorded, and will be made available as CC-BY 
after a bit of time. Since we have only a single day devroom, we 
probably will not end up being streamed live.

As for deadlines, the fosdem organizers are doing their booklet 
differently again, and they need to have the schedule finished by the 
18th of december. Given that there are only 8 slots, i trust that this 
will not be an issue this year.

Don't count on this deadline: first come first serve! There are perhaps 
only 8 slots. And the worst slots will be assigned to those who come 
last. Do you really want to talk on sunday at 9:00 when people are still 
in zombie mode after 2 nights at the delirium bar, if they are here at all?

Use your account from last year, so you can try to recycle some of your 
data from last year. If you have forgotten your password, then you can 
reset it here: https://penta.fosdem.org/user/forgot_password

Necessary information:
----------------------

Below is a list of what i need to see filled in when you apply for a 
devroom before i consider it a valid submission. Remember: first come, 
first serve. The best slots are for the earliest submissions and there 
are only 8 slots.

On your personal page:
* General:
  * First and last name
  * Nickname
  * Image
* Contact:
  * email
  * mobile number (this is a very hard requirement as there will be no 
   other reliable form of emergency communication on the day)
* Description:
  * Abstract
  * Description

Create an event:
* On the General page:
  * Event title
  * Event subtitle.
  * Track: Graphics Devroom
  * Event type: Lecture (talk) or Meeting (BoF)
* Persons:
  * Add yourself as speaker.
* Description:
  * Abstract:
  * Full Description
* Links:
  * Add relevant links.

Everything else can be ignored or will be filled in by me or the FOSDEM
organizers. Remember, i will only schedule your talk after the basics 
are somewhat filled in (you still can change them until december 18th).

That's about it. Hope to see you all at FOSDEM :)

Luc Verhaegen.