5tFTW: Fedora conferences this summer, writing release notes, brainstorming a better onramp, and a GSOC reminder (2015-03-25)

[Matthew Miller]

Fedora is a big project, and it’s hard to keep up with everything. This
series highlights interesting happenings in five different areas every
week. It isn’t comprehensive news coverage — just quick summaries with
links to each. Here are the five things for March 25th, 2015:

Join us at Flock (and book your hotel now)
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Every year, we have a big planning and developers’ conference, Flock.
It alternates between Europe and North America, and this time around
will be at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New
York, from August 12th to 15th. Flock organizers just announced that
hotel reservations are open, as are talk submission. If you’re an
active contributor or are interested in becoming one, start planning
your trip now!

* http://flocktofedora.org/
  * http://fedoramagazine.org/flock-2015-rochester-institute-of-technology/
  * http://flocktofedora.net/location/hotels/
  * http://flocktofedora.net/submit-a-talk/

Or, come to FUDCon in Pune, India
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In addition to Flock, we also hold annual gatherings in the
Asia/Pacific (APAC) and Latin America (LATAM) regions. These are
FUDCons — Fedora User and Developer Conferences. This year’s APAC
FUDCon will be held in Pune, India from June 26th to 28th.

Talk submissions for this conference are closed and the selection
committee working on choosing the best from over 140 submissions. There
will also be a BarCamp-style track, where sessions will be chosen by
attendees at the conference.

A limited amount of money is available for travel subsidies. See the
FUDCon planning wiki for details.

* https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Bid_for_Pune_2015
  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp
  * https://fedorahosted.org/fudcon-planning/wiki/FundingRequest

Help with the F22 release notes
-------------------------------

Fedora 22 is almost at the beta stage, with the final release slated
for May. That means it’s time to start writing the release notes, and
Fedora Documentation Project Lead Pete Travis put out a call for
volunteers on the Fedora Join List. As Pete notes, this is a great,
low-barrier way to get involved in Fedora — you don’t need a lot of
prior knowledge, just a little bit of interest in some piece of
software we include.

* https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/fedora-join/2015-March/000323.html

A more friendly ‘net presence for Fedora
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This morning, Máirín Duffy led a brainstorming session on the topic of
enabling new contributors, with the eventual goal of developing a
modern Web interface to all aspects of the project for contributors,
both new and already deeply involved. Mo wrote a great summary blog
post afterward, and I highly recommend reading it if you’re interested
in bringing more contributors to Fedora — or just improving your own
workflows and interactions.

* http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2015/03/25/summary-of-enabling-new-contributors-br...

Google Summer of Code
---------------------

And finally, a reminder that Fedora is participating in the Google
Summer of Code. The application deadline is March 27 at 19:00 UTC;
please check out Fedora’s GSOC 2015 page if you’re interested in being
involved.

* http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/GSOC_2015