FOSDEM 2024: dates announced. Haskell devroom proposal?

Events
#1

I was very pleased that last year featured, for the first time, a Haskell devroom at FOSDEM, and I enjoyed the talks I caught there.

FOSDEM have just announced the dates for 2024, and it’s very likely that the call for devroom proposals will be out this month (going by previous years)
https://fosdem.org/2024/

Is anyone planning or preparing to submit a Haskell proposal for 2024?

Putting my cards on the table: I would not be able to organise or participate in organising a devroom myself. I’m in the final throes of writing up my part-time PhD. There is a chance I would submit a talk or talks, but my priority will have to be on doing something which supports my dayjob (which alas, does not involve Haskell) to secure work support for me to attend. It would be irresponsible for me to commit to anything further than that, this time around.

If anyone is interested in Haskell talks at FOSDEM, but the prospect of a full Haskell dev room is too daunting for the available, is there any opportunity to buddy-up with a sibling language community, and perhaps have a wider-scope FP devroom?

8 Likes
#2

I was there last year and met some friends :slight_smile: I wanted to come next year too, since Train World was closed when we were there, and I definitely want to go see la Douce this time. When we were there we discussed with @david-christiansen whether it would be possible to have a Haskell stand on the floor where some of the other programming languages were present (Raku and Ada, for example). But this requires that there are enough people willing to sit behind it and talk to people about Haskell during the event.

1 Like
#3

I spoke to @frasertweedale, who organized last year’s devroom together with @athas. He said that he’d be willing to share materials with whoever organizes it this year, but he won’t be coming all the way from Australia this time around.

I suspect that the timing will be awkward for HF to organize a booth, what with my imminent departure, but a devroom would be really great. I don’t have much time before my last day, but if there is something I can do to help the organizing process along, please let me know! And if there is something that an ED-less HF can help with, please let the board know as well.

1 Like
#4

Also, while I did not organize the devroom last year, I did help out on the day of the event. My impression was that FOSDEM does a great job providing organizers with a structure in which to work, so if you’ve never organized an event before, this one might be a good one to learn with.

And when I say “you”, I mean you, the reader of this comment - this is your chance!

3 Likes
#5

I can be the point of contact for the organisation of the devroom. I have asked Fraser to send me the documents he had for this year. I will also probably create a coordination space on the HF Slack workspace.

10 Likes
#6

Great to hear! I highly recommend getting a partner, too!

1 Like
#7

I’m probably going to submit a talk on my experiences working with Haskell on the Eclair compiler. :slight_smile:

8 Likes
#8

Great to see interest in having a devroom at FOSDEM 2024. Thanks @Kleidukos for stepping up (I provided all the materials I can).

Some thoughts and anecdotes:

  • Demand for devrooms is huge and it is far from guaranteed. For that reason, it may be a good idea to submit both a devroom and a stand (booth) proposal. These would be separate proposals and should have different organisers. If there are enough people who are willing and able to help…

  • IIRC, you can request a full-day devroom or a half-day devroom. But even if you request a full-day, you might only get offered a half-day. This is what happened in 2023. But it worked out well; we had a great half-day program, but would have struggled to fill a full day. Therefore it might be a good idea to directly propose a half-day devroom for 2024 - and that might improve chances of acceptance.

  • FOSDEM is a well-oiled machine and workload for devroom organisers is quite reasonable. The conference tech for CFPs and scheduling works well (not without its quirks, of course). Before the conf the main things are: put out CFP and promote it, review submissions, decide the schedule (all before the deadlines), and speaker liaison. Actually hosting the devroom on the day is the most stressful part (speaker communication, MCing, social media, chatroom monitor, etc). You need at least two people, three is more comfortable. If you can arrange volunteers specifically for e.g. MCing, chatroom monitor or roving mic for Q&A, that is the perfect scenario.

Good luck, and I am happy to answer questions, review proposals, etc. But as David said, non-attendance in 2024 is a near-certainty.

5 Likes
#9

Update: the stands CFP is now open, until 2023-12-08 (announcement).

2 Likes
#10

I’d love for a Haskell dev room to happen, and would probably submit a talk.

2 Likes
#11

Hey @Kleidukos - Did you end up making progress here? If you’re still keen to work on it, I’d definitely be happy to pair up with you and work on it together :slight_smile:

1 Like
#12

The devroom CfP hasn’t opened yet, but I’d be more than happy to do this with you :slight_smile:

1 Like
#13

Update: the call for devrooms is now open, until 2023-10-16 (announcement). The submission deadline is now less than two weeks away.

5 Likes
#14

@silky and I are on it!

5 Likes
#15

I will be there for FOSDEM, and will be able to help during those days. But I will only have minimal time before the event itself.

2 Likes
#16

FYI, we heard back; we didn’t get approved for the devroom this year.

There is the option for a stand, which perhaps @Kleidukos and other people may be interested in following up on? And of course the option to just submit talks directly to fosdem, or, to any accepted devrooms where it may fit (I haven’t seen the announcement of the accepted ones yet.)

#17

Here is the full list: FOSDEM 2024 - Accepted developer rooms. As usual there is a great diversity. If you are interested in proposing a Haskell presentation there’s a good chance it will fit somewhere.

1 Like