We had decided Singapore as the location for FAD APAC 2015 in a discussion during FUDCon Pune. Following up the first FAD for APAC budget planning in Phnom Penh last year, we would like to make a plan for the events, activities in APAC and budget for them during next fiscal year (March 2016 – February 2017). This year, as suggestions from FPL, Council and other community members, we also added another main purpose to develop a strategy/plan for user and contributor growth in APAC which had been discussed a little last year.
We tried to invite at least a person from each country in APAC. Some people were from countries where Fedora events and activities had been happening last year, some others were from countries which we would like to get them more active. However, due to budget limitation and/or lack of contributions, some countries do not have any representatives finally. Before attending FAD, all participants had been asked to list events, activities and ideas to grow up Fedora community in their owned countries. I think it would save a lot of time for all of us to prepare something in advance but not all participants got that small exercise done.
The FAD was in two days. We started the first day with a short introduction from each country representatives. People introduced themselves and reported the situation of Fedora community in each country. Most of us mentioned to the issue of smaller (than Ubuntu) users community. It would be better to have a large number of users since people often contribute to an open source project after using it for a while. However, in some specific situations, the conversion rate (from users to contributors) is more important. Another common issue in APAC is lesser people’s attention to operating systems. In some countries, people now pay more attention to other *new* things like apps, data, etc. We agreed that our strategy to reach them needs to be changed, but it should be different from a country to the others. A common thing we could do together is to organize more interesting events, activities and distribute more media, swags to attract more attention from people. Beside that, since APAC is a large and cultural/language different area, each country should have a specific strategy/plan to grow up users and contributors community.
Also during the first day, we started discussing on the future Fedora events and activities next year. Each country described their scheduled events, activities then we tried to see if other countries/members can collaborate and to estimate necessary budgets to each of them. At the end of the day, after long discussions and (sometimes :)) debates, we made a list of scheduled events and activities in APAC next year and estimated budget for each.
See more: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD_Singapore_2015/Events
Also during the first day, we discussed about media and swag production and distribution process. We decided to improve our system to do producing them centrally then distribute to other countries. Indian community did a good job last two-three releases so we decided to continue that way. The best way for media distribution, especially to some strict countries like China, is via Red Hat channel. Media would be distributed to Singapore for all ASEAN countries via Red Hat offices too. The request, tracking, managing tools (e.g. Trac) also need to be changed to adapt the new process. We decided to think and discuss more to define that process and related tools as good and clear as possible.
During the second day, we discussed more about CC holder and reimbursement process in APAC. Since the current APAC CC holder, Izhar, is too busy, some reimbursements are not fast enough. People need to wait for a few months to get their prepaid money back. We decided to propose to have an additional CC holder for APAC (preferable in India/SL since that is a large area with a lot of Fedora contributors). We would send our proposal officially once we find a good candidate.
For better collaboration among countries in the whole region, we discussed more about tools (e.g. Trac, mailing lists), meetings and plans. Some Ambassadors in APAC do not know their job/tasks even common stuffs like Ambassadors’ plan in each release cycle. We decided to improve regional leadership as well as ourselves to do the Ambassador job better.
Later of the day, we tried to find out the candidates for new Budget.next roles. Once this new process is out officially, we will make the final decision based on those candidates.
Some other stuffs have been opened and need to be discussed more. However, for me, this FAD was success as we got almost main purposes done.
Please kindly checkout this pad for more information: http://piratepad.net/FAD-Sngapore-2015
Last but not least, you should also check out other interesting event reports and photos from other attendees.