FOSS for Life

We have finished the first ever FAD for APAC Ambassadors for annual budget planning in Phnom Penh at the last weekend.

As other participants like Sirko or Siddesh wrote some nice summary reports (day 0, 1 and 2), I would not like to repeat those more. Instead of those, I would like to tell you some stories behind this FAD.

You may know, EMEA region have done some successful FADs for EMEA Ambassadors for annual budget planning for two years: 2012, 2013; and this year, they are planning for the third one in Leverkusen, Germany on December 5th, 2014. The past FADs were quite successful as all their main goals have been done. Budget plans for the last two fiscal years are quite good with almost events, activities and swags were analyzed and estimated. Each year, the total expense was close to the plan (!).

That’s why I thought about how to do the similar event in APAC. Last year, I discussed with some other members in region and tried to make the first APAC FAD in Manila, Philippines. However, preparation time was too short so finally, we could not make it.

This year, with a lot of support from other members (thanks to Sirko from EMEA for helping us, and thanks to Somvannda and Nisa Ban for hosting the event and doing all the facilitating jobs), we have been able to make it. I do not say that it was really successful but it was fine enough for us. All the main goals have been done. We got a list of events and swags with fully estimated budget in APAC during the next FY2016; we distributed all requested Ambassadors polo shirts; and last but not least, we had got a good time to meet face to face to discuss a lot of things and get understandings each other better.

It was just our first time and we would make it better and better in the future. We will have some more small adjustments and push these results to the next budget allocation phase (originally organized by FAmSCo and OSAS) in January-February, 2015. Hope we can do events and activities much better in the next FY2016.

Thanks again for all participants and see you next year.

Sunday, October 26th, 2014, at Nha Trang university, Nha Trang, Vietnam, the Nha Trang IT Day 2014 was taken place. During that day, the Fedora Join workshop was held to introduce about Fedora Project to professors, teachers and students who work and study at NTU and nearby universities and to help them to join into.

In the morning, I had got a keynote about some free and open source software principals and the community world-wide as well as in Vietnam. In fact, university students in Nha Trang had not got much information about FOSS and most of them do not know what Fedora exactly is. The talk made people to pay more attention on FOSS and Fedora.

At the end of morning session, there were a round table to discuss more and answer questions to attendees. We talked a lot about open source, how they built and how to contribute to them.

In the afternoon, I held a workshop particular in Fedora to introduce about Fedora and help people to join into the project. There were over 20 attendees and they were really excited to earn new things.

Attendees were asked to introduce themselves one by one and put their names into a PiratePad.

I talked briefly about the Fedora Project and Fedora community world-wide as well as in Vietnam; then I shown some slides to let people know how to contribute to Fedora with and without coding.

During the workshop, I answered a lot of questions about Fedora and Linux/FOSS in general.

At the mostly end of the workshop, helped people to do some initial tasks to join into Fedora project: register their FAS account, read and sign FCLA, create their personal wiki page, join into some mailing lists and connect to IRC channels. People were also asked to put their FAS account into the PiratePad and connect to IRC channels to keep in touch later.

I will keep in touch with them, especially, the teachers. Hopefully, we will have more FOSS and Fedora activities in Nha Trang in the future.

Some other pictures (taken by myself): Facebook album link here.

An article by organizers (in Vietnamese): http://ntu.edu.vn/kcntt/ViewTin.aspx?idcd=13&idnews=5589

It’s really excited. And I am back to work now.

I got an awesome Flock although it was not good from start because of an issue in my flight ticket which delayed me a day to meet fantastic friends in Fedora community.

Because my flight was delayed, my talk was delayed too but it was still in a good time, in the morning of 2nd day. There were many participations and they contributed more to my topic “Improving Mentors program”. In general, I would like to create a basic set of guidelines for mentors to work with their candidates. Although mentoring strategies are different among regions and even among mentors, I still believe there are some basic stuffs which every mentors need/should do for their candidates from beginning.

I had made some notes here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tuanta/Mentor_Guidelines_Draft and hope other mentors to contribute more before, during as well as after Flock.

Honestly, there were not many contributions before Flock. During my talk at Flock, I got some value ideas and comments. They took me to a new (not really new) direction that we should have specific guidelines for each regions since knowledge and experience of candidates are not equal among regions. Additionally, there may be more specific ones per country or mentor but they should be managed separately.

Other talks brought to participants a lot of value information and updates. Flock also made a good chance for people to meet and do other activities like key signing party, discuss some hot topics face to face, etc. I also loved joined dinners where I could drink beer, make friends and chat with other nice people in Fedora community. It would be much easier for me to work with other members after face-to-face meetings, especially for my work in FAmSCo and Server WG teams.

Frankly speaking, I prefer topics related to governance and community than technical ones. Most of technical ones could be easily accessible over the Internet while people-related ones are more complicated and should be discussed in person. However, I were still appreciated all people who contributed their time to make Fedora as well as this Flock succeed.

This would be another unforgettable event for us and I hope I can work and contribute to Fedora more and more.

IMHO, in the future, we should have more volunteers to support people to arrange their flights, accommodation, visa application etc. to avoid any potential issues. I am, of course, ready to join into that team.

Also, before and during the Flock, there were some discussions about subsidy’s criteria. In the future, I think, beside having accepted talks, people should show their more interests in other talks and activities in Flock. And to save money for supporting more people come, Flock could provide partially fund support instead of almost fully support as present. People may ask for support for flight, accommodation or both but it would effect to acceptance possibility of their requests. IMO, supporting for flight is enough, people can group up themselves to look for suitable hotels (it also would be better for collaboration).