Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Sagara Gunathunga <sa...@gmail.com>]

With few local committers I'm planning to have a Apache community building
event in Colombo (Sri Lanka) somewhere around next month. Still I'm not
sure whether we could brand this event as a Bar Camp because this event
mainly not targeting existing members of Apache projects instead new people
( can be developers, students  etc) who have desire on contributing on
Apache projects.

Speaking in several universities and local groups we found that lot of
people like to contribute on Apache projects but they are having problem
like How can I start ? What is the best project me to start ? I'm not a
developer can I contribute and become a committer ? etc.

Basic Objectives of this event as follows.

1.) Motivate people to contribute on Apache projects and answer various
doubts they have.
2.) Provide some practical guidelines to start their project contribution.
3.) Make some space for new people to communicate with experienced
committers and share lessons they learned.
4.) Conduct a practical session demonstrate concept like Fixing JIRA issues
, debugging, patching process etc. ( One of a Apache project will use for
this demonstration)


May be we can use Apache BootUp Camp or such name, I expect someone in this
list can propose better name according to above context.


At the moment we have an idea about possible sponsors that covers location
and refreshment cost.  I don't think we can find sponsors to cover
transport cost for foreign speakers but if any speaker willing to find
sponsors their own we are more then welcome them for this event.


Still we are in primary discussion level and we are expect some comments
and helps from this list.


Thanks !

-- 
Sagara Gunathunga

Blog      - http://ssagara.blogspot.com
Web      - http://people.apache.org/~sagara/
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/ssagara

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
> I'm not sure whether you remember this Kanchana and my self had a chat 
> with you during the ApacheCon (Vancouver) about potential events in 
> Asia.

I remember the chat, but was a bit hazy on who I'd had it with, sorry...

> Our experience is "BarCamp" brand is not much fit with our target 
> audience. I know "BarCamp" brand worked well in lot of places but in our 
> local context it does not get enough attraction (specially targeting new 
> people) .

OK, I'd suggest you stick with some aspects of a BarCamp for organising, 
but pick a name that's a better fit for your local area. The BarCamp brand 
is good and big, but apparently it hasn't managed suitable world 
domination just yet... :)

> I also agree that "Apache Beginners Hackathon" can be a good brand for 
> this event.

I'd suggest you brainstorm half a dozen names, then do a quick straw poll 
of a few people you're hoping will come. With any luck, one will stand out 
as a good name for your target audience.


> This is a doable thing we can record some of the talks and possible to
> make them publicly available.

Great. Let me know where I should have some recorders sent to!

> Since we are in a small country most of open source communities are 
> overlapping and it's very easy to spread the word among those 
> communities.

Good good. My only comment then on the event name is to make sure it's 
inclusive enough (maybe with a suitable tagline) - you don't want to miss 
out on helping someone who's really keen on open source, but more into 
Ubuntu than Apache! After all, you can get the Ubuntu person to help with 
packaging ASF releases ;-)

>> Do you have a feeling for how many people may attend, and how many 
>> existing Apache committers may be able to come to talk / mentor?
>
> Our current estimation is to target aground 60 to 75 people and few 
> committers already work with me to organize this event. Around 5 to 10 
> Apache committers will participate to this event to talks/mentor.

That sounds a good core number.

> I discussed with Sanjiva Weerawarana and he agree to be a mentor for 
> this event further he is happy to deliver a talk too. We are in a 
> process to get a venue from a university that can be zero cost or very 
> minimal cost.

Sounds good!

Nick

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Sagara Gunathunga <sa...@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:10 AM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
>
>> With few local committers I'm planning to have a Apache community
>> building event in Colombo (Sri Lanka) somewhere around next month. Still
>> I'm not sure whether we could brand this event as a Bar Camp because this
>> event mainly not targeting existing members of Apache projects instead new
>> people ( can be developers, students etc) who have desire on contributing
>> on Apache projects.
>>
>
> That's a completely fine group of people to target with a BarCamp! Most of
> our BarCamps outside of ApacheCon have been attended by non-committers more
> than committers.
>
> In terms of branding it as a BarCamp or not, I'd think the key questions
> are:
> * Will you be using the BarCamp format, or something different?
> * How well known is the BarCamp name+concept amongst your target audience?
> * And if it's know, will they think of the right thing if named as one?


Thanks Nick for your comments !

I'm not sure whether you remember this Kanchana and my self had a chat with
you during the ApacheCon (Vancouver) about potential events in Asia. Our
experience is "BarCamp" brand is not much fit with our target audience. I
know "BarCamp" brand worked well in lot of places but in our local context
it does not get enough attraction (specially targeting new people) .

I also agree that "Apache Beginners Hackathon" can be a good brand for this
event.



>
>
>
>  Speaking in several universities and local groups we found that lot of
>> people like to contribute on Apache projects but they are having problem
>> like How can I start ? What is the best project me to start ? I'm not a
>> developer can I contribute and become a committer ? etc.
>>
>
> If you do give these talks, it'd be great if we could get them recorded.
> They're very common questions, and I'm sure others would benefit from
> these. We do have some sound recorders available, which we could get out to
> you if that'd help.
>
> (I recall chatting with Ross on a few occasions about helping people
> overcome these very problems. Alas we don't have any concrete plans for how
> best to solve them, beyond events like this, but there are some vague
> ideas...)


 This is a doable thing we can record some of the talks and possible to
make them publicly available.


>
>
>
>  Basic Objectives of this event as follows.
>>
>> 1.) Motivate people to contribute on Apache projects and answer various
>> doubts they have.
>> 2.) Provide some practical guidelines to start their project contribution.
>> 3.) Make some space for new people to communicate with experienced
>> committers and share lessons they learned.
>> 4.) Conduct a practical session demonstrate concept like Fixing JIRA
>> issues
>> , debugging, patching process etc. ( One of a Apache project will use for
>> this demonstration)
>>
>
> This sounds like something that could be done largely in the BarCamp
> format. Equally it could be called a "beginners hackathon" or similar
>
> It seems to me that the things you'll be covering will apply to quite a
> few non Apache projects too, so it might be worth reaching out to any other
> Open Source communities you know of locally, to see if they want to get
> involved. For some of the latter parts, more experienced people could allow
> you to help people in more detail with getting going, in more of a
> hackathon like way.


 Since we are in a small country most of open source communities are
overlapping and it's very easy to spread the word among those communities.


>
>
>  At the moment we have an idea about possible sponsors that covers
>> location and refreshment cost.  I don't think we can find sponsors to cover
>> transport cost for foreign speakers but if any speaker willing to find
>> sponsors their own we are more then welcome them for this event.
>>
>
> Do you have a feeling for how many people may attend, and how many
> existing Apache committers may be able to come to talk / mentor?
>
> (Depending on those two, potentially you could apply to ConCom for help
> with some of the costs, though probably not to the extent of flying you in
> a whole panel of speakers!)
>

Our current estimation is to target aground 60 to 75 people and few
committers already work with me to organize this event. Around  5 to 10
Apache committers will participate to this event to talks/mentor.

I discussed with Sanjiva Weerawarana and he agree to be a mentor for this
event further he is happy to deliver a talk too. We are in a process to get
a venue from a university that can be zero cost or very minimal cost.

WSO2 willing to be a sponsor for this event, basically they will cover cost
for foods, beverages and venue. We are planning to start some marketing
through some social channels and among local communities ( universities,
professional bodies etc) somewhere around first week of Feb.

Thanks !


>
> Nick
>



-- 
Sagara Gunathunga

Blog      - http://ssagara.blogspot.com
Web      - http://people.apache.org/~sagara/
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/ssagara

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
> With few local committers I'm planning to have a Apache community 
> building event in Colombo (Sri Lanka) somewhere around next month. Still 
> I'm not sure whether we could brand this event as a Bar Camp because 
> this event mainly not targeting existing members of Apache projects 
> instead new people ( can be developers, students etc) who have desire on 
> contributing on Apache projects.

That's a completely fine group of people to target with a BarCamp! Most of 
our BarCamps outside of ApacheCon have been attended by non-committers 
more than committers.

In terms of branding it as a BarCamp or not, I'd think the key questions 
are:
* Will you be using the BarCamp format, or something different?
* How well known is the BarCamp name+concept amongst your target audience?
* And if it's know, will they think of the right thing if named as one?


> Speaking in several universities and local groups we found that lot of 
> people like to contribute on Apache projects but they are having problem 
> like How can I start ? What is the best project me to start ? I'm not a 
> developer can I contribute and become a committer ? etc.

If you do give these talks, it'd be great if we could get them recorded. 
They're very common questions, and I'm sure others would benefit from 
these. We do have some sound recorders available, which we could get out 
to you if that'd help.

(I recall chatting with Ross on a few occasions about helping people 
overcome these very problems. Alas we don't have any concrete plans for 
how best to solve them, beyond events like this, but there are some vague 
ideas...)


> Basic Objectives of this event as follows.
>
> 1.) Motivate people to contribute on Apache projects and answer various
> doubts they have.
> 2.) Provide some practical guidelines to start their project contribution.
> 3.) Make some space for new people to communicate with experienced
> committers and share lessons they learned.
> 4.) Conduct a practical session demonstrate concept like Fixing JIRA issues
> , debugging, patching process etc. ( One of a Apache project will use for
> this demonstration)

This sounds like something that could be done largely in the BarCamp 
format. Equally it could be called a "beginners hackathon" or similar

It seems to me that the things you'll be covering will apply to quite a 
few non Apache projects too, so it might be worth reaching out to any 
other Open Source communities you know of locally, to see if they want to 
get involved. For some of the latter parts, more experienced people could 
allow you to help people in more detail with getting going, in more of a 
hackathon like way.

> At the moment we have an idea about possible sponsors that covers 
> location and refreshment cost.  I don't think we can find sponsors to 
> cover transport cost for foreign speakers but if any speaker willing to 
> find sponsors their own we are more then welcome them for this event.

Do you have a feeling for how many people may attend, and how many 
existing Apache committers may be able to come to talk / mentor?

(Depending on those two, potentially you could apply to ConCom for help 
with some of the costs, though probably not to the extent of flying you in 
a whole panel of speakers!)

Nick

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Sagara Gunathunga <sa...@gmail.com>]

I have created a google group and added initial members. Please feel free
join yourself here http://groups.google.com/group/apache-event-lk?hl=en

Thanks !

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 2 Feb 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
>
>> We used to discuss these events on foss-event-lk list and send summery to
>> Apache lists. But main drawback is we drop lot of ideas and send only
>> results/conclusions as the summery also whole discussion is not visible. I
>> think it's better to have these discussions on Apache lists in a Apache way.
>>
>
> For the nitty gritty of organising small events, it's normally to have
> your own list elsewhere with just those taking part or offering advice.
> People here won't be interested in 5 emails on who's buying the tea bags!
> But there certainly is interest on the general process and advice
>
>
>  So far we use IRC a lot to organize this particular event I will inform
>> others to join small-events-discuss@ so that we can discuss relevant
>> matters on this list.
>>
>
> The only downside with IRC is that people who aren't there at that moment
> miss out, which is especially an issue for potential mentors as I don't
> think there are any in your timezone. For the last few small events I've
> helped with, we've used externally hosted mailing lists with everyone
> interested subscribed, and that has worked well.
>
> (For large Apache events, we'll normally create an Apache hosted list for
> it, but for smaller ones a google group or similar seems to work better, is
> quicker to set up etc)
>
> Nick
>



-- 
Sagara Gunathunga

Blog      - http://ssagara.blogspot.com
Web      - http://people.apache.org/~sagara/
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/ssagara

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>]

On Thu, 2 Feb 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
> We used to discuss these events on foss-event-lk list and send summery 
> to Apache lists. But main drawback is we drop lot of ideas and send only 
> results/conclusions as the summery also whole discussion is not visible. 
> I think it's better to have these discussions on Apache lists in a 
> Apache way.

For the nitty gritty of organising small events, it's normally to have 
your own list elsewhere with just those taking part or offering advice. 
People here won't be interested in 5 emails on who's buying the tea bags! 
But there certainly is interest on the general process and advice

> So far we use IRC a lot to organize this particular event I will inform 
> others to join small-events-discuss@ so that we can discuss relevant 
> matters on this list.

The only downside with IRC is that people who aren't there at that moment 
miss out, which is especially an issue for potential mentors as I don't 
think there are any in your timezone. For the last few small events I've 
helped with, we've used externally hosted mailing lists with everyone 
interested subscribed, and that has worked well.

(For large Apache events, we'll normally create an Apache hosted list for 
it, but for smaller ones a google group or similar seems to work better, 
is quicker to set up etc)

Nick

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Sagara Gunathunga <sa...@gmail.com>]

We used to discuss these events on foss-event-lk list and send summery to
Apache lists. But main drawback is we drop lot of ideas and send only
results/conclusions as the summery also whole discussion is not visible. I
think it's better to have these discussions on Apache lists in a Apache
way.

So far we use IRC a lot to organize this particular event I will inform
others to join small-events-discuss@ so that we can discuss relevant
matters on this list.

Thanks !

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
>
>> With few local committers I'm planning to have a Apache community
>> building event in Colombo (Sri Lanka) somewhere around next month. Still
>> I'm not sure whether we could brand this event as a Bar Camp because this
>> event mainly not targeting existing members of Apache projects instead new
>> people ( can be developers, students etc) who have desire on contributing
>> on Apache projects.
>>
>
> Do you have a mailing list set up yet for organising? If you do, we can
> hopefully get a few people who've organised previous small events to join,
> to offer advice and mentoring from their experiences.
>
> Nick
>



-- 
Sagara Gunathunga

Blog      - http://ssagara.blogspot.com
Web      - http://people.apache.org/~sagara/
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/ssagara

Re: Apache Community building event in Colombo

[Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Sagara Gunathunga wrote:
> With few local committers I'm planning to have a Apache community 
> building event in Colombo (Sri Lanka) somewhere around next month. Still 
> I'm not sure whether we could brand this event as a Bar Camp because 
> this event mainly not targeting existing members of Apache projects 
> instead new people ( can be developers, students etc) who have desire on 
> contributing on Apache projects.

Do you have a mailing list set up yet for organising? If you do, we can 
hopefully get a few people who've organised previous small events to join, 
to offer advice and mentoring from their experiences.

Nick