News
Hello FLO (free/libre/open) friends! With a goal of hosting both in-person and remote activities this year, we are looking to expand our all-volunteer conference committees with new helpers and coordinators for SeaGL 2024. Think you might be a good fit or have a friend to put forward? Please keep reading!
How does SeaGL come together?
Starting around mid-January or early-February a kick-off meeting is scheduled, previous volunteers and interested parties are invited to attend. During this meeting we set a general timeline, see what area(s) folks are interested in spending their time, and review notes from the previous year’s retrospective.
After the kick-off meeting, committees figure out their meeting cadence and create an initial timeline for themselves. We also gather every other week as all-staff to go over outstanding tasks and keep everyone abreast of the progress committees are making. Meetings increase frequency to weekly approximately two months before the event.
What are these committees?
There are a lot of tasks that come together to make a successful conference. If enough tasks are similar, they get bundled together and a committee is formed to focus on them. Our current list of committees can be found on the Get Involved page, they are also listed here:
- Attendee Experience: Focusing on and prioritizing the SeaGL community.
- A/V & DevOps: Central nest for SeaGL technical operations.
- Finance: Keeping an eye on the SeaGL books and issuing reimbursements.
- IDEA: Promoting inclusion, diversity, equity, and access at SeaGL and beyond.
- Partnerships: Connecting SeaGL with other groups, organizations, and sponsors.
- Policy & Protocol: Making sure there are rules place keep SeaGL a safer space.
- Programming & Flow: Packing the SeaGL program with amazing content.
- Promotion & Outreach: Spreading the word about SeaGL world wide.
- Volunteers: Keeping the SeaGL staff happy and recruiting new volunteers to the flock.
Committees are usually pretty flexible, and many folks find themselves on more than one, depending on where their interests lie. Ideally, each committee has two coordinators to share some responsibilities, provide redundancy, and enhance knowledge transfer during transitions.
And what about these coordinators? What do they do??
A coordinator essentially takes on the stewardship for one of SeaGL’s committees. This includes the following core responsibilities:
- Organizing committee meetings
- Recruiting committee volunteers
- Providing updates to, and receiving updates from the all-staff meetings
- And ideally, creating or improving committee documentation
A coordinator isn’t necessarily experienced in their committee’s specific area of responsibility, and they are not expected to do all of their committee’s work. Their primary responsibility is to make sure everything in their committee’s purview is being kept on-track and accomplished in a timely manner. Ideally, coordinators will serve for two years, and either create or improve a handover plan to give their successors a strong start.
Sounds great! How do I get involved???
First, check the Get Involved page. We do our best to keep it up to date, and it’ll let you know where the need for people is greatest. Now that we’re back in-person, we especially need coordinators on the Attendee Experience, IDEA and Volunteers committees. We are also currently looking for co-coordinators on the A/V & DevOps, Partnerships, and Finance committees.
If you have questions, we’d love to answer them! Reach out to us on Matrix or send an e-mail to participate@seagl.org. We also welcome you to fill out this volunteer application form. However you get ahold of us, we’ll try to respond within 48 hours.
Thank you for reading this, and we hope that you consider becoming an important part of one of the best FLO community conferences!
We’re excited to share that the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference is returning for its twelfth (12th) year on Friday, November 8th and Saturday November 9th, 2024.
Our in-person event will again take place in the Husky Union Building at the University of Washington and we are striving to provide a great experience for our remote attendees too (but we need your help, see below).
This year’s staff-selected theme is “Around the Clock” and we’ll be working around the clock to bring you the best SeaGL yet!
An internal goal this year, appropriate given the theme, is to clarify when each conference component needs to be ready.
To that end, we are currently planning on opening the CFP in May and our sponsorship prospectus should be available in March.
If you (or a friend) have ever wondered what it takes to put these things on, join us and find out!
We realize that our virtual experience last year suffered, in part due to being spread too thin with the return to in-person.
Hopefully more folks will join SeaGL’s all-volunteer staff, which is actively recruiting committee coordinators and helpers of all levels.
Not quite ready to volunteer? No problem! Please join our matrix community or low-traffic announcement list to stay in touch.
And send some suggestions about how SeaGL can be more IDEA (inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible) aligned.
As always, SeaGL couldn’t have come this far without our community and we want to thank each and every one of you.
It may be well over the horizon, but we are flying high and looking forward to seeing many of you on November 8th & 9th (if not before)!
Today marks the return of an in-person SeaGL!
Welcome to our eleventh year, SeaGL 2023!
There are a variety of details regarding how to attend, what’s on the schedule, and how you can help. Please take a moment to read and share!
How to Attend
You may have heard… this year SeaGL will be hybrid! The in-person event will take place on the University of Washington campus at the Husky Union Building (known as the HUB). We’ve created this page with maps and links to information about parking and the venue.
As the venue is located within a public university, it has a wide variety of accessibility and diversity features. However, if there are additional ones that are important to you, please suggest them in this IDEA form and we will see what accommodations can be made.
If you are planning to join remotely, visit attend.seagl.org and either create an ephemeral account or sign-in with your Matrix ID. You will be added to the broader SeaGL hallway chat and sent instructions for how to join specific chat rooms. To view a talk, enter one of the “Current Session” channels and click on the watch button to open an embedded live stream.
Code of Conduct + Health and Safety Policy
SeaGL, like free software, is for everyone. It’s paramount to us that all attendees feel (and be!) safe and welcome.
To that end all staff, presenters, and attendees of SeaGL are expected to obey the Code of Conduct not only at SeaGL but also in all SeaGL-associated spaces including but not limited to associated social events and virtual channels.
In-person attendees are also expected to obey the Health and Safety Policy for the duration of the conference. This includes requiring masks inside presentation rooms and encouraging them in other areas. If you don’t have your own we are providing them gratis.
If you have any concerns that are at all of a Code of Conduct nature, please email coc AT seagl.org as soon as possible. If you need immediate help, please locate any SeaGL staffer.
Keynotes + Programming + Social Events
Each day of SeaGL will be packed full with two keynote speakers nominated by this year’s organizers followed by over 40 presentations selected by our program committee. Each afternoon we will have a tea break (TeaGL, described below) and each evening there will be a social event at the conference venue. On Friday there will also be a career expo where you can get assistance and advice on your professional development.
Some of the schedule highlights:
Friday
Saturday
Beverages and Snacks
Venue doors open at 8am each day and we’ll be providing coffee and tea with some light pre-packaged fare.
This year we will not be able to offer lunch, however, there is an excellent selection of eateries within walking distance of the HUB and on Friday there are various in-building options available.
We are also unable to provide a larger meal or drinks during the social events. That said, we will have individually packaged nibbles and finding a few feathered friends for later night food focused conversations is always fine!
Finally, the afternoon talks will be separate by a special event we like to call…
TeaGL: Tea Tasting and Exchange
If you’re a fan of tea, we’ve got just the event for you!
We’ll have a variety of grab-and-go teas, hot water, and disposable cups for those wanting to hold something warm while socializing.
However, for the patient and persistent, this year will feature a sampling of black, green, white, oolong, and pu-erh Chinese teas, as well as an herbal blend named “Lunar Orchard” that turns purple.
Additionally, if you’d like to bring your favorite teas along to sample and share, please do! But make sure they are in an unopened package to keep the venue satisfied.
We encourage people to get together, chat, and just generally share their SeaGL experiences. People are the best part of Free Software, after all.
If you share anything on your social network of choice, please use the #SeaGL2023 hashtag so everyone can follow along. If you use Mastodon, please follow @SeaGL@mastodon.social for announcements and updates.
Volunteering
Per usual, we are seeking volunteers to help make the event a success. Here are some of the at-event positions we’re looking for more help with:
- Room Monitors: introduce speakers (with their permission), perform room head counts, make sure speakers have everything they need, and ensure sessions run smoothly and finish on time.
- Sign-Wranglers: post up and take down signs in and around venue.
- Refreshment Aides: help with the set up, tear down, and clean up of coffee and tea breaks.
- Information Attendants: register attendees (if they want), check-in speakers and exhibitors, hand out programs, and provide directions and answers to questions.
- Virtual Hosts: keeps an eye on the Matrix channels, identifies content in need of moderation, reaches out to in-person staff as needed.
We also welcome up-and-coming volunteers for future years. If you’re interested in joining the flock, please fill out this form or reach out via Matrix or email.
Whew, that was a lot
There’s so much going on at this return to an in-person SeaGL and we can’t wait to see you there!
The time has come for SeaGL 2023, happening this week!
As a Halloween treat we bring you a preview of our keynote presentations.
These keynotes will be held in-person at 9am on both Friday and Saturday in the Lyceum at the University of Washington HUB.
They will also be streamed live online for our remote attendees!
Deb Nicholson presents: “Diversity and Allyship isn’t Always Easy”
Friday, November 3rd, 2023. 9:10 am
Everyone loves the idea of diversity and most of us want to think of ourselves as “a good ally.” Not only is it the right thing to do, but there are also some very appealing benefits that come with making your tech event, project or workplace a welcoming place for vulnerable, marginalized or under-indexed people. More perspectives lead to more innovation and diverse companies tend to enjoy higher employee loyalty and customer satisfaction rates. There are many great talks and papers about how to increase diversity, but they often skip over the difficult parts. We’re not doing ourselves any favors by leaving the challenges, costs or even the backlash out of the discussion.
Once we’re willing to talk about it, maybe we can come up with some ideas to help each other overcome the stress points? I want to start that conversation. This talk is coming from someone who passionately supports diversity and wants to help others do this work and to set them up for success with realistic expectations.
About the speaker: Deb Nicholson (@baconandcoconut@freeradical.zone), Executive Director at the Python Software Foundation and a founding organizer of SeaGL.
View in Schedule
Sri Ramkrishna presents: “The Linux App Ecosystem: A renaissance that nobody is watching.”
Friday, November 3rd, 2023. 9:40 am
The Linux App Ecosystem is essentially a group of projects, frameworks, and organizations that implement, contribute, and enhance writing applications on the Linux platform. During the initial years, there was a slew of excitement as open source became more prominent. Yet, as the years went by and even as the concept of open source took off and became the modus operand of software engineering, the interest in the app ecosystem seemed to dwindle and it found itself pushed further away from open source mainstream. Largely hidden from mainstream view, wonderful things are happening.
About the speaker: Sri Ramkrishna (@sri@mastodon.social), one of the longest time GNOME contributors and a veteran FLOSS advocate.
View in Schedule
Hong Phuc Dang presents: “Embracing Open Source: Pioneering Sustainable Solutions for a Thriving Future.”
Saturday, November 4th, 2023. 9:10 am
In an era marked by pressing environmental challenges and the urgent need for sustainable development, we need open source now, more than ever. Open Source, with its collaborative ethos and transparent nature, has the potential to revolutionise the way we approach sustainability. This keynote explores the symbiotic relationship between Open Source and sustainability, highlighting how Open Source principles foster innovation, inclusivity, and scalability, while nurturing a global ecosystem of problem solvers. Hong Phuc will share inspiring examples from diverse domains, showcasing how Open Source empowers individuals, organisations, and entire communities to create impactful and sustainable solutions.
About the speaker: Hong Phuc Dang (@hpdang@floss.social), co-founder of FOSSASIA, one of the largest FOSS community in Asia.
View in Schedule
Kaylea Champion presents: “Simple Dreams and Complicated Nightmares: Innovation, Trust, and Risk in FLOSS”
Saturday, November 4th, 2023. 9:40 am
Free/libre open source software is everywhere – but that success has come at a cost, and our freedom to follow our own passions is both a blessing and a curse. In this talk, I’ll share results from a series of recent research projects to understand the risks we face and the ways we can protect the health of our movement. I’ll share specific actions you and your projects can take to keep building a thriving ecosystem for both contributors and end users.
About the speaker: Kaylea Champion (@kaylea@social.coop), Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington researching many things related to free/libre/open source. She is an advocate for women in technology and past SeaGL presenter.
View in Schedule
We are rapidly approaching our eleventh annual gathering. After three years of being fully virtual, for 2023 we will have a hybrid in-person/virtual format, with remote participation options throughout the conference. During this time of transition, we are directing additional care towards becoming more inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible (IDEA).
The SeaGL team has seen a lot of people carve out niches for themselves when they don’t feel welcome in the broader tech community. We hope to provide underrepresented groups a place where they have the community’s full support to get involved. To this end, SeaGL would like to extend an open invitation to all folks join us for knowledge sharing and mutual learning. We’d especially like to bring in people who care about these issues and are open to working with us to improve the state—not only of SeaGL—but of the free/libre/open source ecosystem as a whole.
Some ways you can participate:
- attend, in-person or remotely, on Friday and Saturday, November 3rd & 4th
- volunteer, day-of or before the event, by visiting https://seagl.org/get_involved
- spread the word, a personal invitation is always better received and can reach groups that are otherwise unaware
Additionally, if you have access needs or suggestions for things which would make the conference a more comfortable place for you, please submit them to this anonymous form. You will be able to provide contact if you’d like us to reach out about your feedback.
We are also interested in contracting an assessment of our CFP process, community spaces, etc., and would love to hear any recommendations that you may have for doing this.
Once again, if there’s anyone else that you think might be interested, please pass this message along. We’d love to have as many people as possible from around the tech community join us this November and beyond.
Note that if you are planning on attending in-person, we have released a new health and safety policy which will apply at the event. We’d like to thank the Public Health Pledge for their leadership in encouraging conferences to have health and safety policies!
Regards,
The SeaGL 2023 IDEA committee
Greetings to the SeaGL community! Our list of presentations for next month is finally here. Per usual, there may be some small adjustments, but this should give everyone a good idea of what they’ll really really want to attend.
See you in-person or virtually on Friday and Saturday, November 3rd & 4th! As always, SeaGL is completely free to attend and no registration is required. We’d also love for you to get involved as a volunteer.
As a reminder, all speakers, sponsors, volunteers, staff, and anyone else involved in SeaGL are required to abide by the Code of Conduct and any in-person attendees must abide by the Health and Safety Policy.
Schedule: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2023/schedule
Keynotes
- Deb Nicholson
- Hong Phuc Dang
- Kaylea Champion
- Sri Ramkrishna
Talks
(listed alphabetically by speaker’s given name)
Hello FLO (free/libre/open) friends! With the return to in-person activities this year, we are looking to expand our all-volunteer conference committees with new volunteers for SeaGL 2023 - and a chairperson to help recruit these volunteers. Think you might be a good fit or have a friend to put forward? You’re in the right place!
As an all-volunteer staff, there aren’t enough of us to run an entire conference by ourselves. For example, we need people to help answer questions and run the video streams too. As the event is rapidly approaching, we are therefore actively seeking someone to coordinate our at-event volunteers! This person would:
- work with the other committee chairs to create a list of what areas need volunteers
- create a list of how many volunteers are needed for each area
- update materials for volunteers, training and reference
- schedule volunteer trainings
- recruit volunteers, pre-event and on-site
- on-board new volunteers, especially to the Matrix space
- attend all staff meetings to update and coordinate with other committee chairs
Aside from that, we have plenty of things to do, especially related to the Attendee Experience, IDEA, and Promotion/Outreach committees - let us know if any of these areas sound interesting to you. And of course if you want to sign up to be an at-event volunteer, we’d love that too!
If you’d like more info, please reach out to us on Matrix or send an e-mail to participate@seagl.org. We also welcome you to fill out this volunteer application form. However you get ahold of us, we’ll try to respond within 48 hours.
Thank you for reading, and we hope that you consider becoming an important part of one of the best FLO community conferences!
We are excited to announce that our venue contract has been finalized and we are well into planning the details for this year’s SeaGL conference experience!
Our return to in-person will be taking place at a new venue on the University of Washington Seattle campus in the HUB (Husky Union Building). Within the HUB, we will have an expo hall and lounge space, along with dedicated presentation rooms. This means that there will be different talks, tracks, and experiences to choose from depending on your interests!
As usual, we’re planning a variety of social events, organized and otherwise, to supplement the programming. These include a career expo, tea swap (TeaGL), and more. We’ll also be hosting a Saturday evening participant party (off-site venue TBD) for more socializing once conference presentations are complete.
Travel and wayfinding details about the UW Seattle campus can be found here:
The HUB has the following accessibility and diversity features. If there are additional ones that are important to you, please suggest them in this form and we will see if accommodations can be made:
- ADA ramps and elevators throughout the building
- single stall, all gender, family-friendly, and disability accessible restroom on the 3rd floor
- baby changing and lactation stations
While this year’s event will be in-person, presentations will be streamed and we will strive to include hybrid components for social events so you will also be able to attend online. Please note that the Code of Conduct is enforced in all conference spaces and if you are attending in-person, so is the Health and Safety Policy.
We hope you will join us in November one way or the other!
Thanks to all who have submitted to our Call for Proposals so far!
This year, as we return to in-person activities, we experimented with moving up the selection period.
However, due to delays in advertising this change and the release of our Health and Safety Policy, we’ve decided to extend the CfP.
Submissions will now be accepted until Friday, June 30 at 11:59 PT! So head to our talk submission portal, OSEM and submit today!
Hopefully this will give previous speakers enough time to put something in and lead to a more diverse selection of content for our reviewers to sift through.
Need some suggestions on what to submit? Check our our blog post outlining this year’s categories and the initial Call for Proposals post.
Have any questions about your submission or want to volunteer with the conference? You can contact us via email at program@seagl.org, Mastodon, or Matrix.
Looking forward to seeing many of you this fall in Seattle or virtually world-wide!
Welcome to the 2023 SeaGL Call For Proposals! We’re always looking for new perspectives, and this year, we want to hear from you. Our Call for Papers closes on Wednesday May 31, 2023 Friday June 30, 2023.
How to submit
Go to our talk submission portal, OSEM, and create an account or log in with your account from previous years. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click Submit your proposal now.
Fill in your talk title and abstract, without including biographical information. When you have submitted, you will be taken to a page called Proposals for SeaGL 2023, with a list of your talks. Click on the Edit button, and add your bio, talk category, and difficulty, then click the Update proposal button to save the details.
What we’re looking for
This year, we’re accepting both 20-minute and 50-minute talks from in-person and virtual presenters. We welcome uncommonly heard perspectives, and like to watch presenters get out of their comfort zone to apply lessons across technical disciplines. We also want to see submissions from first-time speakers and members of under-represented groups in tech.
For more information on talk topics and structure, go here.
What we expect from speakers
The SeaGL Code of Conduct applies to staff, presenters, volunteers, attendees, and sponsors alike. The content of your presentation, and your behaviour at the conference, must abide by the Code of Conduct.
To present at SeaGL, you’ll need to be able to do one of the following:
- be in Seattle on November 3rd or 4th to present live;
- submit a pre-recorded video to us by October 1st, and optionally be available after your presentation for live Q&A;
- or be available to present via live-streaming on November 3rd and 4th, with a required technical check a week before.
Office Hours
SeaGL pioneered the idea of CfP Office Hours, so stay tuned for details. If you need help in the meantime, please email us at cfp-help@seagl.org, or join the General Discussion room in SeaGL’s Matrix channel.
Who we are
The Program Committee is the group responsible for selecting and scheduling all of the great talks you enjoy at SeaGL. This year, the Program Committee consists of:
- Dawn Cooper (chair)
- Atinuke ‘Bami’ Kayode
- Monica Ayhens-Madon
We operate using the SeaGL Program Committee Code of Practice.
If you need help, or want to volunteer with the Program Committee, you can contact us via email at program@seagl.org, Mastodon, or Matrix