Fw: FLOSS Conference Organizer Emergency Fund

Dear all,

I am forwarding this email to spi-general on the off-chance that it is
helpful to SPI members or projects.

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2020 21:45:44 -0700
From: Nuritzi Sanchez <nuritzis(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: Alyssa Wright <alyssa(at)oscollective(dot)org>
Cc: [—]
Subject: Re: [Foundations] FLOSS Conference Organizer Emergency Fund

Hi again,

The first iteration of the FOSS-Responders website is now live:
https://fossresponders.com/. Check it out!

Website's purpose:

- Help support organizers planning future conferences that could be
affected by COVID-19
- Financial aid for those with cancelled events (individuals and orgs)
- General support for FOSS orgs or event organizers that are dealing
with COVID-19 fallout
- A place to gather donations for FOSS communities that are affected
- A place where people can volunteer and get involved in the help efforts

Following up from last week, I wanted to help share notes from the meeting
we had on March 12, 2020 (see below).

I brought up the feedback about using more FOSS tools during the meeting,
and the group seemed open to doing more around this, but is most interested
in moving forward fast. So, we need help from people on this list (and the
wider community), to help us integrate open source alternatives.

*Here's what we need help with right now: *

- Setting up a Discourse instance. We can then use this to post meeting
notes for those interested in following, and it can be a place where the
community goes to support each other. It looks like Discourse offers
free hosting for Open Source projects
<https://blog.discourse.org/2018/11/free-hosting-for-open-source-v2/>
[1].

- Setting up a Matrix and/or IRC bridge for Slack. Right now we have a
Slack channel and it'd be great to connect it to something like Matrix.

Does anyone have experience with either of these things? We'd really
appreciate volunteers to help!

*Our next meeting is on Thursday, March 19th at 17:00 UTC.* If anyone wants
to join, please respond as there are several of us on this list who can add
you to the call.

Best,
Nuritzi

[1] https://blog.discourse.org/2018/11/free-hosting-for-open-source-v2/
eeting on 2020-03-12
Agenda

-

Roll Call (5 Min)
-

One sentence each please: Name, Role, and Association (I’m Duane
O’Brien, I the Head of Open Source at Indeed)
-

Please add yourself to the Attendee list for the call (above)
-

Review Facilitator & Attendee Commitments & Principles
-

What Else Have We Learned? (10 Min)
-

Dynamic List of Cancelled events:
https://airtable.com/shrETNURgXNrGWbd8/tblc49hMMykARebo8
-

Nuritzi: on a thread in foundations list on freedesktop, many people
requested that FLOSS tools be considered in the ways that we support Open
Source orgs with remote conference planning
-

PyCon may cancel and could impact their foundation
-

Update on GitHub Organization <https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/>
(10 min)
-

Rename to foss-responders?
-

about <https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/about> - A repo to talk
about how we work on this
-

support-requests
<https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/support-requests> - a proposal
for how we could take in support requests
-

Code Of Conduct <https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/about/pull/3>
Review
-

Update on Landing Page(2 minutes, @RichardLitt)
-

Insights From Crisis Response World (5 Min)
-

Pairing With Support Staff
-

Cross-Community Facilitation Resources
-

Q2 FOSS Funders Event (10 min)
-

Next Steps
-

Iterate On Intake Process
-

Review GitHub Materials

Comments:

Outstanding comments:

-

Can we track what OSS companies will fail without their annual
conference? We should have a list of those confs.
-

Pycon is thinking about cancelling
-

Additional Cancelled events
-

Open source 101 in Austin is being cancelled, that's hard
-

Creative commons has cancelled an event as well:
https://creativecommons.org/2020/03/05/important-cc-global-summit-update/
(I’m still figuring out how to edit the airtable)
-

Discussion regarding GitHub or GitLab? GitHub Org agenda item
-

Majority is on GH. 2nd voice for this option. Reduce the amount of
friction to allow people to get help
-

Nuritzi: A lot of organizations have asked that we try our best to
use Open Source tools when we are doing the crisis outreach and help,
GitLab aligns more closely with that
-

Promote through other channels beyond the dev tool
-

DECISION - Github. If you want to talk more about this, please take
it to Slack.

Process around this project - feedback on proposals for the following areas

-

Org name: foss-responders?
-

No one had issues with this name. Let’s move forward.
-

about <https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/about> - A repo to talk
about how we work on this.
-

See the pull request.
-

support-requests <https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/support-requests>
- a proposal for how we could take in support requests
-

Code Of Conduct <https://github.com/oss-coronavirus-wg/about/pull/3>
Review
-

Contributor Code of conduct - decided on
-

Nuritzi will be a CoC contact. Actual email nsanchez(at)gitlab(dot)com
will be used.
-

General Notes for this section
-

Feedback on any of the above - take to slack

Landing Page

-

Richard to have landing page up by end of today. 730pm EST - look at
contents. Please post in Slack so we can see and review.
-

Rachel Lawson offered to review
-

Richard will merge tomorrow at 5:00pm EST.

Lessons learned from larger crisis world from Heather Leeson

-

When people do crisis response - use a buddy system to keep an eye out
for support (appies to conference organizers, oss first responders). Watch
for your burnout and others. Ask them what support they need.
-

Make sure as we drive, we drive with a partner. Buddy system ya’ll
-

TO:DO - Duane, Gunner, Megan to figure out the best way to support
Duane
-

TODO: Alyssa will take on the relationship with Heather to carry a
discussion forward that Duane was having. Duane to forward on to Alyssa

-

Tools - some folks don’t like to use Slack. What can we do? Let’s look
at Matrix.

-

TODO: Nuritzi to look for someone to help with a Matrix bridge, or
something that we can do to create a way for people who don’t want to use
Slack to chime in
-

Google Groups

-

CoC requires email address where concerns can be sent. Foss Responders @
google groups.com
-

Email goes to Duane and Richard.
-

We need administrators
-

TODO: Nuritzi - will investigate discourse but if not resolved in a
few days then move forward with Google Groups

FOSS Contributor Fund Event (specifically around Covid-19)

-

Indeed is running another round with $10k to focus on projects impacted
by COVID-19
-

Q2 timeline - looking for others to join in organization, sponsorship,
mentorship, and outreach
-

Comms plan - let’s figure out how to communicate this out. Event needs
to support projects adversely affected by Covid-19 as well as business
value of sponsors. Will consider marketing, hiring, and innovation value of
IRL events.
-

Planning a follow-up meeting. Anyone interested reach out to
Duane/Alyssa/team

Interested in attending Contributor Fund Follow-Up Call:

-

Nuritzi - GitLab

Ways Orgs Can Help

-

Jocelyn - Told CEO about initiative. We do data storage. Can offer
storage for free like video storage.
-

Google - Enterprise GSuite = free now
-

Google will share more but pulling together “how to run virtual
communities/events” resources / training. Also reminding open source
Googlers how to help their fav project through programs that already exist.

Personas to help

-

Job hunters - Duane to leverage Indeed’s platform for virtual job fair.
-

Sponsors losing money

Scenarios

-

Help foundations, help people like maintainers with sunk costs
-

Open Collective to take on requests, vet applications, deliver the
funds.
-

TODO: Rachel to set up
-

Apache has a program called TAC (Travel Assistance Committee).
Volunteers review applications for travel assistance to underrepresented
folks to conferences. We could ask Apache volunteers if they’d be
interested in reviewing applications for assistance with costs associated
with *not* being able to attend events.
-

Myrle/ Rachel- what is a good path forward for involving TAC in
individual assistance?
-

Alyssas idea is worth considering

DECISIONS

-

FOSS Responders is the name
-

Use Github
-

CoC is acceptable. Nuritzi will join the group.

NEXT STEPS

-

Nuritzi - Set up discourse to share these notes.
-

Organize next meeting: Duane to reach out to Megan, Gunner, Richard and
we’ll game plan
-

TODO: Richard to launch site and Rachel Lawson to review it.
-

TODO: Alyssa will take on the relationship with Heather to carry a
discussion forward that Duane was having. Duane to forward email on to
Alyssa
-

TODO: Nuritzi to look for someone to help with a Matrix bridge, or
something that we can do to create a way for people who don’t want to use
Slack to chime in
-

FOSS Contributor Event Comms plan/execution: Alyssa to activate. Nuritzi
to help
-

Job Fair: Duane and Richard to move this idea forward. Richard to contact
Abigael about Mozilla Leadership and if we can join efforts
-

Open Collective - Rachel Lawson to open account for funds. Rachel and
Myrle to coordinate on Apache application review idea. Alyssa also has an
idea to check in on.
-

Iterate on intake process - support request repo. Need feedback. Good
enough?
-

Issue: we don’t know how big hte problem is. So we need people asking
for help to scope the need
-

Alyssa: Follow up with Heather and meeting on virtual contributor fund
event

§

--
Chris Lamb
Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
Email: lamby(at)spi-inc(dot)org
Website: spi-inc.org