Debian talk/presentation at BALUG(?) / Debian event(s) / keysigning(s)

Fri Aug 4 05:48:05 PDT 2006

Re: Debian talk/presentation at BALUG(?) / Debian event(s) / keysigning(s)

Quoting Don Armstrong <don at donarmstrong.com>:

> On Thu, 03 Aug 2006, Michael Paoli wrote:
> > Perhaps some Debian person would be interested and available to do a
> > talk/presentation on, about, or related to Debian?
>
> I'll be there during LWCESF and can talk if you're looking for
> someone; it'd help if people who were planning on attending could give
> me an idea of what they're interested in hearing about, especially
> since we're within the two week boundary.

Re: BALUG meeting(s):

<hat=BALUG>

Excellent! :-)  Thank you, thank you for volunteering (and
particularly on such relatively short notice).  Since I put the BALUG
relatively last-minute plea out for the 2006-08-15 meeting, thus far,
including yourself, we've only gotten two folks who said they could do
a talk/presentation at that meeting (and I'm not exactly expecting
lots of other folks to jump and volunteer for the task on such short
notice ... and we do need to get things confirmed and lined up quite
soon).  BALUG does also have openings for speaker/presentation at
other future BALUG meetings.  I believe at present, we have:
2006-08-15 working to arrange and confirm as soon as feasible
2006-09-19 open
2006-10-17 have confirmed speaker
2006-11-21 open
2006-12-19 open (due to proximity to certain major holidays, sometimes
           BALUG skips meeting in December)
(and with meetings generally continuing on each 3rd Tuesday)
Are you, in general, relatively local to San Francisco?  (I'm trying
to also determine which potential speaker(s) might possibly be able
to do other BALUG meeting dates, as opposed to only being local to
BALUG around LinuxWorld).  If so (and particularly if we can only snag
the other potential speaker for the 2006-08-15 date), perhaps one of
the other future BALUG meeting dates might also work as well or better
for you (and BALUG).  A >=2006-09-19 date would give you more time to
prepare, and more time for BALUG to cover publicity/announcement - but
would probably have less draw of folks from LinuxWorld (but being
about a 20 minute stroll from LinuxWorld, that's probably not a
particularly huge factor).  Either would probably work about as well
for BALUG (presuming we get 2006-08-15 covered with a speaker either
way) and I would guestimate roughly about as well for Debian (if in
fact you could also possibly make dates other than 2006-08-15).  A
later date would also allow some more time to get a bit more
information on what BALUG folks would be most interested in
hearing/learning/seeing about Debian.  Since we'll probably get a
BALUG announcement out about upcoming meeting(s) likely by roughly
middle of next week, it would be good by then to know which speaker
would be covering which date(s), and at least a bit of a blurb
approximating what the speaker will be talking about.
Hopefully I'll hear back from you - and the other speaker real soon
(like today, or certainly not later than about mid-Monday), and we'll
then be able to confirm date(s) and such, and plan from there.
If you need/want potential ideas/topics for a BALUG presentation on
Debian sooner than that, just drop me a note and I can give you
various potential ideas that would likely be of interest to BALUG
folks (we could also ask on the BALUG "talk" list - especially if we
end up with a date for you that allows significantly more lead time).
Also, if we ask BALUG folks for ideas, would you want them to e-mail
or CC: directly to your e-mail, or would you be fine with reading them
(publicly archived) off the BALUG "talk" list?

Re: Debian event(s)

<hat=Debian>

I'm sure there are BAD folks, Debian folks, and folks interested in
BAD and/or Debian that would be interested in a Debian meet-up event.
Perhaps *roughly* approximating last year's BAD meeting, but
<hat=BAD>
as this year's LinuxWorld dates don't include the BAD meeting date (per
shotgun rules and all that), it wouldn't be a BAD meeting.
<hat=Debian>
In not being a
BAD meeting, it needn't conform to BAD's shotgun rules (e.g. it could
have a more formal presentation/talk, structure, or event
activity(/ies)).
It would also likely draw a lot of BAD folks anyway.
This might also
particularly be the case if it's done Wednesday evening - as although
BAD meetings are 2nd Wednesdays each month, I'd guestimate the 3rd
Wednesday 2006-08-16 would be slightly more probable to work for
BADies calendars for a Debian meet-up event, than third Tuesday (and
based on LinuxWorld calendaring and such, Tuesday or Wednesday
evening, after the BoFs, would probably be best time for a Debian
meet-up event (it would avoid conflict with other stuff at LinuxWorld
that folks may also want to attend, and could be the BALUG meeting if
you're speaking at that meeting, or if not, could be Wednesday - to
better align with typical BAD meeting schedules and to not conflict
with BALUG - which may draw some share of LinuxWorld folks and/or
BADies, at least typically and given the BALUG Aug. meeting date).
Of course I'm sure there are possibly also other ways of looking at
all this, ... but at least that's most of what I come up with.
BALUG meeting time does have the *slight* disadvantage also, in that
it overlaps BoF scheduled time slightly - BoFs are scheduled to run
until 7:00 P.M.  BALUG (officially) starts at 7:00 P.M.  It's about a
20 minute stroll between them.
<hat=BALUG>
BALUG is encouraging folks that also want to go to BoFs that evening,
to "sneak" out at least a wee bit early (approximately 6:40 P.M.) to make it
to BALUG on time (if they make it there by <=7:10 P.M. that still
works okay, but later than that tends to be relatively problematic - we
try to move dinner along reasonably on schedule so we can get to
speaker/presentation on time - to allow them adequate time, and to get
folks out of the restaurant and on their way home (or wherever) at a
sufficiently reasonable time).

<hat=keysigning>

> > BAD/Debian keysigning has also been discussed a bit (mostly on the
> > BAD) list - but that might best be coordinated for somewhere at or
> > closer to LinuxWorld than the BALUG meeting location (which is a
> > moderate walk away - roughly a 20 minute stroll). EFF and/or some
> > other group(s)/organization(s) at LinuxWorld might also be
> > interested in coordinating a joint keysigning event.
>
> This can probably be arranged; the park behind moscone north is
> probably the best venue for it assuming we can start at 5 or 6 and
> everyone who wants to participate sends their keys to a coordinator
> early enough.

Since the Bay Area Keysigning list has been around a while (and is also
listed on biglumber.com) there's been quite a bit of (mostly)
Intra-Bay Area keysigning cross-pollenation, ... and keysignings in the
Bay Area aren't quite the big draw they were once-upon-a-time.  E.g. at
most Bay Area keysignings in recent year(s), the draw is typically in
the 6 to 24 range, with something in the 8 to 12 range tending to be
more typical.  At the <<24 size, doing a "main" keysigning rendezvous
at, around, in front of, or quite close to one particular boot - even
if a relatively small booth, becomes pretty to quite feasible.
Of course
<hat=various>
there's nothing that prevents keysigning event(s) from being combined
with other event(s) and/or
<hat=keysigning>
having one or more keysigning meetups at LinuxWorld itself.  At
LinuxWorld itself tends to draw more of the out-of-area folks.
Generally speaking, the further away geographically from LinuxWorld itself,
the fewer folks (particularly non-local folks) that typically make it
to the keysigning.

I think last year at LinuxWorld, we had one primary rendezvous
day/time/location at LinuxWorld for keysigning (I think it was either
at the Debian, or EFF booth - they were quite close enough last year
that traversing between the two was trivial), and I think there may
have also been some alternate time/date/location rendezvous for some
folks that couldn't make the "main" keysigning rendezvous (e.g. I
think there was someone from out-of-country that could only make
exactly one specific date, and it was distinct from the "main"
keysigning rendezvous).

<hat=Debian, BAD, etc.>
Of course there's also nothing preventing keysigning(s) from *also*
happening at any Debian or Debian associated/related events (in fact,
rather customarily, they tend to be de facto occurrences - at least
for any and all present that want to do keysignings).

<hat=keysigning>
I was thinking, regarding keysigning, perhaps (if no none has or does
beat me to it) I might start a LinuxWorld keysigning keyring on
biglumber.com.  Even if precise meet-up date(s)/time(s) for
keysigning(s) aren't yet determined, might be handy for folks that
want to park their key(s) somewhere for keysigning, to have a place to
do so on biglumber.com for such keysigning event(s).  Such a listing
could also reference the Bay Area Keysigning site and such (including
public archives) for various details ... in addition to any updates I
could make on such a biglumber.com. listing itself.

references:
Bay Area Linux Users Group (BALUG) http://www.balug.org/
Bay Area Debian (BAD) http://bad.debian.net/
Events with Debian affiliation in North America <debian-events-na at lists.debian.org>
Debian at LinuxWorld Wiki http://wiki.debian.org/LWCESF
Debian at LinuxWorld "exhibitor" link
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/events/12SFO06A/exposition/exhibitorinfo//QMONYA04RYSZ
San Francisco Bay Area keysigning information and discussion
http://zer0.org/mailman/listinfo/ba-keysign/
biglumber.com http://www.biglumber.com/