GNOME Montréal Summit 2016

The 16th annual GNOME Summit will be held on the saturday of the (Canadian) Thanksgiving long weekend, on October 8th, in Montréal, Canada.

The Summit traditionally was a three-day hackfest for GNOME developers and contributors. Traditionally, the event has not primarily been aimed at users or new contributors, the reasoning being that "if you want to jump right into the deep end, it's a fantastic way to meet everyone and get involved".

This year, due to "LAS GNOME" having taken that role, the formula for the GNOME Summit will be different:

One day duration
A focus on newcomers and potential contributors, with presentations and workshops targetted for this purpose.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Unlike traditional conferences, the GNOME Summit is all about getting developers together and getting things done. While there are some non-hacking sessions, they are geared heavily towards many-to-many, interactive discussion and planning, rather than one-to-many presentations.

Registration

Tell us you're coming - add your name to the list to let us know that you're planning to participate
If you'd like to apply for travel sponsorship, fill out the table specifying your needs by September 20

Like previous editions, the GNOME Summit is dedicated to a safe and friendly conference experience for everyone. By attending the event you agree to follow the code of conduct.

Venue

École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), inside the "Maison du Logiciel Libre" room (next to the library, at the entrance of the "A" building, on 1100 Notre-Dame Street West):

salle ML2

Many thanks to ÉTS and the Maison du Logiciel Libre (ML2) for supporting us by providing this venue for the event!

ML2

Tentative Schedule

You are expected at the venue from 13h00 on Saturday, October 8th. The space should be available until around 17-18h but we might end up at the local pub earlier depending on how the event proceeds.

Rough schedule:

Welcome
Overview of GNOME and its community, how things work in general
Surveying attendees' interests and skillset
To be confirmed: a GNOME Builder tutorial/talk by Christian through videoconference?
Ad-hoc presentations and demos: see the "Proposed topics" section below, and add your own
Organic workshops to help contributors get started on whatever they're interested

Proposed topics

Hub: Using Rust for GNOME development.
Jeff: How to use C documentation for writing apps in Python with GObject introspection
Jeff's miscellaneous discussion topics:
- taking back control over our operating system performance - sandboxing against OoM and I/O hogging
- GNOME on a Phone: madness or awesomeness?
- building a GNOME community in Montreal
Guillaume Poirier-Morency: Meson (build system), Vala (programming language), pollcore, Valum (web framework built on GIO and LibSoup)
Ryan Weal: first steps with WebkitGTK+ ?
David: demo of subgraphOS?

Topics Listed at the Opening

Events

Drinks & Dinner night, generously sponsored by Subgraph

Accommodation

Fancy stuff

Hotels to be determined (see also those from the 2013 Montréal Summit).

Your best bet is possibly the "Alt" hotel, which is conveniently located within 5 minutes walking distance from the venue, and still within 10-20 minutes walking distance of anything downtown. According to the Alt Hotel, participants who book mentioning that they're coming for the GNOME Summit Conference held at the ETS university should be able to get a reduced rate at 139 CAD (~105 USD) per room per night.
AirBnB is a thing these days!

Starving students and hippie-ish GNOMEs

Up to two participants can be eligible for a free stay at the nekohotel (JeffFortin's flat). Bonus points if you're on BeWelcome. Located downtown. Downside: you suddenly end up being a co-organizer of the event
Are you a local community member who wants to offer hospitality? List yourself here.

BeWelcome (or Couchsurfing) exist, too.

About Montreal, transportation, and things to do besides hacking

See our page about Montreal.

Reports

Back from the GNOME Summit by Jeff Fortin Tam