Call for participation to the "Alt-OS" devroom at FOSDEM

[François Revol]

During the previous edition of the Free and Open Source Software 
Developer's European Meeting (FOSDEM) <http://fosdem.org/>, several 
alternative FOSS Operating System projects 
(Haiku <http://haiku-os.org/>, ReactOS <http://www.reactos.org/>) 
shared booths, but there were discussions about going beyond presenting 
each projects on its own, and instead seek cooperation. Recently, at 
the Google Summer of Code mentor summit, other OS projects gathered and 
formed the Rosetta OS group <http://code.google.com/p/rosetta-os/> to 
work on driver sharing.

This year, the FOSDEM (in Brussels, 6-7th February 2010) will host the 
"Alt-OS" devroom on sunday from 9:00 to 17:00, organized by members of 
the Rosetta OS project.

This devroom is meant as a place for Free and OpenSource Alternative 
Operating System projects to share ideas and work on topics like:
 * distinguishing design and features,
 * device drivers and how to share them,
 * sharing code for internal components,
 * internal usage of other FOSS projects to build upon,
 * application portability,
 * interoperability,
  * file formats,
  * extended attributes...

We are interested to hear about your OS projects, how they are 
designed, and what they could eventually share for other projects' 
benefit.
In addition to all FOSS OS projects, any application project that is 
seeking new target platforms is invited. Featured projects will include 
participants from the Rosetta OS project which charter
<http://code.google.com/p/rosetta-os/wiki/RosettaOSCharter> 
matches our devroom goal.

As time allows, we are also interested in transversal subjects in 
cooperation with other devrooms. As an example, possible topics could 
include:
 * unusual package management with the Crossdistro room,
 * standardization of GUI elements and behavior with the Crossdesktop 
devroom,
 * scalability with the Embedded devroom,
 * ways in which BSD drivers were reused in your project,
 * concerns about porting Java,
 * Gallium3D port progress reports...

The format of the talks can vary, from 45min large speech to 15 min 
general project presentation, or hand-on hacking session.

= Proposals =

Proposals should be sent to François Revol by mail: revol(a)free.fr

Your proposal should include:
 * duration (in 15 minute blocks -- please stick with that granularity, 
as it will make the schedule somewhat easier to follow for visitors),
 * activity title (please try to be descriptive, there are ~250 talks 
at FOSDEM during the week-end ;)),
 * a short abstract (1-2 paragraphs),
 * a longer description if appropriate,
 * optionally a list of links to the project website or similar
 * for each speaker:
  * the speaker's real name,
  * a short overview of her bio in a couple of lines,
  * optionally also a longer bio,
  * optionally a picture (please send it to us as 128x128 PNG),
  * optionally links to her website, blog, ...

Plain-text format is preferred by the FOSDEM team, it makes their life 
easier, something like:

------------------
John Doe
john.doe(a)example.org

John is currently working as a freelancer and spends most of his free
time contributing to various opensource projects, most prominently on
libjohndoe.

John currently lives in England with his wife, 2 kids and a bunch of
kitten. He loves spending his time walking around in the woods, and
of course kitten. He has a masters degree in kitten science, which
helps him a lot with coding.

blog: http://johndoe.example.org/blog/
attached: john_doe.png
------------------

= Deadline =

The deadline for submissions is 2009-12-25, please try to stick to it.
Acceptance notification on 2009-12-31.

= Organization =

The room provided by the FOSDEM team has:
 * room number AW1.105 with 48 seats,
 * a video projector with VGA cable,
 * wireless internet.
We will try to provide a wifi router with ethernet ports for 
demonstrations since we know many projects do not have functional wifi 
drivers yet.
We will also try to provide a laptop to load your slides on if you 
can't use your own machine.

It is advised to see with your project supporting associations for 
possible reimbursement of travel and hosting cost, since the FOSDEM 
team cannot help there. Attendance is free however.
Also remember to check other devroom calls as well as the call for 
lightning talks <http://fosdem.org/2010/call_for_lightningtalks>, for 
subjects that might not fit our topics of interest.

= Projected schedule =


 9:00	Welcome (15min)
 9:15	"Rosetta OS" project
morning	project presentations, design...
afternoon	more projects, workshops...
16:45	Closing (15min)