Summary

1. Define a process for organizing contributor hackfests with budget
2. Target 2-3 in-person hackfests and/or up to 6 virtual hackfests in 2023

Background

Fedora has had a long tradition of bringing small groups of contributors together for focused, in-person sprints. They have had many names: FADs, sprints, and hackfests. These hackfests are organized by a team or sub-project, and give an opportunity for a small team to get to know each other better and accomplish a few specific goals in a small amount of time. There is wiki documentation about how to organize a FAD, but it is very out-of-date.

Also, now it has been a few years since any hackfest happened in Fedora, either in-person or virtually. The benefit and impact of continuing these is good for Fedora, and to specifically target support to teams that would greatly benefit from the high-bandwidth environment of an in-person hackfest. However, the process to organize a hackfest is not clear and there is little guidance on how to do it other than prior knowledge that you just have to ask.

The goal for this ticket would be to figure out what an updated process for this might look like, and to also agree on a target in 2023 for hackfests.

Details

There is pre-ticket close and post-ticket close work with this ticket:

Pre-ticket close

• As a Council, define a process for any recognized Fedora team in the Fedora Account System to submit a hackfest proposal (for either virtual or in-person).
  • Create guidelines for in-person organizers: Locations and safety of Fedora contributors. Recognition of any local laws and public health regulations. Travel sponsorship and visa support.
  • Create guidelines for virtual organizers: Is a virtual hackfest a thing? What does it look like? What makes it different from regular online meetings?
• Agree on a 2023 target for hackfest funding, and request as much funding in the 2023 fiscal year.

Post-ticket close

• Outreach and promotion of the updated policy
• Council meeting Q&A about the new process?
• Avoiding the problem of coming up with a new process but not having it get utilized

Additionally, I would promote this as a "beta", i.e. that we haven't done this in a while, many things have changed since we last did hackfests, and any team volunteering in 2023 to host one will help us in "piloting" the new process. There may be bumps, but hopefully we can have some bold champions who will help us smooth over the bumps for others who might come after.

Outcome

• In-person, small-group hackfests resume
• Contributors have more time to connect in offline settings
• We return the high-value of these hackfests into the Fedora Community and begin piloting what they can look again in the 2020s