Hi all, A couple of days ago I wrote an article for news.o.o about BoF sessions for the openSUSE conference. As you know we're looking for more 'read-write' sessions, as opposed to the traditional one-way-talk style. A BoF is one of such a session, others would be workshops (to teach some skill) and hack sessions (get coding or packaging or other work done). If you want to know what we mean by BoF and what we are looking for in that area, read http://bit.ly/lIzf5E A short synopsis follows. A BoF (Birds of a Feather) meeting is an informal, open session which brings together people with a comon interest. An example topic would be "improve the package submission process for Factory" or "discuss what software to include in the GNOME liveCD". Organizing a BoF is VERY easy: a good title (problem description) will make sure the right people turn up and then the work is half done. You don't need more than pen and paper to ensure an effective meeting: make sure the discussion doesn't wander off in all directions, but results in written-down decisions with actions and names attached if possible. Afterwards, send a report to the mailinglist to inform those not at the meeting! Note that you do NOT have to be a core developer of a team to organize a BoF! Anyone can do it. If you're not entirely sure you'll make it to the conference, just talk to the team about it. In case you can't be there, someone can take over! You don't have to be an openSUSE community member to organize a BoF at the openSUSE conference either. We are more than happy if a Fedora member wants to talk about the Fedora support in OBS or if the KDE team wants to discuss the educational applications with the EDU team. Planning a BoF is similarly easy. Send a proposal with the title and rough outline via the conference website: http://bit.ly/j9TtUe It does not need a nailed down agenda, not even a super concrete topic - for example, if you feel the Medical team needs to get together to talk about what's part of the DVD and what not, that's concrete enough. Planning a BoF now is important: we (the conference team) can ensure there is no overlap between BoF's and talks. While we will leave room to schedule BoF's at the conference, there's a good chance the only spots left will be early in the morning and nobody likes those :D So, go to http://bit.ly/j9TtUe and shoot in a proposal!