The last editions of DebConf, the annual Debian conference, have been in unalike places like Heidelberg (Germany), Cape Town (South Africa) and Montreal (Canada). Next summer DebConf18 will happen in Hsinchu (Taiwan) and the location for DebConf19 is already decided: Curitiba (Brazil). During all these years an idea has been floating in the air (aka the Debian IRC channels) about organising a DebConf in a cruise. Today, the Debian Project is happy to announce that a group of Debian contributors have teamed-up to propose an actual bid for DebConf20 in a cruise.

The Cruise Team is confident about their ability to provide a detailed and strong bid by the end of the year. However, a brief plan and preparation is already done: the conference would happen in July and August 2020, during a trip around the world in a "rolling conference" scheme. This means that Debian contributors could choose when to arrive and leave by embarking/disembarking in one of the harbours the boat will stop. A DebCamp focused in sprinting the development of Debian blends and an "Open Day" with install parties under the sea and other interesting activities for the wide public is also planned.

There will be a sprint to discuss the bid details during DebConf18 in Hsinchu. The team has also initiated conversations with several cruise ship companies and satellite network providers in order to explore the possible venues and connectivity options for the conference. Interested parties can contact press@debian.org to join the Cruise Team in the preparation of the future conference.

The following contributors got their Debian Developer accounts in the last two months:

• Alexandre Mestiashvili (mestia)
• Tomasz Rybak (serpent)
• Louis-Philippe Véronneau (pollo)

The following contributors were added as Debian Maintainers in the last two months:

• Teus Benschop
• Kyle John Robbertze
• Maarten van Gompel
• Dennis van Dok
• Innocent De Marchi
• David Rabel

Congratulations!

Debian won Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Award for Best Linux Distribution.

Thank you for all your support!

The DebConf Content team would like to call for proposals in the DebConf18 conference, which will take place in Hsinchu, Taiwan, from 29 July to 5 August 2018.

You can find this Call for Proposals, in its latest form at: https://debconf18.debconf.org/cfp/.

Please refer to this URL for updates on the present information.

Suggesting a Speaker

The content team has a (limited) number of spots for invited speakers and is open to suggestions. Priority will be given to speakers who are not regular DebConf attendees, and who are more likely to bring diverse viewpoints to the conference.

Please keep in mind that some speakers may have very busy schedules and need to be booked far in advance. Therefore, we would like to start inviting speakers as soon as possible.

In order to suggest a speaker, please email content@debconf.org; your email should provide the following information:

• The speaker's preferred name
• Their location (for travel budget considerations)
• Their affiliation (institution and/or project)
• The suggested talk topic
• Brief biography (50-100 words) as it relates to the suggested topic
• The topic's relevance to Debian and/or DebConf

Please, note that the Code of Conduct applies to invited speakers and their talks, and coming to DebConf (incl. accepting an invitation) requires them to accept it.

Submitting an Event

You can now submit an event proposal. Events are not limited to traditional presentations or informal sessions (BoFs): we welcome submissions of tutorials, performances, art installations, debates, or any other format of event that you think would be of interest to the Debian community.

Regular sessions may either be 20 or 45 minutes long (including time for questions), other kinds of sessions (workshops, demos, lightning talks, ...) could have different durations. Please choose the most suitable duration for your event and explain any special requests.

While we cannot offer travel funding for all speakers, DebConf has various bursaries for attendees, including a diversity one, and having your event accepted is something that is taken into account.

You will need to create an account on the site, to submit a talk. We suggest that Debian account holders (including DDs and DMs) to use Debian SSO when creating an account. However, this isn’t required, as you can sign up with an e-mail address and password.

Timeline

If you depend on having your proposal accepted in order to attend the conference, please submit it in a timely fashion so that it can be considered (and potentially accepted) as soon as possible.

All proposals must be submitted before Sunday 17 June 2018 to be evaluated for the official schedule.

Topics and Tracks

Though we invite proposals on any Debian or FLOSS related subject, we have some broad topics on which we encourage people to submit proposals, including but not limited to:

• Blends
• Cloud and containers
• Debian in Science
• Embedded
• Packaging, policy and infrastructure
• Security
• Social context
• Systems administration, automation and orchestration

You are welcome to either suggest more tracks, or to become a coordinator for any of them; please refer to the Content Tracks wiki page for more information on that.

Code of Conduct

Our event is covered by a Code of Conduct designed to ensure everyone’s safety and comfort. The code applies to all attendees, including speakers and the content of their presentations. Do not hesitate to contact us at content@debconf.org if you have any questions or are unsure about certain content you’d like to present.

Video Coverage

Providing video is one of the conference goals, as it makes the content accessible to a wider audience. Unless speakers opt-out, scheduled talks may be streamed live over the Internet to promote remote participation, and recordings will be published later under the DebConf license (MIT/Expat), as well as presentation slides and papers whenever available.

Closing note

DebConf18 is still accepting sponsors; if you are interested, or think you know of others who would be willing to help, please get in touch!

In case of any questions, or if you wanted to bounce some ideas off us first, please do not hesitate to reach out to the content team at content@debconf.org.

We hope to see you in Hsinchu!

The DebConf team

We'd like to welcome our three Outreachy interns for this round, lasting from December 2017 to March 2018.

Juliana Oliveira is working on reproducible builds for Debian and free software.

Kira Obrezkova is working on bringing open-source mobile technologies to a new level with Debian (Osmocom).

Renata D'Avila is working on a calendar database of social events and conferences for free software developers.

Congratulations, Juliana, Kira and Renata!

From the official website: Outreachy provides three-month internships for people from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech. Interns work remotely with mentors from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities on projects ranging from programming, user experience, documentation, illustration and graphical design, to data science.

The Outreachy programme is possible in Debian thanks to the efforts of Debian developers and contributors who dedicate their free time to mentor students and outreach tasks, and the Software Freedom Conservancy's administrative support, as well as the continued support of Debian's donors, who provide funding for the internships.

Debian will also participate this summer in the next round for Outreachy, and is currently applying as mentoring organisation for the Google Summer of Code 2018 programme. Have a look at the projects wiki page and contact the Debian Outreach Team mailing list to join as a mentor or welcome applicants into the Outreachy or GSoC programme.

Join us and help extend Debian!