Meeting on Bug Days

By: Francois Suter

Chatting on IRC is nice, but it's even nicer to meet in real life. Sponsor Bug Day actors by offering a place to meet!

In the past several companies spontaneously opened their office space on the Bug Days. Developers could meet there and - even better - were sometimes catered for (a pizza a day keeps the hacker happy). Now that the Bug Days are rolling again, I would like to encourage this practice.

If you're a company, a public administration, a university or any other kind of entity that can provide a group of developers with a place to sit and hack away, consider offering some of your space for a Bug Day. All that is really needed is a desk, a chair and an internet access (minimum required: web, mail, IRC and newsgroups). A beamer may be a plus, but is not absolutely necessary. If you want to be really nice, you could even provide drinks and maybe even lunch.

Such actions will be given more visibility than in the past. There's a page in the TYPO3 wiki for each Bug Day. There will be a place in that page for a list of possible places to meet. I also intend to continue producing reports about each Bug Day. Every entity that hosted a meeting will be listed in the reports, including credits for having catered for the developers. You are also encouraged to take pictures (although I'm not yet sure where to best display them).

Offering a place for a Bug Day meeting is another nice way of supporting the development of TYPO3. And don't worry, nobody is expecting you to make such an offer on every Bug Day. Every once in a while is enough and will be greatly appreciated. It's not about having a short-lived frenzy of meetings. It's about creating a movement that will turn into a habit and not die down.

And since there's nothing like showing the way, I'm already organizing such a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the next Bug Day (April 30th). See you there or online!