Welcome to our monthly blog update about what is happening in Apache Community Development (ComDev)! This month we have news about ApacheCon North America; give you some reasons why attending BarCampApache is great; encourage projects to ask for help protecting their trademarks; share some mini podcasts from FeatherCast; and we're planning a Community Development Tools Hackathon.

ApacheCon NA 2017

It is less than 2 weeks to ApacheCon NA in Miami and tickets are still available. We have a full schedule and a range of mini conferences that cover a variety of topics. Many of the mini conferences (TomCatCon, FlexJS Summit, ApacheIoT, Cloudstack Collaboration Conference, Apache Big Data) also include access to the main ApacheCon event so you can mix and match what you attend.

Please check ApacheCon.com for more details about the conference and register.

BarCampApache

If you haven't heard about BarCamp, the please read on. BarCampApache an informal 'unconference' that happens around ApacheCon. It is a completely free event that anyone can attend. So whether you are already involved in Apache or simply wanting to find out more about what we do and how we do it, then please feel free to come along and ask your questions at the BarCamp.

There is no fixed agenda and in fact the schedule is created on the day by the participants. This means that once the schedule is set, you can choose to stay for the topics you are interested in and leave for those you are not.

So what happens during a BarCamp? Each BarCamp is different as it also depends on the people who attend. Please see below for a list of some previous BarCamp activities:

  • We talk and discuss any topic that people want to raise
  • We share experience and ideas
  • If anyone is looking for advice or has a problem they need to solve then we help them with brainstorming options
  • You can present or share something that you are working on and get feedback
  • We experience the culture, sights and sounds of our e location by going for a walk around the city

If you'd like to know more about the BarCamp the please listen to our Feathercast interview with Jean-Frederic Clere who has been it for the quite a while

BarCamp will run on Monday 15th May from 9.30am to 3pm approx. If you'd like to come along then please help us with the organisation by registering to your attendance via

  1. ApacheCon Wiki - for planning what we'll do
  2. Sched - to let folks know you're attending!

Please remember that you don't need to stay for whole day and you are free to drop in and out at any time.

Interested in sponsoring BarCampApache?It's cheaper than you think! Generally BarCamp runs alongside ApacheCon but this time it is being run separately the Monday beforehand. It is a free event so would appreciate any help to cover the costs. Community Sponsorship for BarCamp starts at $5000 so if you are interested in being a Community sponsor for BarCampApache then please let us know.

FeatherCast

FeatherCast is the voice of the ASF and our main podcast / news channel. Generally we try to record presentations from events such as ApacheCon and make them available online for reference and also for those who did not get the chance to attend. We also share news and interviews about what is happening in our projects.

As part of the lead up to ApacheCon we have recorded some short interviews with some of the ApacheCon and Big Data speakers. A few are highlighted below:

Please feel free to check our webpage for updates and follow us on Twitter.

ComDev Inventory & Tools Hackathon

We are putting together a list of all the tools and applications that the Community Development team has at its disposal. This will include a list of what websites (internal or external), social media accounts, or other applications that we use, manage or are responsible for. Having this will give us greater visibility and more flexibility to share and co-ordinate activities.

Following on from this ComDev tools theme, contributor Benjamin Young has suggested a ComDev tools hackathon for ApacheCon in Miami. The session will be used not only to get familiar with the tools and applications, but also work on cleanup, coding and anything that can help make our tools use more effective. A few of our community members will be attending ApacheCon and it will be a good environment to get together, share information and review what we have.

If you are interested in participating in the ComDev Tools Hackathon at ApacheCon then please contact us for more details.

Improving Your Project's Brand

Have you ever wanted to improve your project's brand and attract more contributors? Concerned that BigCo Vendor is misusing your project's trademarks and good reputation? Apache Brand Management is here to help.

We have a complete Trademark And Branding Site Map with links to all relevant ASF policies and best practices, like social media account guidelines and how to address abuses of your project's trademarks. Contact Brand Management if we can help your project.

OpenExpo in Madrid

We have been offered a booth at a new conference in Madrid. The conference is called Openexpo and will run on 1st June. You can find out more details about the conference and the schedule on their website. The conference has content in both Spanish and English, though we are expecting that attendees will be mainly Spanish speakers.

Thanks very much to our two Spanish speaking volunteers Ignasi Barrera and Jan Iversen who have generously offered to help our on the Apache booth.We will be once again talking to people about Apache and our projects.If you are attending the conference the please feel free to come along to visit our booth to say Hello.

Contacting Community Development

Remember that we are always happy to get your feedback and comments so please feel free to contact us, follow our events and participate in our discussions on our mailing list. If you would like to be kept up to date with all the latest news about what is happening in Community Development then please subscribe to our mailing list by sending an email to dev-subscribe AT community DOT apache DOT org.