Notes from an online free-software conference [LWN.net]

Notes from an online free-software conference

Posted Sep 4, 2020 15:19 UTC (Fri) by kees (subscriber, #27264)
Parent article: Notes from an online free-software conference

I wonder if it would be useful to have both an online-only and an in-person LPC, separated by 6 months? (Perhaps the online one could be more BoF/hackroom-focused to reduce the overhead needed to have a "full" program committee.)

I loved having everyone watching a discussion also in a common chat room. Side discussions popped up, URLs for more context got pasted; it was great. I wish this existed (or rather could be implicitly achieved) for the in-person LPC. (Maybe one would have to show at the room's door the unique code generated when they entered the online chat room first...)

Notes from an online free-software conference

Posted Sep 6, 2020 21:37 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Strongly agreed: it's by far the best online conference experience I've ever had, with the give-and-take typical of LPC redoubled by traffic in the parallel chat pane eliminating the usual problem of conferences that people want to make points but don't want to interrupt the presenter. I found myself vaguely wishing that attendees to post-pandemic conferences got a teleporter, so we could keep using BBB for presentations but still have a real hallway track (RocketChat is a good chat client but just doesn't replace the superb hallway track experience :) ). (Of course, nothing stops a BBB stream happening in an in-person conference too, I suppose. I'm just spoiled by having a sofa to slouch on.)

Alas, this seems a little way off still: unsolved technical problems, more funding needed. (It would definitely solve the commuting problem but future pandemics would really spread fast!)