Re: [Ksummit-2007-discuss] Re: [Ksummit-2006-discuss] 2007 Linux Kernel Summit

[Jes Sorensen <jes@sgi.com>]

Dave Jones wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 05:51:00AM +0100, Jes Sorensen wrote:
>  > I'm not too bothered about the subjects, but rather the issue that we
>  > keep seeing this strict "only this small group, which defines the most
>  > important people in the community" thing.
> 
> I don't think it's intentionally meant to come across that way.
> Not being invited to kernel-summit shouldn't be interpreted as
> "you're not good enough" in any way or form.

True, but unfortunately the KS has gotten itself a real bad reputation
for being a closed club of the same people meeting year after year.
If this is warranted or not is open to discussion, but at least thats
the general message I get when I talk to people and the subject of KS is
brought up.

> When Jon posted how the selection process worked last year a few people
> (yourself included iirc) brought up concerns, but it seems no-one
> has any real answers on how to improve things beyond the status quo.

In this case I think Andrew's suggestion of trying to twist it more
towards the traditional conference style would be worth investigating.

The other issue here is that at least historically it has felt a bit
like pounding sand when anyone trying to state that the summit wasn't
working too well as it has been operating the last couple of years.

> It hasn't gotten easier by us shrinking in size slightly each year too.
> This has both positive and negative points.  Yes, more people are going
> to get left out, but there's a point where so many voices in a room
> just becomes uncontrollable, especially when it's a room full of
> people with strong opinions.  A number of people mentioned last year
> that the level of interaction during the sessions seemed higher than
> ever, with less people staring at laptops, and actually getting involved
> in what was happening in the room.  I strongly believe that the lower
> head count was responsible for this.

Well laptops are a problem, but I think some of this can be addressed
mostly at the on-site level. The other problem is often that people are
not interested or prepared for a given subject and therefore ignore it.
I think the requirement of having an abstract submitted in advance could
help here too.

> The one solution (well, in part) to the lower headcount last year was
> the addition of the mini-summits.  If we had invited all the power management
> guys, all the networking guys, all the wireless guys etc etc we would
> probably have doubled in size.  In future I wouldn't be surprised if
> these specialised summits happen more often.

Even the mini summits have the problem of being selective and some
projects are more likely to be included than others. For some projects
it's a lot more clear that there's a specific lead on it, whereas
others, such as file systems it's many very different projects in
parallel with different requirements.

That said, I think using the KS as more of an overall architecture
handling summit and leaving more specifics to the mini summits is a
good way to go.

Cheers,
Jes