Get ready to Flock to Fedora!

A letter from Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller

Hello Fedora friends! In just about a week, we will kick off Flock to Fedora — our annual contributor conference. I hope you’re as excited as I am! For the last three years, we’ve run this as a virtual event — we stayed cozy at home with Nest. Now, we’re back to in-person, and I can’t wait to see so many of you again as we flock together to meet in Cork, Ireland.

Flock is different from other conferences — it’s not a showcase or sales pitch, and it’s not a corporate event where we stand up for or root for the companies we work for or are fans of. Of course, we are grateful for our sponsors and our employers, but in Fedora in general — and especially at Flock! — that’s not what things are about. We come together in a positive spirit to collaborate and build. We’re a community of people, and friendship is a cornerstone value. Fedora is our community, and Flock is where we come together.

This year, we’re combining forces with our friends at the CentOS Project: CentOS Connect will be co-located with Flock. CentOS is a different kind of project, but the same approach applies: this is about community. I know there are a lot of strong feelings around Red Hat and CentOS and rebuilds and downstreams lately. Fedora doesn’t control any of that, but it affects us — so, I’m sure we’ll talk about it. (We even have a session related to the topic.) As we talk, though, let’s all keep in mind the spirit of our projects: working together collaboratively to build a better world with free and open source software for everyone. 

The Nest events were wonderful: the best virtual events during the whole pandemic, I think. While I obviously am biased about this, I think it’s fair, since I didn’t really do any of the organizing work. (Thanks to everyone who did, and especially to Marie Nordin!) This year, while we wish everyone could be there in person, we want to make the event as accessible as possible to those who can’t be there, so we will live-stream and record the sessions. I hope you’ll join as many sessions as your local time zone permits.

I look forward to talking about our in-progress strategy, and our goal of doubling the number of active Fedora contributors. I want to hear what all of you are working on, all the ideas you have, all the proposals and plans for the future. Most of all, though, I’m looking forward to seeing so many of my friends again, and making new connections. I hope you are too!

Be sure to check out the schedule. If you haven’t registered yet, don’t forget to do that!