Helping FOSS conferences in the face of a pandemic [LWN.net]

By Jake Edge
March 25, 2020

The effects of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are horrific and far-reaching; we really do not yet know just how bad it will get. One far less serious area that has been affected is conferences for and about free and open-source software (FOSS). On the grand scale, these problems are pretty low on the priority list. There are a fair number of non-profit organizations behind the gatherings, however, that have spent considerable sums setting up now-canceled events or depend on the conferences for a big chunk of their budget—or both. A new organization, FOSS Responders, has formed to try to help out.

Over the last few weeks, FOSS Responders has picked up steam. The effort was "started as an organic movement led by Duane O’Brien (Indeed.com), Megan Byrd-Sanicki (Google), and others". The goal is to try to counteract some of the effects of the pandemic on FOSS communities, with a particular focus on events:

We are actively looking for ways to help. Help may come in many forms such as advice on how to cancel and negotiate your event contracts, how to [manage] digital events, and individual or organizational financial support.

There are some resources listed on the web site, including organizations focused more widely on the problems that COVID-19 is bringing to our world (e.g. the World Health Organization response fund). There are also pointers to web pages covering virtual event organization and the mechanics of running an online event. The FOSS Responders web site makes it clear that many of the items posted there are simply meant as starting points; those with ideas are encouraged to get in touch with the project.

FOSS Responders has also set up a site for donations at Open Collective:

Our open source community has been affected by the whirlwind of change that has been the coronavirus. Many of us need financial help and many of us want to give. This collective is a place to do both.

Open Collective provides a mechanism to collect money and fund various things in a transparent fashion. The income and expense line items are available so that contributors can see what has been collected and where it has gone. At the time of this writing, the FOSS Responders collective has received $5400 and has not spent any of that. The platform fees that Open Collective normally deducts for its handling of the funds have been donated to the project, so all of the contributions will be spent furthering the FOSS Responders mission.

The organization is helping maintain a calendar of canceled tech events (LWN is tracking some of those too). Those calendars make for some eye-opening reading. The FOSS Responders calendar lists events well outside of the usual FOSS fare, but it is truly amazing how many different tech events there are (or would have been) just in the next few months. One guesses that many organizers of conferences in the northern-hemisphere summer are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best; some in June and July have already been canceled or postponed at this point and it seems likely that more, perhaps many more, will follow.

A Discourse Instance was set up on March 24; unsurprisingly, so far posts concern organizational and administrative issues. The project has a GitHub repository, for the web site and as a place for organizations to request support, as well as a Slack channel; email can be sent to foss-responders@googlegroups.com. There is also a weekly meeting for anyone interested on Thursdays at 1700 UTC; video and telephone options for attendees are both available. FOSS Responders is a brand new project so there is a need for more people to get involved:

FOSS Responders is an open source, open project. Anyone can jump in and work on it. It is entirely volunteer run. Right now, we’re in particular need of funders, designers, and people to spread the word.

The search for funders (and funds) will presumably get a boost from an upcoming virtual event:

Indeed’s Open Source Program Office and the Open Collective are organizing a FOSS Funders event in Q2 with a focus on projects impacted by COVID-19. They’re looking for others to join in organization, sponsorship, mentorship, and outreach. Send an email to opensource@indeed.com for details.

The problem our communities are facing is real; without assistance there are organizations that may go completely under due to the financial upheaval from a canceled conference. Before PyCon US was canceled the Python Software Foundation (PSF), which puts the conference on, was quite candid about the problems it faced in continuing to support Python "through grants, sponsorships, and funding core infrastructure that the community relies on". The PSF was concerned that penalties and a lack of conference income could eat into its reserves, which might make it difficult to continue funding Python development at current levels. Many smaller projects and the organizations behind them may not even have a reserve to fall back on.

Some companies have been maintaining their sponsorship for conferences even if they are canceled, rescheduled, or recreated as virtual events. That will undoubtedly help cushion the blow, but even in the absence of penalties and such, the logistics of un-planning a conference are likely to be costly. The Linux Foundation (LF) has often stepped in to help out FOSS projects along the way; one would guess it is (or will be) helping out with FOSS Responders as well, but perhaps not in a financial sense. The LF has presumably had to absorb quite a chunk of unexpected expense from undoing its busy schedule of conferences in March and April, with more likely to come.

FOSS Responders is certainly a worthy effort and something that will help our communities continue as we get past COVID-19 over the next year or more. The main focus of philanthropic efforts will be elsewhere, as they should be, but it is nice to see our community finding ways to help itself out internally. One suspects the community as a whole is helping out in many other ways that go well beyond FOSS, conferences, computers, or any of that. Humanity is going to need a whole lot of healing as we find our way through this pandemic.