Calendar events

This page answers the question, What kinds of events should go on the OpenHatch calendar?

We want to promote events that directly bring new contributors into free software, or teach background needed to participate in free software projects. We only list events that are free-of-cost or reasonably inexpensive to attend. They can be in person or online. It's fine if there is a cap to the maximum number of attendees; when the event fills up, we'd appreciate if you could update the OpenHatch calendar to say so.

To give you ideas, here are a few types of events we like:

• Online "Open House" events, like Debian's "One day with Debian Perl Team" on July 1, 2011.
• Diversity outreach events for in-person programming meetups, like the Boston Python Workshop that OpenHatch co-organizes.
• Parties to get newcomers involved in a free software project, like the Debian Bug Squashing Party held at MIT in December 2008.
• Periodic meetings that are open to new contributors, like P2PU's weekly code status meetings.
• Book sprints to write documentation for free software, like the FSF and FLOSS Manuals book sprint in March 2010.

To us, there is a grey area where some events teach how to use proprietary software. If those events are free of cost and explicitly about helping users contribute to free software, then they can go on the calendar, too.

We're not particularly interested in events that simply teach how to use free software. To qualify, you have to be teaching skills needed in free software contribution (like community outreach, programming, or graphic design) or directly getting people involved.