In the past, the planning and execution of FUDCon events was handled completely by a few Red Hat employees. This seemed out of alignment with the principles of Fedora, so in late January of this year, we kicked off an effort to fix that issue. We wanted to increase the effectiveness and transparency of FUDCon, and our other premier Fedora events. So we assembled a Fedora Activity Day specifically to change the way that we plan FUDCon.

In accordance with those changes, we opened a bid process for FUDCon events. The process encourages Fedora contributors to propose locations for the FUDCon event in their region, pursuant to their commitment to help with the logistics of the event. The first event that went through this lightweight process is the upcoming FUDCon in Zurich, Switzerland, which happens September 17-19, and is being planned by long-time Fedora contributors including Sandro Mathys and Marcus Moeller. In April of this year, we opened bids for the next North American FUDCon event.

As a result of that process, and thanks to the continuing work of Fedora contributors Robyn Bergeron and Ryan Rix, our next community-powered, North American FUDCon event will be held in Tempe, Arizona from January 29-31, 2011, on the Arizona State University campus. We'd also like to thank Adam McCullough from the ASU LUG and the faculty of the ASU School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering (CIDSE) for their invaluable assistance thus far.

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FUDCon events are held around the globe each year. Our most recent event was held just a couple weeks ago in Santiago, Chile, where contributors from around the Latin American region gathered to exchange information, share ideas, and collaborate on various aspects of Fedora. In the past we've held other FUDCons in diverse places like Berlin, Porto Alegre, Brno, and Boston.

Our last North American FUDCon was in Toronto, Canada. The year previous it was in Boston, MA. We always encourage feedback from the contributors, and the one answer that popped up more often than any other was, "Let's go somewhere warm this coming winter!" So we're pleased our fellow community members in a warmer part of the USA took up that challenge, and stepped forward to work on organizing the next FUDCon.

With that warmer climate in winter, of course, comes higher demand for travel lodging where people vacation. So as with previous FUDCons, we'll once again provide travel subsidies for contributors. Furthermore, our sponsor Red Hat is making an even larger commitment to these subsidies than in previous years, to offset the higher lodging costs. We all want to do our part to help everyone stay together at the conference, for the best possible collaborative experience after hours -- because collaboration is what FUDCon is all about!

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As in the past, we encourage our community members to get involved by offering talks and other sessions of interest. The content provided by the attendees is what makes FUDCon events so special and exciting. Over the next few days planners will be setting up more information at the event wiki page: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Tempe_2011

We'll have more details appearing soon there, including but not limited to:

* A schedule that makes it easier to see more of the talks you enjoy and value

* Lightning talks and hackfest pitches to get attendees excited and motivated to collaborate

* The ever popular FUDPub event!

We hope you'll join us for the best North American FUDCon yet. If you want to get involved and help plan the details of the event, you're welcome to join our planning list:

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fudcon-planning

-- Jared Smith Fedora Project Leader