Rochester, New York

2024

What is Flock?

Flock is the Fedora Project's annual contributor-focused conference. It typically alternates between European and North American locations. The conference provides a venue for face-to-face meetings and conversations. It is also a place to celebrate our community.

What will we do at Flock?

Communicate the Fedora Strategy. Everyone in Fedora should understand and feel well-aligned with the project's goals, both tactical and long-term. Flock to Fedora is a crucial unifying force for our community. It offers a unique venue to discuss new ideas with our diverse community based around the world. In-person connections form the most powerful way to get everyone inspired to work towards our shared goals. This makes it the best venue to encourage and motivate our contributors toward reaching our shared goals.
Make Connections that Lead to Action. We do amazing work as a global project, but it is hard to know everything that is going on. When we work online, it is easy to focus only on our work and the people we directly work with. At Flock, we meet many other members of the community who we might not otherwise encounter. These unique connections formed in the Flock “melting pot” empower future collaborations and inspire cross-team ideas which couldn’t happen otherwise.
Celebrate Our Successes and Our Community. The Fedora community is made up of diverse people from various professional backgrounds, cultures, languages, time zones, and interests. With this amazing blend of people, we never lose sight of the strong value of our Friends Foundation. Flock to Fedora demonstrates how we live that value as a community. The social energy generated from Flock to Fedora sustains contributors for the rest of the year, keeping us connected and engaged.

Who comes to Flock?

While Flock is open to anyone, the majority of talks at Flock are focused on existing contributors and those looking to increase their involvement. There is almost no solely user-focused content.

Schedule

2024 Event Dates

Flock will be held for four days from Wednesday, August 7th to Saturday, August 10th. You should plan to arrive by Tuesday, August 6th and to depart no sooner than Saturday evening, August 10th for the best experience. An optional day trip to Niagara Falls will be offered on Sunday, August 11th.

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
		Flock	Activity
Aug 5	Aug 6	Aug 7	Aug 8	Aug 9	Aug 10	Aug 11

The full talk schedule (subject to change) is now available.

Call for Proposals

Apply now for the Flock 2024 Call for Proposals (CfP) at cfp.fedoraproject.org. The deadline to submit is by Sunday, April 21st, 2024.

We invite you to submit proposals for talks (25/50 minutes), workshops (2 hours), or hackfests (half-day or full-day) on topics of importance to the contributor community.

Topic ideas include:

Pitch an idea! Have the next Fedora Rings, or Fedora Editions plan, or rpm-ostree, or something entirely new? Have something that bugs you and a plan to fix it? Think we should grow our userbase in a particular area by doing something we are not? Pitch it!
Team planning for the next year. Mini-strategic-hackfests for various groups; for example, regional planning.
Focused hackfest for a team or topic.
Training & mentoring for existing contributors on new processes (i.e. packaging updates or Zanata updates).
Onboarding/Join meetings for contributors
Your idea here!

New in 2024, the Flock CfP is introducing themes. There are six themes that we encourage anyone submitting to the CfP to consider as part of their proposal. A proposal may identify with one or more of the themes below:

Accessibility (a11y): Fedora websites and docs use the current best-practices for a11y. Fedora Linux Editions use the best-available open source a11y tech. Our project tooling follows best a11y practices.
Reaching the World: Fedora Linux is available pre-installed on more systems from more vendors. Fedora Linux is widely available in cloud providers and CI services. Fedora maintains a strong network of thriving local communities around the world.
Community Sustainability: Everyone in Fedora can have a mentor, and everyone in Fedora can be a mentor. Modernize our communications tooling.
Technology Innovation and Leadership: Fedora is a popular source for containers and Flatpaks. Atomic Desktops are the majority of Fedora Linux desktops in daily use. We integrate programming language stack ecosystems.
Editions, Spins, and Interests: Each Edition has a story for each release. It’s trivial to create and maintain a new Fedora Spin or Remix. More (active) SIGs, fewer images.
Ecosystem Connections: Better collaborative workflow with CentOS Stream. Get people working on downstreams directly involved in Fedora as an upstream. Collaborate on tooling, practices, and offerings with peer distros and upstream projects.

Submission deadline

The submission period has passed.

Registration Information

Tickets are available now on Eventbrite. A ticket is required to enter the conference.

How much does it cost to attend? There are lots of ticket options.

Flock to Fedora is free to attend, however attendees are asked to consider making a voluntary payment to allow us to increase our travel funding. The suggested payment is $25 (25 USD) scaled to your country using the Big Mac Index. When you click on the orange 'Get tickets' button, you will find various ticket options. Information about which countries are suggested for which tickets is available by click on the ticket's 'Show Info' link.

Why do you suggest we pay?

We also encourage people to pay as it shows commitment to attending. We make many non-refundable commitments for items such as lunch and coffee breaks that are lost to us if you do not attend. There is a strong correlation between paying anything toward admission and actually showing up. The cost paid does not cover the costs associated with your attendance, even if you pay for your entire costs of travel and lodging.

What if my country/region isn't listed?

Use the value that feels the closest to right for you. Consider regions with similar economic situations. Also consider your own situation and choose accordingly.

I want to pay a different amount than what is listed for my country, what do I do?

Please choose the amount that makes the most sense for you. Flock to Fedora is free to attend, while we encourage you to to consider making a voluntary payment.

I want to help fund travel for others, can I?

Yes! You can add extra funds to help offset the travel of those who cannot afford to attend. All travel funds are used to help Fedora Community members defray their travel costs. Travel funds are administered through the Flock travel funding program and may not be directed to a specific individual using this form.

How did you calculate these suggested amounts?

We used the raw data from the Big Mac Index for January 2023. Using the dollar valuation, the $25 US value was modified to reflect relative Purchase Price Parity. These values were then rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 to make the numbers less "ugly."

This is not a perfect method, but since the payment is voluntary it provides a reasonable starting point.

The specific method was to use a LibreOffice spreadsheet and open the data set. The value in the 'dollar_valuation' column (column I) was converted to a percentage and then multiplied by $25 before being rounded to the nearest $5. The formula is '=MROUND((25+25*I2/100),5)'.

Will this event be recorded?

We plan to both record and live-stream all presentations and workshops on Wednesday, 7 August to Friday, 9 August, and the Fedora Mentor Summit on Saturday, 10 August. Live-streaming will happen on the Fedora YouTube channel Attendees to the event may be captured on video, audio, or photographic recordings.

Social

Social Media

Use the #FlockToFedora and #FlockRochester hashtags on your preferred social media platforms. Follow Fedora on Mastodon and Twitter for updates.

Chat

Our main Matrix room for Flock is #flock:fedoraproject.org on Fedora Chat.

Join #flock:fedoraproject.org now.

Transportation

Here is a detailed overview of transportation options and some general information about Rochester.

Venue and Hotel

Flock to Fedora will be held in Rochester, New York, United States of America.

General information and detailed overviews about Rochester can be found compiled on the Fedora Wiki.

The Hyatt Regency Rochester in Rochester, New York is both the conference venue as well as the conference hotel.

A booking block is reserved at the hotel for Flock attendees and can be found here.

Flock attendees can use the negotiated room rates starting from 159 USD/night. Rooms are air-conditioned and include use of guest facilities and amenities.
To obtain the Flock rate, register online using booking promo code G-REDH.
July 16 is the cut-off for our reserved block. If reserving for yourself, please book before then! After this date, rates are best available.

Note: If you apply for and receive financial assistance to attend Flock, the organizers will book your travel arrangements (e.g. flight, hotel, train, bus, etc.) for you, depending on your sponsorship package.

Hyatt Regency Rochester

125 East Main Street
Rochester, NY 14604
United States
Telephone: +1 (585) 546-1234

Evening Events

Plan for evenings with the community at Flock! Each night of the conference will have corresponding evening activities coordinated by the Flock organizing team. Historically, we have done networking dinners, game nights, walking tours, and other fun local activities during the conference.

On Wednesday night, join community members for Board Game Night, International Candy Swap, and more in the Astor on Main restaurant in the Hyatt. Light appetizers and beverages will be provided. Bring a favorite card or board game to share and play with friends and colleagues!

On Thursday night, the social event will be located in the Strong National Museum of Play, where we will have a catered dinner and exclusive access to the arcade hall. The venue is within walking distance of the Hyatt.

On Friday night, join us for a group scavenger hunt through downtown Rochester. Join up into teams and see if your team has what it takes to become champions of the hunt!