xcb/ workshop

We're planning a four-day XCB Workshop in 2010, for anyone interested in XCB's development, with travel assistance available from the X.org Foundation.

Date

The date is not yet decided. Cast your vote!

The poll lists the first day and you should check whether the following three days are available for you as well. That is, the choices are:

  • March 20-23
  • June 12-15
  • June 16-19
  • September 4-7

Location

The workshop will be held in Portland, Oregon, USA. The precise location is not yet decided, but will probably be at the Portland State University campus.

If you can't get to Portland on your own, please contact the workshop's organizer, Jamey Sharp, and provide your best estimate of your travel costs, in US dollars. We'll be gathering the requests for approval by the X.org board.

Agenda

Two parts have been proposed: technical work and a documentation sprint. The technical work could cover new design and implementation, and would definitely include some bug triage and fixing sessions.

Please add your ideas for issues we should address in the workshop here:

  • Book sprint!
  • keyboard support
    • design and/or implement libxcb support for XKEYBOARD's <switch>
  • first-class request queue API

Who should attend?

Responding to the misconception that this workshop is only for "core developers", Peter Harris explained:

I think it would make perfect sense for you to ask for a sponsorship.

I can't speak for my employer, but perhaps I can give you a bit of perspective from inside one of the companies that has contributed to the X Consortium in the past.

In general: The money was contributed to X.org for the purpose of fostering a standardized and strong X11 ecosystem. Without any apps participating in that ecosystem, the standard is worthless.

As applied to XCB: Our products are most often used in a remote, over-the-network environment. XCB's ability to hide latency is very important to a good user experience in this environment. So the more app developers we can convince to embrace XCB, the better it is for us and our customers.

As it pertains to you: Without XCB API users present at the workshop, we run the risk of developing "ivory tower" solutions that don't help you at all. We don't want to do that. We want to make XCB compelling for you, and others like you.

In short, XCB API users have an important perspective on XCB that I (personally) do not have. Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

If you wish to attend, please do not feel shy about asking for support. That's the whole reason the money is there.