This year has been a really unusual one for in-person events like conferences. I had already planned to take this year off from travel for the most part, attending just a handful of domestic conferences. But the pandemic has thrown those plans into chaos; I do not plan to attend large-scale in-person events until July 2021 at the earliest, per my employer's guidance.
I've been really sad to have turned down multiple speaking invitations this year. To try to set expectations, I added a note to my Talks page that indicates I will not be writing any new talks for 2020, but am happy to join panels or reprise old talks.
And somehow, with all that background, I still ended up giving three talks at DebConf 2020 this year. In part, I think it's because this is the first DebConf I've been able to attend since 2017, and I was so happy to have the opportunity! I took time off work to give myself enough space to focus on the conference. International travel is very difficult for me, so DebConf is generally challenging if not impossible for me to attend.
A panel a day keeps the FTP Team away?
On Thursday, August 27th, I spoke on the Leadership in Debian panel, where I discussed some of the challenges leadership in the project must face, including an appropriate response to the BLM movement and sustainability for volunteer positions that require unsustainable hours (such as DPL).
On Friday, August 28th, I hosted the Debian Clojure BoF, attended by members of the Clojure and Puppet teams. The Puppet team is working to package the latest versions of Puppet Server/DB, which involve significant Clojure components, and I am doing my best to help.
On Saturday, August 29th, I spoke on the Meet the Technical Committee panel. The Committee presented a number of proposals for improving how we work within the project. I was responsible for presenting our first proposal on allowing folks to engage the committee privately.