Ubuntu is reviving its in-person developer conference to allow community members and enthusiasts can come together to plan, hack on, and help improve the distro.
The new “Ubuntu Summit” will be held this autumn in an as-yet unannounced location.
Canonical is heavily investing in its community outreach of late, with a swathe of new hires, and a “reboot” of its online engagement initiatives.
Bringing back a physical conference is a sign things are stepping up a gear.
The new Ubuntu Summit sounds like it will channel the vibe of the original Ubuntu Developer Summit, the twice-yearly fixture that was, to be totally frickin’ partisan, was totally frickin’ awesome.
This time the remit is broader, and is not just for developers.
Community Celebration
The last physical Ubuntu Developer Summit was held in Denmark back in 2012 to plan the (then) upcoming Ubuntu 13.04 release.
As well providing a space for developers to get together and hack in real-time the conference was host to a keynote address by Mark Shuttleworth, often detailing new features/plans/ideas.
In 2013 Canonical switched to online-only events in what it said was an attempt to widen engagement and attendance (though one assumes a potential cost-saving exercise too since it was making phenomenal investments elsewhere at the time).
For reasons unknown, the online summits stopped after a few years.
But with Canonical once again profitable — it says it plans to make an IPO in 2023 — it clearly feels the time is right to ramp up its investment in the wider Ubuntu community.
While various community-led efforts, such as UbuCon, helped keep the flame burning in the intervening time, the return of an official event is likely to make more of an impact.
More details on the Ubuntu Summit will be revealed in the next few weeks. Along with the where and when, we should also get info on how people can apply to attend — I’ll keep you posted!
May Update
The first revived Ubuntu Summit is scheduled for Prague, Czech Republic, between November 7 to November 9, 2022.