Virtual Git Contributor Summit

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Team,

I kept talking about this idea of a purely online Git Contributor Summit,
and it is finally time for action.

The idea: just like the Git Contributor Summits we have on the day before
GitMerge, but instead of traveling to the same place, we'll use an online
conferencing system.

From my point of view, the main benefits of doing this online are:

- It should make it easier for all contributors to attend (yes, Junio, we
  do miss you every single time you're not there).

- We will leave a substantially reduced carbon footprint.

- There won't be any jet-lag involved, including the consequences on
  health/sleeping.

- It is substantially cheaper and more sustainable.

Of course, there are also some challenges:

- Timezones. My idea here is to have all participants put down their
  preferred timezone and then compromising on some sort of Median.

- Timing. As it is not attached to a conference, we are less bound to a
  specific date, and that flexibility might make it harder to agree
  on one date.

To alleviate both of those points, we might want to consider spreading it
out over a couple of days? I already heard some fierce opposition against
that idea, though.

In any case, I think it would be good to give everybody some time to
coordinate and to shift work out of the way, so I propose that we look for
dates in the first two weeks of September.

Peff kindly agreed to use GitHub's Zoom license for this, which should
also make it easy to have a recording (and not having people in the same
room will benefit this, too).

To coordinate this event, I started a Google Spreadsheet where we can
decide on timezone, date(s), number of days, and later on try to imitate
the sticky game with virtual stickies for the discussions.

I will send out an invitation to the top 25 contributors (according to
`git shortlog -nse --since=1.year.ago`) after sending out this mail.

Obviously, there will be more people interested in participating; Please
do drop me an email if you're interested and I will send you a link to
that spreadsheet (as I do not read my mails continuously, it might take a
day, but I will, promise).

Thanks all,
Dscho