OpenZFS 2018 OpenZFS Developer Summit, 21 Sep 2018

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From YouTube: 2018 OpenZFS Developer Summit Introduction by Matt Ahrens

Description

From the OpenZFS Developer Summit 2018
Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/144mwRPMznHL3xUxYuohIc0IZrDJDMj3s3_36_L9DJh8/edit#slide=id.p

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So without any further ado I could introduce matt ahrens, who is the.

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Co-Founder of zfs and the father of openzfs and he's gonna give a quick.

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Introduction for this 2018 openzfs developer summit.

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Awesome thanks pavel, so I want to start off just by thanking everyone. Who's made.

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As possible, first off thanks to aaron holding he's designed all of our.

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Graphics for the past five years, and so that's what you see on your awesome.

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T-Shirts that you got today and the badges and everything else thanks a lot.

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Aaron- and you know this conference doesn't just go on by magic, there's a.

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Lot of people doing a lot of work behind the scenes, so I wanted to make sure to thank them. First off, thanks to my colleague, karen ritter, for overall.

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Project management. Karen, thank you. Thank you to victoria faveau, who does the event.

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Management, if any of you have sponsored the conference, you undoubtedly dealt.

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With her, she makes sure that all the bills, all the checks, get cash and all.

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The bills get paid, so thank you very much victoria. Thanks to pavel who's, the.

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Mc for today, thanks a lot big he's gonna make sure that all the speakers run on.

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Time and I hear that he has a giant hook that will be used as necessary. I mean.

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Lastly, thanks to spi spi: does the financial management for the for open.

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Zfs and next I wanted to thank all the companies that have made this possible.

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Through financial donations, so first thanks to our diamond sponsors, starting.

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With datto is anyone here from datto yeah? Thank you guys.

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And thank you to delphix anybody here from delphix my employer also thank you.

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Very much delphix and os nexus anyone from os nexus yeah. Thank you guys.

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Platinum sponsors newisys is that the correct pronunciation anybody here from.

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Newisys, do I get it right? Ok, new isis. Thank you. I mean thank you to our gold.

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Sponsors nexenta, ixsystems,, racktop and syneto folks from those companies.

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Raise your hands yeah, thank you, and our silver and bronze.

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Sponsors freebsd silver and a bronze sponsors at dilos and reevert. Thank you.

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So I wanted to, I have two things that I wanted to talk about at this.

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Intersession today and the first one is providing some transparency as to the.

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Financials of running the conference, I certainly was in the dark about this.

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Before we started running the conference like, how do you actually, where does the money like? What's what actually costs money like is fifty dollars a ticket.

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Really enough to fund a conference like this, so when I start off by saying open.

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Zfs is still an associated project with spi. We started this. I think almost two.

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Years ago, spi is software in the public interest, they're a non-profit, so.

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Basically, this allows us to, you know, store all of our funds money. Other.

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Assets with spi they hold that and and then you know they can write, write.

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Checks and enter contracts like, for example, for with this venue on our.

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Behalf so if you'd like to make donations there, a 501c3 tax-deductible a.

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Nonprofit that you can make donations to open zfs through spi. So where does the.

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Money come from to run the conferences, so, as you can see, registration is a.

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Pretty small piece of the pie, you know eight percent last year and this year.

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3% most of the money comes from the top tier sponsors. So last year we have six.

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Platinum sponsors this year we have three platinum and diamond sponsors and.

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You know that's where most of the money came from and I broke out delphic separately here and I'll go into why that is in the next.

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In a moment what I wanted to point out that you know, sponsorship is kind of.

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Opaque to us like we, we ask a bunch of companies that are involved with zfs if.

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They'd, like to you know, be known, as you know, strong members of our community and.

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There's benefits as well to sponsoring us, but I usually we don't get a lot of.

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Feedback like when people don't choose the sponsors, they don't usually write.

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Back and say, hey like, I really would have liked to sponsor you, but you know.

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You this one thing that you're doing turns me off or like we just didn't, have.

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Enough money or whatever, like usually it's like, we sent some emails and then we just don't get any responses and then they don't sponsor us right so and you.

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Know, that's fine. We not like that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it means.

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That we don't have a lot of visibility into like from the sponsors point of.

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View what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong and like what could we do to.

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Get more money like it's not always clear to us what we could do to raise.

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More money, the one thing that we did do this year is that we added a new higher.

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Sponsorship level diamond in these levels are basically exponential, so, like.

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You know gold is $500, silver is $1,000. The next one is two thousand four.

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Thousand eight thousand, which is why you know most of the money, comes from the.

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Highest tiers, so we added this new diamond tier and personally, I feel like.

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That kind of saved us financially this year because you know, without that those.

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Companies sponsoring of the diamond level like they probably like they would.

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Have sponsored us at the highest level, but it would have meant that they were.

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Our platinum and we would have eight thousand dollars less, which would be you know, a big deal. The other thing I want to mention is just that, like we think.

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That the sponsorship is a pretty good value like even at the very highest.

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Level eight thousand dollars like that's it's not that much compared to other.

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Similar conferences and, if you think about like company.

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That are sending a few of their employees here for the conference. They.

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Get on a plane, they need a hotel room in san francisco, which is super expensive.

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So it's like it's not that different than sending a few employees here from.

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Somewhere else in the country, so where does all that money go? How do we spend.

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It all we tried to this year. We were a little bit short on money, so we did have.

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To make some cuts, but we tried to maintain value in the things maintain.

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The things that we think bring value to the community so first is like the video.

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You know we live stream. This, we record all the videos we post them on the.

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Internet on youtube later on- and you know the videos and the live stream.

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Actually get a lot more, a lot more people view those than are able to.

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Attend in person, so we think that's a really good value. The venue's I had a.

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Few questions like: why does the conference like at a different time this year? Why do you guys keep moving it around and you know there's a couple.

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Reasons but most of them are financially driven. You know we want to find this.

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Venue it has been really good for us, we've had it here. I think five or six.

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Years, I think I think every year of the conference we've had to add this venue.

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And the venue is only available on mondays, usually because they're open you.

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Know it's a museum and they're open to the public, the other six days of the week and so the spots you know that fill up really quickly. So you know we have to.

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Kind of work around the schedule of availability for the venue, the venue is.

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Also, like it's a really good value in terms of money, for what we get for it.

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And the other thing we try to do is we try to work around other major.

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Conferences in san francisco, because we in the past, like in the first couple.

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Years, we did not do that and it was like a real burden for folks who were coming.

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From out of town, because the I mean I don't know, how much do you guys paid for.

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Hotels, but it would be like twice as much, which is, I know, like unbelievable.

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But it does happen like if this is during one of these conferences that you.

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Know fills up all of moscone and they have tens of thousands of visitors like.

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The you know, supply and demand hotel prices go up. Oh.

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So we try to avoid that, which is why we move the conference to be a bunch.

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Earlier this year, the other thing you know we, the venue here- is only the first.

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Day venue so the second day, we've always been able to find companies that will.

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Donate their space like last year, that was github and this year del phix, make.

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Their space available for the second day of the conference, so the food you know.

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This year, where we made the cuts were in the food, so you may have noticed the.

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Breakfast was not like a full breakfast spread with cooked eggs and everything.

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Else it was just kind of snacks and then the after the conference we're gonna.

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Have a person have the party, but it's not going to be like a full dinner. It's.

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Gonna be appetizers and and drinks. The other thing I wanted to point out in.

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This county is with the last slide, is the big increase here from 2017 to 2018.

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Is the staffing, so why like, why is staffing so much more expensive? This is.

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Because, basically, we're servicing some hidden costs in past years, del phix has.

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Covered a lot of the pre-conference staffing so like all the everything that.

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Goes on behind the scenes karen and her team has taken care of in the past and.

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That's been kind of like a hidden reliance or dependency on on del phix. I.

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Mean this year we outsource more of that to victoria and in her company. So that's.

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Why the dollar costs here were higher, even though it's kind of like the same.

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Like actual amount of effort spent on it, and then that's why you know del phix.

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Sponsored gave us more more dollars this year than in the past. I was in part to.

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Cover that so so the one thing I wanted to point out here is that you reliance.

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On one company to make this event happen is, is really not great long-term. I mean.

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It we've super appreciate everything that del phix has done to put this on.

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For so many years- and I think they will continue to do that. But for the.

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Community you know, ideally, we would like to get to a point where we can be self-sustaining and not have to not have to rely on any one.

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Company, as kind of like the financial or staffing backstop for the conference as.

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We have in the past, even if they're willing to do that. So in order to.

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Accomplish that really what we need to do is have donations that are not.

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Associated with, like one conference that we can carry over from year to year, that.

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Can kind of be like are like endowment so to speak, that we can draw from in.

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Years where the sponsorship doesn't doesn't meet up with the expenses, so I.

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Don't have a great solution here. This is something we're gonna be working on over.

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The next year, but we're definitely looking for ideas from folks that maybe.

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Have experience with foundations or raising money of like what's the right.

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Way to do that, what's the right way to like approach companies to to make that.

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Sponsorship donation, or to make a donation- that's not associated with the.

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Conference and then you know how to manage that. You know that entity the.

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Other thing we're gonna be doing is probably raising ticket costs next year.

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I think this is probably the least expensive conference that I've ever.

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Attended so we're gonna be raising the cost to be more in line with other.

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Conferences but it should be pretty affordable, so I wanted to talk about.

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Another kind of meta issue in our community and in our industry overall, so.

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You know our industry has a problem. The problem is that we, the industry, looks a.

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Lot like myself, the representation of women and minorities in the tech.

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Industry is is much lower than in all private industry, so these are some stats.

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That I got from a us government equal opportunity, commission.

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So this cover this is like this is not like self reporting. We took the numbers.

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From whatever you know, some of the top companies said this is like every.

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Company has to report to the government like this is how many employees we have.

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In these, are there demographics like, as well as they can.

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Report it so, like you know what I don't know, if you, if you've started a new.

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Company recently, you probably saw like, and all that paperwork they're like hey.

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You can optionally, tell us your gender and ethnicity and we'll record it and.

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Report it to the government- and this is where we got this data- if you look at.

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Like technical roles, it's even less and open-source contributor, you know when.

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You get to more specialized things like open source contributors, kernel.

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Programmers, for example, the you know the representation is, is even much much much.

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Less so you know some people might ask like well. Okay, that's the fact.

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But what's problematic about that? Well, I think this is a problem for me because I.

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Want to work with the smartest most creative people, and you know I want to.

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Solve the, I want to write the most elegant software possible and I want to.

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Solve the the most important problems for our customers, we're missing out on a.

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Lot of valuable talent when, when we don't have representation from across.

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You know our whole our whole demographics and you know a more diverse.

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Community brings in different points of view, and that makes our community.

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Stronger in general, so, okay great, we have a problem. We accept that what can.

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What can our community to do about this? You know companies have different tools.

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To deal with this, then then open source communities. You know, for example,.

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Recruiting and hiring they can choose where they go to recruit. They can choose.

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That you know they can do things like you know, maybe doing blind interviews or.

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Things like that to make sure that they are removing biases from the.

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Interviewing process, but in open-source community like open zfs, we usually can't.

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Choose who works on it? It's a volunteer army right. So whoever shows up you know.

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We, like we gotta, take what we can get, but one way we one thing we can do is to.

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Make sure that everyone who's interested in open zfs has a chance to participate.

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To the maximum extent that they're, that they're able so one way to accomplish.

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That to get everyone to that wants to participate is to make sure that.

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Everyone feels welcome in our community, so starting this year, we we did one.

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Thing the one concrete thing, which is we added new ticket types for the.

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Conference so discounted tickets for first-time attendees and for people from.

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Underrepresented groups in our community- and you know, as I mentioned, the the the.

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Ticket price for the conference is pretty low. Hopefully the price is not a burden for anyone who wants to attend, but we feel.

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Like doing this, sends a simple message to to folks in the broader community.

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Which is that everyone is welcome here like we want you to come, we want new.

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Time, first-time attendees, we want people from from underrepresented groups to.

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Come and be part of our community and participate other thing I wanted to.

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Mention as in past years, we have a code of conduct for participation at the.

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Conference, which covers you know being here in person as well as interactions.

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Associated with the conference online, like the livestream, the core of our code,.

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Of conduct is be considerate of others. Think about how your actions affect.

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Those around you, the critic conduct, is on the website. It's also on your badge.

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Here and you know, if something inappropriate happens, then we want to.

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Know about it, you can speak to anyone here. Who has the staff badge their badge.

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Says staff on the bottom of it and there always will be somebody a staff at the.

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Registration desk this, the staff- are me karen pavel george and victoria, who I.

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Think is that the at the registration desk right now, sorry, okay, so my vision.

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Is that the code of conduct becomes a document that can help us guide us to.

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Becoming a more welcoming and open community right now, it's not quite there.

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But that's something that we want to work on over the next year is both you.

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Know expanding it, helping it be something that's more of a positive document explaining like these are the behaviors. This is what we want. Everyone.

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We want everyone to be welcoming here's how to be welcoming. We want everyone to be inclusive, here's how to be inclusive. Here's how to think about other people.

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And we also want to work on expanding the scope of the code of conduct to.

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Include our interactions through of the year online, as as opposed to.

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Currently, it's just covering the conference, so I'm always really excited.

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About coming to the conference, and especially like seeing all the folks.

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That I don't see throughout the year, you know seeing my buddies from that. I.

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Know from online from past conferences and and that's really exciting, but also.

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I'm an introvert and meeting all of the new people kind of you know, put some ice.

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Lemak in knots a little bit, so it's not easy for me to meet new people, and I.

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Know, that's probably true of some other folks here but I'd like to, but it is.

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Super valuable, like it's super valuable both to me personally to to get to know.

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New people and it's super valuable to the community to you, know to be.

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Welcoming and make sure that people that show up here become you know permanent.

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Parts of the community and the best way to do that is by making personal.

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Connections with them, so I'm making a conscious effort to to to engage with.

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Folks that I don't know people whose faces I don't recognize and I'd like to.

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Ask all of you here if it is not your first time, then please find somebody.

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Whose face you don't recognize and say hi to them, I'm also super dork, and so in.

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Addition to being introvert so I like to like think about okay. What am I like.

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What do I say to some new person like, I don't recognize them like what do what.

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Am I supposed to say to them, and so I put together a few lists of things that.

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Questions that I might ask like, you know hey, how did you start using cfs things.

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That things that you probably people here will all have any comment. Something.

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To talk about, or you know, if you want to gripe, I like to gripe to like, have you.

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Seen how simple the open zfs website is, like I couldn't find anything there. It's.

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Just like a giant piece of text like in and then that that can lead to other.

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Questions like how do you think we can make this better so with that I'd like.

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To welcome everyone to the 2018 opens events developer summit.

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