OpenGitOps Open Forum

[christianh814]

I have had numerous of a̶r̶g̶u̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ discussions (in person and online) about GitOps, best practices, and use cases. Usually I try to lead people to https://opengitops.dev/get-involved.

Issue: The Fort-weekly meeting is just not enough time for these types of discussions. By the time we get through updates and issues there isn't enough time to have a meaningful discussion.

Proposal: Have semi-regular "meetup" style event called "OpenGitOps Open Forum". This would be "birds of a feather" type of meetup where we can have long form discussions either in "break out session" style or as a whole group (I like the break out session style as there will be a LOT of topics to be discussed about). I say we try this out virtually (using something like hopin.com) with the hope of doing some in-person meetups?

What this is NOT: This isn't meant to replace GitOpsCon, on the contrary, it's meant to supplement it. The "Open Forum" will not have a CFP process or anything like that. It's all free form in the same spirit as "birds of a feather". It should be ALL community driven - only sponsorship should be if a company is providing the venue/platform (either virtual or in-person).

End Result: The end result should be drafts of best practices, white papers, and/or PRs to update things. I see, as the only rule, that everything must conform to the GitOps Principles v1.

I've discussed this with @scottrigby but would like others to chime in as well.

[williamcaban]

That's a great idea! Such forum could also help moving some PRs of topics waiting for discussions.

[niklasmtj]

Yes please! This sounds like a great thing. Especially the in person meetups (even when they're probably not near me haha). I'm currently trying to organise a community meetup here in Cologne. More general about DevOps / SRE topics but GitOps is and will always be very welcome to be discussed.

Really looking forward for such a format of an open forum! Count me in for help with the organization. I think we can talk about current topics more easily and more in depth than in the group meetings. Especially in regard of the sustainability whitepaper this format can be a great way to talk about the details and get new ideas.

[kmf]

I think people would love to have a platform where they can discuss their thoughts, this will make the principles more tangible, so people would understand the "heart" behind GitOps. This in turn will refine the better understanding of the practices. (the why /how)

[scottrigby]

I love it @christianh814 ❤️ I realize I had not weighed in on this discussion thread here. You know this is what I was initially wanting to see as part of GItOpsCon, but it posed logistical challenges - however what you propose above sounds realistic! Given that GItOpsCon is moving to Open Source Summit this year, and that we still have an opportunity to do a one-day or half-day event or project meeting at KubeCon, perhaps we should revisit this now!

[fharper]

Is this initiative started? Or does someone own this already?

[niklasmtj]

We would like to try this out as part of the our meeting at KubeCon EU in Amsterdam. But beyond that this is still unstructured. I don't think that Someone really owns it at the moment. Maybe @christianh814 can say something about that.

See #142 for the poll what we would like to do at KubeCon EU

[fharper]

OK, that could be something I would be interested to help, for outside of the next KubeCon EU as I can't be there this year.