[Debichem-devel] Debian Science Track at Debconf10 Update, Round-Table Agenda

[Michael Banck]

Hello everybody,

Debconf10 will be at Columbia University, New York City from August 1st
to 7th, 2010.  The Science Track[1] will be on the afternoon of Thursday,
August 5th.  Registration[2] is free for everybody, so if you are
interested in science in/on/with Debian, be sure to come around!

== Schedule ==

The current schedule is as follows (see [3]):

14:00 Overall presentation of the Debian Science by Sylvestre Ledru
15:00 Debian: The ultimate platform for neuroimaging research by Michael
      Hanke and Yaroslav O. Halchenko
16:00 New developments in Science Packaging by several speakers
17:00 Debian Science Round Table moderated by Michael Banck

In addition, there will be a BoF dedicated to mathematical software in
Debian and run by David Bremner, currently scheduled in the morning
session of the same day:

11:30 Mathematical Software in Debian BoF by David Bremner

== New Developments in Science Packaging == 

This session will include several 20 minute talks about current topics
in science packaging. Currently scheduled topics are:

 * MPI packaging
 * Linear Algebra Libraries packaging

Those will be presented by Sylvestre Ledru and Adam C. Powell, IV.  We
are still looking for more speakers here, possible topics are:

 * Supporting non-default compilers
 * Citation/Reference infrastructure

Is anybody working on this and would like to shorty present it?  Or
maybe something else?  Please get in touch with me!

== Debian Science Round Table ==

Current participants are:

 * Michael Banck (debichem)
 * David Bremner (mathematics)
 * Michael Hanke or Yaroslav Halchenko (neuro-debian)
 * Sylvestre Ledru (debian-science/pkg-scicomp)
 * Adam C. Powell, IV (debian-science/pkg-scicomp)

Participation by the general audience is highly encouraged, of course.
We should think about an agenda for the round-table, my first draft is

  * refocus tasks (some are quite big right now)
  * merge on packaging best-practises (dh7, quilt, etc.)
  * non-free vs. free-for-acedemic-use with respect to tasks etc.
  * supporting non-free compilers (like Intel icc/ifc)

Depending on what other agenda items people propose I am happy to drop
some or all of the above for more important matters, please speak up!


See you at Debconf,

Michael

PS: If I missed an important science-related Debian mailing-list, please
forward this mail and let me know.

-- 
[1] http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/TrackScience
[2] http://debconf10.debconf.org/register.xhtml
[3] https://penta.debconf.org/penta/schedule/dc10/day/2010-08-05.en.html