llvm dev - May 2020 - 2020 US LLVM Developers' Meeting - Announcement & Feedback Needed

LLVM Community,

The LLVM Foundation board has been continuing to discuss the upcoming 2020 US
LLVM Developers' Meeting in San Jose, CA and the impact by COVID-19. This
event is currently scheduled to occur on September 28-29, and special events on
September 27.

Last year’s US LLVM Developers’ meeting had over 600 attendees, and given past
trends, we had expected this number to grow for 2020. However, an event this
size is difficult to hold given the COVID-19 situation. The Governor of
California recently announced the four stage plan to reopen California
(https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article242339301.html
<https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article242339301.html>).
Conferences such as ours, are in Stage 4 and he stated that “Stage 4 won’t
arrive until treatments for the coronavirus have been developed.”

Given this announcement and the uncertainty of the timing of Stage 4, we feel
that continuing to plan an in person event is not in our best interest. We want
presenters to feel confident to submit a proposal and know if an event is going
to happen or not. We want our attendees to feel safe while traveling to and
attending our event. In addition, planning a different kind of event is going to
take a lot of time and we want to make sure we do our best to make it great.

With this said, we are moving forward with the intent to host the first ever
virtual LLVM Developers’ Meeting. However, we need your help! We are interested
in hearing your feedback on a few different format options and also sharing your
experiences with other virtual events. We have created a survey that we hope you
can take a few minutes to fill out: https://forms.gle/iuHRwS3mBrns7XwD6
<https://forms.gle/iuHRwS3mBrns7XwD6>
Your input will help guide us with the format and length of our first virtual
conference.

We realize that this may be a disappointment to many in our community and
honestly, we feel the same way. We strongly believe that the most valuable part
of our conferences is the in person “hallway” discussions, round tables,
networking, and socialization. An LLVM Developers’ Meeting might be one of the
few times you see your LLVM Project co-workers in person. While a virtual event
will not be the same, we do hope to make it as great as we can and to bring our
community together to share each other’s successes, ideas, and advice.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me personally or on
the mailing lists.

Thank you,
Tanya Lattner
President
LLVM Foundation
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I just wanted to thank everyone for the feedback so far! If you haven’t had a
chance to fill out the survey, you will have until Monday 9AM PDT.
https://forms.gle/iuHRwS3mBrns7XwD6 <https://forms.gle/iuHRwS3mBrns7XwD6>
Thank you,
Tanya
> On May 6, 2020, at 3:40 PM, Tanya Lattner <tanyalattner at llvm.org>
wrote:
> 
> LLVM Community,
> 
> The LLVM Foundation board has been continuing to discuss the upcoming 2020
US LLVM Developers' Meeting in San Jose, CA and the impact by COVID-19. This
event is currently scheduled to occur on September 28-29, and special events on
September 27.
> 
> Last year’s US LLVM Developers’ meeting had over 600 attendees, and given
past trends, we had expected this number to grow for 2020. However, an event
this size is difficult to hold given the COVID-19 situation. The Governor of
California recently announced the four stage plan to reopen California
(https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article242339301.html
<https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article242339301.html>).
Conferences such as ours, are in Stage 4 and he stated that “Stage 4 won’t
arrive until treatments for the coronavirus have been developed.”
> 
> Given this announcement and the uncertainty of the timing of Stage 4, we
feel that continuing to plan an in person event is not in our best interest. We
want presenters to feel confident to submit a proposal and know if an event is
going to happen or not. We want our attendees to feel safe while traveling to
and attending our event. In addition, planning a different kind of event is
going to take a lot of time and we want to make sure we do our best to make it
great.
> 
> With this said, we are moving forward with the intent to host the first
ever virtual LLVM Developers’ Meeting. However, we need your help! We are
interested in hearing your feedback on a few different format options and also
sharing your experiences with other virtual events. We have created a survey
that we hope you can take a few minutes to fill out:
https://forms.gle/iuHRwS3mBrns7XwD6 <https://forms.gle/iuHRwS3mBrns7XwD6>
> Your input will help guide us with the format and length of our first
virtual conference.
> 
> We realize that this may be a disappointment to many in our community and
honestly, we feel the same way. We strongly believe that the most valuable part
of our conferences is the in person “hallway” discussions, round tables,
networking, and socialization. An LLVM Developers’ Meeting might be one of the
few times you see your LLVM Project co-workers in person. While a virtual event
will not be the same, we do hope to make it as great as we can and to bring our
community together to share each other’s successes, ideas, and advice.
> 
> If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me personally
or on the mailing lists.
> 
> Thank you,
> Tanya Lattner
> President
> LLVM Foundation
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