Two weeks ago, we concluded another successful hackweek and a conference, again attracting more people than ever.
During hackweek we’ve worked on many improvements for the Nextcloud 17 release, released app updates, discussed what to do for 18 and of course had great fun, pizza and drinks together.
We have set a date for our next Hackweek, November 4-8 and every Nextcloud contributor is warmly invited to join us. While this hackweek will be a smaller one taking place in our office in Berlin, we still hope to plan a similar to the last one, the hackweek that took place after the conference in a very nice “lounge room” and relaxed atmosphere.

Practical information

Location: Nextcloud GmbH office in Berlin, Germany
Address: Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24, Berlin.
Bring: Your laptop and enthusiasm 😀
How to get in: Once you’re there, ring the bell and find us on the fourth floor

What is this Contributor Week you speak of?

If you have known Nextcloud for a while, you may have heard about these focused work weeks when we used to call them “Hackweek”. If you’re new to Nextcloud: When we kicked off our new project back in June 2016, we had a week-long get-together to discuss how to move forward together. This was both fun and productive and we decided to do more of it! The second Contributor Week already brought a few dozen people together and we’ve been growing them ever since, getting together about once every few months. During the Contributor Weeks, we focus on getting work done and being productive: Going through issues, discussing and fixing them, working on our code and so on. It isn’t a time of meetings or presentations – but working. Just more together, rather than remote as we typically do! And even more togetherness in eating and drinking and having some fun, of course!

There are architectural discussions as well. We also use our Contributor Week to plan for future releases or examine the state of the current one and come up with or discuss grand plans.

Focus

As usual, there are topics we want to focus on during this week. Nextcloud 17 is already out, 18 is on its way – we’ll talk about the state of that release and perhaps plan for the next one.

We also hope to help people get involved and look at the state of our apps, preparing for the upcoming release. And of course, we are looking forward to start discussing with you what the next big thing will be for Nextcloud 19!

Do you want to join?

On October 30th, 2018, we released our own program to support diversity in Open Source: Nextcloud Include. With this program, we provide mentoring and internships to people from underrepresented groups in the tech community, and – even more relevant to the topic of this post – we help you to join us at events like our yearly Conference or our Contributor Week! Want to join us in Berlin? Check nextcloud.com/include and get in touch with us to request travel support!

Of course, even for those who aren’t part of underrepresented groups: As usual, all Nextcloud contributors are warmly welcomed to join us! For those among you where financial issues limit travel possibilities, the easiest way is to contact one of your fellow contributors who works at the company – they’ll be able to help you get some travel support! Alternatively, you can email us here, sending some links to your contributions.

In any case, don’t forget to bring your laptop and help us get some work done!

We look forward to seeing ya’ll in Berlin!