Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Steffen Möller]

Hello,

I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of mine to
invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which to my
recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
host us ... hello?) we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide
if we want to change the one or other thing. This could start with the
name. In my perception what we are having is not so much a
problem-focused Sprint. It is more like many Sprints held at the same
time, spiked with educational bits and team building. This year had this
twofold. It had it externally to Debian with the ELIXIR folks and it had
it internally to Debian with the promotion of continuous integration
tests. Well done! I also liked this year's clear-cut extra day.

So, what do you all think?  Would it help to officially come up with
some extended Sprint format? What would you change? Nothing? More talks?
More time? Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
continent than Europe? With the same focus? Or more medical?

Is there something else we could do to ease the waiting time for the
next winter? With EU projects one has (too many) virtual meetings. But
maybe this would not be too bad after all.

Many greetings

Steffen

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Sascha Steinbiss]

Hi Steffen and all,

> I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of mine to
> invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
> much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which to my
> recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
> host us ... hello?) 

FYI as a side note: I have reached out to informatics people here at
Sanger during the regular campus-wide Informatics Group Meetings by
giving a brief talk about Debian Med and the history of the sprints and
also trying to get an idea of who would support such an event in-house.
In the discussion afterwards indeed some upstream developers agreed that
this would be a good idea and would benefit the institute. However,
there was little initiative from any particular group to approach me
afterwards and find out how to make it work together; it was merely
suggested to contact the Genome Campus conference centre (which might be
on the more expensive side compared to our previous venues).
I can try to poke some people to bring the topic back to the table.

> we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide if we want to
> change the one or other thing. This could start with the name. In my
> perception what we are having is not so much a problem-focused
> Sprint.

Yes, I agree in principle.

> So, what do you all think?  Would it help to officially come up with 
> some extended Sprint format? What would you change? Nothing? More
> talks? More time?

If the number of participants supports this, maybe some pre-allocated
time for custom break-out sessions, to allow for some in-depth mentoring
or bug squashing without missing group discussions or talks?
What do you think?

> Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
> continent than Europe? 

Sure, if there is enough interest -- especially for newcomers from
overseas :) For now there have only been a handful of people traveling
that far. Not sure if more would come if there was an event closer to them.
However, I myself would probably only be able to make it if the travel
costs are moderate as my employer won't cover that.

> With the same focus? Or more medical?

Personally I probably wouldn't be too interested in medical or research
applications as I tend to focus more on the technical/infrastructure
aspect. But that's just me, YMMV. I can imagine that it might make sense
to attract the non-core-Debian crowd as well.


Best regards
Sascha


-- 
 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research 
 Limited, a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and a 
 company registered in England with number 2742969, whose registered 
 office is 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE. 

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Afif Elghraoui]

Hi, all,

على الأربعاء 15 حزيران 2016 ‫05:01، كتب Sascha Steinbiss:
>> Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
>> > continent than Europe? 
> Sure, if there is enough interest -- especially for newcomers from
> overseas :) For now there have only been a handful of people traveling
> that far. Not sure if more would come if there was an event closer to them.
> However, I myself would probably only be able to make it if the travel
> costs are moderate as my employer won't cover that.
> 

I'm located on the USA west coast and this is precisely the reason I
haven't been to these events. The travel costs are just too much for me
to justify for a volunteer-work trip.

regards
Afif

-- 
Afif Elghraoui | عفيف الغراوي
http://afif.ghraoui.name

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Michael Crusoe]

On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 1:12 AM, Steffen Möller 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of mine to
> invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
> much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which to my
> recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
> host us ... hello?)


I have offered to host the next Debian Med sprint at TBD Black Sea resort
near the city of Constanța, Romania.


> we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide
> if we want to change the one or other thing. This could start with the
> name. In my perception what we are having is not so much a
> problem-focused Sprint. It is more like many Sprints held at the same
> time, spiked with educational bits and team building. This year had this
> twofold. It had it externally to Debian with the ELIXIR folks and it had
> it internally to Debian with the promotion of continuous integration
> tests. Well done! I also liked this year's clear-cut extra day.
>

+1 on expanding the event! I think calling it a mini debconf is fair.

Remember: If we have backing from a COST action then travel support and
accommodations costs would be covered for many people affiliated with
European research institutions.


> So, what do you all think?  Would it help to officially come up with
> some extended Sprint format? What would you change? Nothing? More talks?
> More time? Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
> continent than Europe? With the same focus? Or more medical?
>
> Is there something else we could do to ease the waiting time for the
> next winter? With EU projects one has (too many) virtual meetings. But
> maybe this would not be too bad after all.
>
> Many greetings
>
> Steffen
>
>
>


-- 
Michael R. Crusoe
Community Engineer & Co-founder
Common Workflow Language project
https://impactstory.org/u/-0002-2961-9670
michael.cru...@gmail.com
+32 (0) 2 808 25 58
+1 480 627 9108

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Olivier Sallou]

On 06/15/2016 02:01 PM, Sascha Steinbiss wrote:
> Hi Steffen and all,
>
>> I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of mine to
>> invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
>> much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which to my
>> recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
>> host us ... hello?) 
> FYI as a side note: I have reached out to informatics people here at
> Sanger during the regular campus-wide Informatics Group Meetings by
> giving a brief talk about Debian Med and the history of the sprints and
> also trying to get an idea of who would support such an event in-house.
> In the discussion afterwards indeed some upstream developers agreed that
> this would be a good idea and would benefit the institute. However,
> there was little initiative from any particular group to approach me
> afterwards and find out how to make it work together; it was merely
> suggested to contact the Genome Campus conference centre (which might be
> on the more expensive side compared to our previous venues).
> I can try to poke some people to bring the topic back to the table.
>
>> we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide if we want to
>> change the one or other thing. This could start with the name. In my
>> perception what we are having is not so much a problem-focused
>> Sprint.
> Yes, I agree in principle.
>
>> So, what do you all think?  Would it help to officially come up with 
>> some extended Sprint format? What would you change? Nothing? More
>> talks? More time?
> If the number of participants supports this, maybe some pre-allocated
> time for custom break-out sessions, to allow for some in-depth mentoring
> or bug squashing without missing group discussions or talks?
> What do you think?
More time may be difficult, depending on how our employers support this,
and would increase costs.
>
>> Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
>> continent than Europe? 
> Sure, if there is enough interest -- especially for newcomers from
> overseas :) For now there have only been a handful of people traveling
> that far. Not sure if more would come if there was an event closer to them.
> However, I myself would probably only be able to make it if the travel
> costs are moderate as my employer won't cover that.

The matter is indeed cost. My employer often helps for low cost travel,
but going far with higher price would remove this "priviledge". And
Debian help would also be limited.

Olivier
>
>> With the same focus? Or more medical?
> Personally I probably wouldn't be too interested in medical or research
> applications as I tend to focus more on the technical/infrastructure
> aspect. But that's just me, YMMV. I can imagine that it might make sense
> to attract the non-core-Debian crowd as well.
+1
>
>
> Best regards
> Sascha
>
>

-- 
Olivier Sallou
IRISA / University of Rennes 1
Campus de Beaulieu, 35000 RENNES - FRANCE
Tel: 02.99.84.71.95

gpg key id: 4096R/326D8438  (keyring.debian.org)
Key fingerprint = 5FB4 6F83 D3B9 5204 6335  D26D 78DC 68DB 326D 8438

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[jison]

Hi Steffen

I like very much the "extra day" idea following the template at the last 
Sprint, i.e. a day focused essentially on outreach
to a specific community, project, application etc. beyond Debian.  I think that 
could help Debian Med in various ways.  But
someone else should pay for it (ideally with extras) to bring your costs down.  
And making the case for that support is a
good validation of Debian Med's relevance.  Importantly though - it should be 
done in a way that doesn't detract from your
actual sprints!  My experience from EDAM & bio.tools is that, going the extra 
mile on outreach is at the expense of
targeted sprints to get essential technical work done.  Not good.  So a balance 
is needed between hackathon, sprint and
outreach dimensions.

Just my two-penneth

Happy hacking!

J:)



> Hello,
>
> I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of mine to
> invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
> much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which to my
> recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
> host us ... hello?) we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide
> if we want to change the one or other thing. This could start with the
> name. In my perception what we are having is not so much a
> problem-focused Sprint. It is more like many Sprints held at the same
> time, spiked with educational bits and team building. This year had this
> twofold. It had it externally to Debian with the ELIXIR folks and it had
> it internally to Debian with the promotion of continuous integration
> tests. Well done! I also liked this year's clear-cut extra day.
>
> So, what do you all think?  Would it help to officially come up with
> some extended Sprint format? What would you change? Nothing? More talks?
> More time? Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
> continent than Europe? With the same focus? Or more medical?
>
> Is there something else we could do to ease the waiting time for the
> next winter? With EU projects one has (too many) virtual meetings. But
> maybe this would not be too bad after all.
>
> Many greetings
>
> Steffen
>
>
>

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Steffen Möller]

Hi Sascha,

On 15/06/16 14:01, Sascha Steinbiss wrote:
> Hi Steffen and all,
>
>> I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of mine to
>> invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
>> much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which to my
>> recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
>> host us ... hello?) 
> FYI as a side note: I have reached out to informatics people here at
> Sanger during the regular campus-wide Informatics Group Meetings by
> giving a brief talk about Debian Med and the history of the sprints and
> also trying to get an idea of who would support such an event in-house.
> In the discussion afterwards indeed some upstream developers agreed that
> this would be a good idea and would benefit the institute. However,
> there was little initiative from any particular group to approach me
> afterwards and find out how to make it work together; it was merely
> suggested to contact the Genome Campus conference centre (which might be
> on the more expensive side compared to our previous venues).
> I can try to poke some people to bring the topic back to the table.
Fantastic campus, fantastic people, just that carp-loaded bit of water does
not really qualify. Why don't you start a second theme and have it during
the summer, one that could more easily then start migrating abroad. It
could for instance be "attached to upstream" both in the sense of data
providers and possibly a conference for those traveling from far?
Also "automate big clinical chemical data" (ABCCD) comes to mind :o)
>> we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide if we want to
>> change the one or other thing. This could start with the name. In my
>> perception what we are having is not so much a problem-focused
>> Sprint.
> Yes, I agree in principle.
>> So, what do you all think?  Would it help to officially come up with 
>> some extended Sprint format? What would you change? Nothing? More
>> talks? More time?
> If the number of participants supports this, maybe some pre-allocated
> time for custom break-out sessions, to allow for some in-depth mentoring
> or bug squashing without missing group discussions or talks?
> What do you think?
Most of us seem to be professional bioinformaticians. If we want to do
bug squashing we can basically do that any time via skype and github.
I sense particular value in learning whom to actively contact for help when
something is difficult to track down if this is not upstream. It would be
very nice for all the infrastructure bits, though, especially for the CI
additions that you in particular I have seen to contribute much for.

What if what you referred to as "bug squashing" we apply on data processing,
i.e. workflows for best biological insights? Particularly for a large
data site like
yours it may be very nice to have something intertwining Debian with CWL
for education, documentation and production.
>> Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
>> continent than Europe? 
> Sure, if there is enough interest -- especially for newcomers from
> overseas :) For now there have only been a handful of people traveling
> that far. Not sure if more would come if there was an event closer to them.
> However, I myself would probably only be able to make it if the travel
> costs are moderate as my employer won't cover that.
We could have Sanger this year, and maybe The Cancer Genome Atlas
in the next? Maybe we could find some way to report a bit more on what
we talked about, i.e. the things that are not in papers: problems in not
always homogeneous biological big data and how to spot or circumvent
them. We may find quite an audience also outside of Debian for such
extra level of confidence. Eh, we have Charles at RIKEN, who is badly
overdue to join - here or there.
>> With the same focus? Or more medical?
> Personally I probably wouldn't be too interested in medical or research
> applications as I tend to focus more on the technical/infrastructure
> aspect. But that's just me, YMMV. I can imagine that it might make sense
> to attract the non-core-Debian crowd as well.
>
I fell out of the Debian GSoC after the organisers killed accepted projects
of mine since they felt it was not close enough to Debian. I am still
furious
thinking about it. If we start paying people to travel overseas so that we
can help biomedical research to avoid false positive/negative findings
because of erroneous data handling, then tend to think that this indeed
beyond the scope of core Debian and we should find other ways to
finance ourselves - as much as we today want to avoid any such split
from Debian. We are so few that even charging for the participation to
allow someone to travel would not help so much and break a bit of how
we interact so far.

Best,

Steffen

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Steffen Möller]

Hi Afif,

On 16/06/16 09:43, Afif Elghraoui wrote:
> Hi, all,
>
> على الأربعاء 15 حزيران 2016 ‫05:01، كتب Sascha Steinbiss:
>>> Should there possibly a second Debian Med meeting on another
 continent than Europe? 
>> Sure, if there is enough interest -- especially for newcomers from
>> overseas :) For now there have only been a handful of people traveling
>> that far. Not sure if more would come if there was an event closer to them.
>> However, I myself would probably only be able to make it if the travel
>> costs are moderate as my employer won't cover that.
>>
> I'm located on the USA west coast and this is precisely the reason I
> haven't been to these events. The travel costs are just too much for me
> to justify for a volunteer-work trip.
We have the developers of AutoDock close to you at Scripps as DebianMed
associates,
and indeed it would be nice to meet up over there. There was a Debian
special
interest group once http://scd.debian.net/ and if they are still
existing it may
be somewhat fruitful to get them on board.

Since California does not have a Winter, we need another theme for you,
too ;)
The ones I proposed for Sascha seem to fit. More seriously, I would very
much
like to have another event when the earth is on the other end of the sun
(you
all also follow Debian Astro, right?), let alone for how many activities
that last
meeting has spawned. If we think about giving meetings a special touch, then
this also defines a bit who shall be present and travel costs lose a bit
of their
importance since the meeting turns relevant for work. And we shift from
getting software into Debian towards getting workflows into Debian, which
should also attract more people. So we could for instance keep the Winter
meetings for the more Debian Med infrastructure bits (at the seaside,
please)
and the summer meetings for workshops on workflows (WoW, google that)
I propose to keep next to large scientific institutions. The Debian Med
Infrastructure meeting would be of continued core Debian interest, the
application side should have someone else or nobody to finance, I suggest.

Sascha's first meeting could be: Workflows for prokaryotic genome
annotation,
and I propose to team up with DebianMed-friendly EagleGenomics for that,
and if the genome campus is booked, consider to even have it at Babraham.
Afif's first meeting could be: In silico workflows for reducing clinical
drug
resistance. Actually, we yesterday discussed preparing (pre-preparing)
a workshop on semantics controlling expression data analysis for drug
screening
to be held in Budapest and we could make that a Debian event, too. Maybe
we find another organisation than Debian to co-host and co-organise it all.
Given that fortune that big pharma spends on sending their folks around for
training, there should be some possibilities to raise some interest.

Steffen

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Charles Plessy]

Le Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 11:04:33PM +0200, Steffen Möller a écrit :
> 
> Eh, we have Charles at RIKEN, who is badly overdue to join - here or there.

Hi Steffen and everybody,

it would be great to have a meeting somewhere near Japan's timezone.  Currently
I am still in a state of constant tiredness with all the productivity loss that
it induces (and when I hear my colleagues say that week-end is great to write
papers, I wonder if I should laugh or cry: don't they know that kindergartens
are closed on week-ends ??).  Altogether, fear of jet lag and work backlog made
me avoid the Debian Sprints.  But things are getting better and better.

There are fundraising schemes to organise international workshops in Japan,
this is an option that I have not explored very well at the moment...

Have a nice week-end,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Steffen Möller]

On 16/06/16 09:56, Michael Crusoe wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 1:12 AM, Steffen Möller
> mailto:steffen_moel...@gmx.de>> wrote:
>
> I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of
> mine to
> invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really tell
> much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which
> to my
> recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
> host us ... hello?)
>
>
> I have offered to host the next Debian Med sprint at TBD Black Sea
> resort near the city of Constanța, Romania.
Fine with me. Internet? Travel-time? It is 2h by car from Bukarest. Trains?
Knowing you in Belgium, how about Antwerpen? I'd have a direct flight,
even ;o)

> we should possibly also lean back a bit and decide
> if we want to change the one or other thing. This could start with the
> name. In my perception what we are having is not so much a
> problem-focused Sprint. It is more like many Sprints held at the same
> time, spiked with educational bits and team building. This year
> had this
> twofold. It had it externally to Debian with the ELIXIR folks and
> it had
> it internally to Debian with the promotion of continuous integration
> tests. Well done! I also liked this year's clear-cut extra day.
>
>
> +1 on expanding the event! I think calling it a mini debconf is fair.
>
> Remember: If we have backing from a COST action then travel support
> and accommodations costs would be covered for many people affiliated
> with European research institutions.
It would be neat to think of a DebConf and associated presentations as a
preparation
for a COST.

Steffen

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Michael Crusoe]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Steffen Möller 
wrote:

>
>
> On 16/06/16 09:56, Michael Crusoe wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 1:12 AM, Steffen Möller
> > mailto:steffen_moel...@gmx.de>> wrote:
> >
> > I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of
> > mine to
> > invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not really
> tell
> > much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next (which
> > to my
> > recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she wants to
> > host us ... hello?)
> >
> >
> > I have offered to host the next Debian Med sprint at TBD Black Sea
> > resort near the city of Constanța, Romania.
> Fine with me. Internet? Travel-time? It is 2h by car from Bukarest. Trains?
>
>
I haven't researched resorts or internet yet, but Romania is famous for
fast internet. Internet reliability and speed will be a central criteria.

Three hours from OTP (Bucarest) by train or bus:
https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Bucharest-Otopeni-Airport-OTP/Constan%C8%9Ba


> Knowing you in Belgium, how about Antwerpen? I'd have a direct flight,
> even ;o)
>

I'll be in Bucureşti by then :-)



-- 
Michael R. Crusoe
Community Engineer & Co-founder
Common Workflow Language project
https://impactstory.org/u/-0002-2961-9670
michael.cru...@gmail.com
+32 (0) 2 808 25 58
+1 480 627 9108

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Steffen Möller]

On 21/06/16 22:12, Michael Crusoe wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Steffen Möller
> mailto:steffen_moel...@gmx.de>> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 16/06/16 09:56, Michael Crusoe wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 1:12 AM, Steffen Möller
> > mailto:steffen_moel...@gmx.de>
> >>
> wrote:
> >
> > I was peeking into the one or other scientific collaboration of
> > mine to
> > invite them to our next Debian Med sprint. But I could not
> really tell
> > much about it, yet. Besides deciding where to convene next
> (which
> > to my
> > recollection is decided by someone saying loudly that he/she
> wants to
> > host us ... hello?)
> >
> > I have offered to host the next Debian Med sprint at TBD Black Sea
> > resort near the city of Constanța, Romania.
> Fine with me. Internet? Travel-time? It is 2h by car from
> Bukarest. Trains?
>
>
> I haven't researched resorts or internet yet, but Romania is famous
> for fast internet. Internet reliability and speed will be a central
> criteria.
>  
> Three hours from OTP (Bucarest) by train or bus:
> https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Bucharest-Otopeni-Airport-OTP/Constan%C8%9Ba
Hm. This sounds a bit far. Although I am curious about it.
>  
>
> Knowing you in Belgium, how about Antwerpen? I'd have a direct flight,
> even ;o)
>
>
> I'll be in Bucureşti by then :-)
I just checked hotel prices online. Considerably cheaper at the coast,
indeed. Flights are affordable. Without someone local it will be
difficult to get anything organised, though. Let us collect ideas about
what meetings we need.

Steffen

Re: Request for discussion: Is our Sprint more of a Mini-DebConf? What to have next?

[Sascha Steinbiss]

Dear Steffen,

sorry for my late reply -- I have been busy last week with both work and
RL and also had to think a little about your suggestions.

[...]
>> FYI as a side note: I have reached out to informatics people here at
>> Sanger during the regular campus-wide Informatics Group Meetings by
>> giving a brief talk about Debian Med and the history of the sprints and
>> also trying to get an idea of who would support such an event in-house.
>> In the discussion afterwards indeed some upstream developers agreed that
>> this would be a good idea and would benefit the institute. However,
>> there was little initiative from any particular group to approach me
>> afterwards and find out how to make it work together; it was merely
>> suggested to contact the Genome Campus conference centre (which might be
>> on the more expensive side compared to our previous venues).
>> I can try to poke some people to bring the topic back to the table.
>
> Fantastic campus, fantastic people, just that carp-loaded bit of water does
> not really qualify. 

I completely agree with your view, and also I agree that water from
above doesn't count either ;)

> Why don't you start a second theme and have it during the summer, one
> that could more easily then start migrating abroad. It could for
> instance be "attached to upstream" both in the sense of data 
> providers and possibly a conference for those traveling from far?

TBH I am not really comfortable being the driver behind the 'second
theme' meetings you are proposing. If I understand your proposal
correctly, you are envisioning these to be mainly about potential
applications, and how these may benefit the local upstreams as well as
the rest of the biomedical and genomics research community. I agree that
this is a good idea and that having an event on campus can be a great
opportunity for networking and community engagement in this regard.
However, I would also like to state that I do not see myself as the best
person to come up with concrete topics, plans and things to address as
I, simply put, may not have the necessary visions for future research or
application development that you definitely have. I am also not very
involved in the data to be processed, nor would I consider the research
side of these applications to be something I would like to get more into.

> Also "automate big clinical chemical data" (ABCCD) comes to mind :o)

Maybe it does to you ;) But I have absolutely no exposure to clinical
research at all so I'm afraid I can't comment on how much of a 'hot
topic' that may be.

[...]
>> If the number of participants supports this, maybe some pre-allocated
>> time for custom break-out sessions, to allow for some in-depth mentoring
>> or bug squashing without missing group discussions or talks?
>> What do you think?
> Most of us seem to be professional bioinformaticians. If we want to do
> bug squashing we can basically do that any time via skype and github.

While this may be true in some (most?) instances, my experience was that
the previous Debian Med meetings have always helped me a lot to learn
certain things through direct interaction with people who have been
doing the task at hand for a long time. In that regard IMHO nothing
beats face-to-face meetings, and I felt this was confirmed when working
with one of the participants at the meeting in Copenhagen earlier this year.

What I originally meant, and would probably make me most happy would be
to see enough variety in these meetings to suit both groups: those who
attend these meetings for high-level discussions and moving the research
community forward using Debian as one tool among many, as well as those
who are more interested in getting their hands dirty with the
Debian-specific bits, as one would probably have in a more traditional
sprint.
As you might have guessed, I would consider myself well within the
latter group.

> I sense particular value in learning whom to actively contact for help when
> something is difficult to track down if this is not upstream. It would be
> very nice for all the infrastructure bits, though, especially for the CI
> additions that you in particular I have seen to contribute much for.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. I agree that close
upstream connections are good, but I don't get the exact situation you
may be thinking of.

> What if what you referred to as "bug squashing" we apply on data 
> processing, i.e. workflows for best biological insights? Particularly
> for a large data site like yours it may be very nice to have
> something intertwining Debian with CWL for education, documentation
> and production.

As already said, I agree in principle but do not feel like someone who
is involved enough on the level of 'biological insights' to be of much
help here.
Please don't get me wrong -- I would be more than happy working to make
a Debian Med meeting possible here on Campus. I have discussed a
potential procedure with my colleagues here, and their take is th