A talk presented at PyCon AU 2011. Zookeepr ( http://zookeepr.org/ ) is a comprehensive web-based conference management system, written in Python and built on Pylons. It has an unusual development history: custom created for the annual Linux.conf.au conference, there are yearly spikes in event-focused feature development, but relatively little of the ongoing development typically seen in open source projects. This presentation is an introduction to the project, aimed at developers interested in contributing to a non-trivial open source project where meeting your fellow developers is quite possible, even likely, and your work is almost guaranteed to be seen and used each year by hundreds of Australia's most diehard geeks.

1. zookeepr
home grown
conference management
software
by Brianna Laugher
(pfctdayelise) for
Pycon AU
2011

3. not quite...
● web-based conference management
system
● developed for the annual Linux & open
source conference, linux.conf.au (LCA)
● handles CFP, registration, invoicing,
scheduling
● licensed under the GPLv2
O HAI

4. but also...
● Python, etc
● Uses Pylons MVC framework
● ORM: SQL Alchemy
● Templates: Mako
● DB: usually Postgres
● Webserver: usually Apache +mod_wsgi
● VCS: Git, Github
● Develop/install on: usually Debian/Ubuntu

11. timeline
2007 2008 2009
●Initial release ●Admin controller ●Inventory system
●CFP
●Better reports ●Volunteer
●Review papers
●Static pages
●Registration
●Badge printing
●Funding
●Social networks
●Schedule (!!!) ●Watch this
●Photo competition space...
●Special offer
2010 2011 2012

13. roles
organiser
core team
papers chair
paper reviewer
funding reviewer
miniconf organiser
(user)
(user + paid => 'attendee')
(user + proposal accepted => 'speaker')

14. admin reports
During the CFP:
Which potential proposers are allowed to submit a late proposal?
Which proposers have asked for financial assistance?
What are the best proposals according to the papers review committee?
Who are speakers – ie, which proposers had talks accepted?
During attendee-gathering time:
Who has created an account on the website but not yet registered?
How many of each type of ticket are we going to allow?
Who needs to be reminded that they haven't paid yet?
Who said they want to be on the mailing list?
Who has signed up/been approved to be a volunteer?
How many people have paid so far?
During the conference itself or after:
Who didn't agree to the A/V release terms?
Who has signed up for the partners programme?
Which attendees have paid but not yet checked in?
Which talks are on In which rooms?

15. cont.
Has so-and-so paid yet?
So-and-so lost their invoice and needs another one.
We need to print out badges for for each paid attendee (with their preferred
OS and shell information, of course, and which special extras they have paid
for).
We need to generate a printed programme with the talk and speaker
descriptions.
We need some metadata in XML about the talks to put at the start of the
videos.
How are our attendee registrations per state/country?

16. contributing to open source
why do it?
what do you get out of it?
why an established project?
why this project?

17. SMALLISH
PYTHON DEV
BASE
*
LARGE
USER CAN MEET
BASE FELLOW
DEVS

18. GOT USERS?

19. let's practice what we preach!

20. attention needed !
testing
up-to-date idiomatic Python
un-LCA-ification
proposal selection
scheduling (UI)
dashboards
volunteer management
mail merge / attendee lists
integrated mobile interface
personalised schedule for attendees
presentation feedback

22. getting started
Source:
https://github.com/zookeepr/zookeepr
Mailing list:
http://lists.zookeepr.org - zookeepr-devel
IRC:
irc://irc.freenode.org/#zookeepr
Issues tracker:
https://github.com/zookeepr/zookeepr/issues

23. credits & thanks
● James Iseppi, for sharing a Zookeepr presentation he gave to Canberra LUG
● zookeepr logo from http://zookeepr.org/ (I don't know who made it but it's
freaking adorable!)
● screenshots, logos, covers and movie posters are © their respective
copyright owners
●Zookeeper book from Amazon.com
Anything left over can be considered © Brianna Laugher, licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.

24. thanks!
zookeepr.org
github.com/zookeepr
brianna@laugher.id.au
identi.ca/pfctdayelise