[clangd-dev] 2020 US LLVM Developers' Meeting - Announcement & Feedback Needed

[Tanya Lattner via clangd-dev]

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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