Running an IETF Hackathon
draft-eckel-shmoo-ietf-hackathon-00
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
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|
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Charles Eckel | ||
| Last updated | 2020-11-04 | ||
| Replaced by | draft-ietf-shmoo-hackathon, RFC 9311 | ||
| RFC stream | (None) | ||
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| Stream | Stream state | (No stream defined) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
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draft-eckel-shmoo-ietf-hackathon-00
shmoo C. Eckel
Internet-Draft Cisco Systems
Intended status: Informational November 02, 2020
Expires: May 6, 2021
Running an IETF Hackathon
draft-eckel-shmoo-ietf-hackathon-00
Abstract
IETF Hackathons encourage developers to collaborate and develop
utilities, ideas, sample code and solutions that show practical
implementations of IETF standards. This document provides a set of
practices for running IETF Hackathons.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on May 6, 2021.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Sponsorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2.1. Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2.2. Food and Beverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2.3. T-shirts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.4. Stickers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.5. Online only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Hackdemo Happy Hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3. Code Lounge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.4. Code Sprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.5. Online Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Project Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Project Pitches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Results Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.1. Presenting in person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.2.2. Presenting Remotely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Tooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.1. Datatracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.2. IETF Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.2.1. Hackathon Webpage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.2.2. Meeting Webpage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.3. Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.3.1. Attendees List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.3.2. Caps on Registrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.4. Wiki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.4.1. Hackathon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.4.2. Lost and Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.4.3. In Person Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.4.4. Online Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.4.5. Team Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.5. Mailing List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.6. GitHub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.7. Meetecho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.8. Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.8.1. Remote Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.9. Online Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.9.1. Webex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.9.2. Gather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Statistics and Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.1. IETF Survey Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.2. Hackathon Survey results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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7.2.1. Online Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Roles and Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Hackathon Chair(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.2. Secretariat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
8.3. Sponsor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
8.4. Champions of Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
8.5. IETF LLC, Director of Communications and Operations (was
ISOC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
8.6. Judges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
9.1. Private Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11.2. URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1. Introduction
IETF Hackathons encourage developers to collaborate and develop
utilities, ideas, sample code and solutions that show practical
implementations of IETF standards. IETF Hackathons aim to:
o Advance the pace and relevance of IETF standards activities by
bringing the speed and collaborative spirit of open source
development into the IETF
o Bring developers and young people into IETF and get them exposed
to and interested in IETF
IETF Hackathons are free to attend and open to everyone. They are
collaborative events, not competitions. Any competitiveness among
participants is friendly, and in the spirit of advancing the pace and
relevance of new and evolving internet standards.
This document provides a set of practices for running IETF
Hackathons.
2. Conventions and Definitions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
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3. Funding
The Hackathon requires funding, and that funding increases with the
number of participants. Participating has always been free;
therefore, funding from other sources than participant fees is
required.
3.1. Sponsorship
The initial funding model was to have Hackathon sponsors that sign up
to sponsor and fund the Hackathon for one year. As part of starting
the Hackathon, Cisco volunteered to sponsor and fund the Hackathon
for its first year (i.e,. three Hackathons, one at each IETF meeting
during a calendar year). This sponsorship was to rotate. Huawei
volunteered to sponsor the second year of the Hackathon. After the
second year, a sponsor for the 3rd year was not found. However, the
Hackathon had become a proven success. Consequently, the IETF
decided to fund the Hackathon as part of the IETF meeting, with
Hackathon sponsorship being on a best effort basis.
3.2. Expenses
The primary costs associated with the Hackathon are for the meeting
space and for food and beverage. It is often challenging to separate
out the cost of the Hackathon.
3.2.1. Space
The space for the Hackathon is sometimes included as part of the
overall contract. Other times, additional costs are incurred to
secure a large enough space earlier than would otherwise have been
required. Typically, the space is needed from Friday afternoon for
setup until Sunday afternoon. The space is typically repurposed for
the IETF Lounge. If the size of the Hackathon continue to increase,
it might be necessary to use the same space as is used for the IETF
plenary.
3.2.2. Food and Beverage
Some portion of the food and beverage cost is often included as part
of a minimum spend the IETF is obligated to make. When a Hackathon
sponsor is identified, the money is typically used to offset food and
beverage costs, or to enhance the food and beverage that is made
available versus what would have been made available if no sponsor
existed.
The minimum food and beverage for the Hackathon has been,
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o coffee, tea, and water Saturday and Sunday morning
o lunch Saturday and Sunday
Additional items, in order of importance, included when funding is
available include,
o beer Saturday evening
o dinner Saturday evening
o continental breakfast Saturday and Sunday
o afternoon snacks Saturday and Sunday
3.2.3. T-shirts
Hackathon t-shirts are an important part of the Hackathon. They have
been provided for all in-person Hackathons and greatly appreciated by
most participants. The also serve as great advertising for the IETF,
the Hackathon, and sponsors. Cisco or other event sponsors have
typically covered the cost of t-shirts. The current model is that
the secretariat covers the costs using whatever funding is available.
TBD: include size and cost info?
3.2.4. Stickers
Laptop stickers are popular with software developers. Stickers have
been produced made available at the Hackathon for those that want
them. The cost of producing these and making them available has been
covered by the IETF LLC, Director of Communications and Operations.
3.2.5. Online only
When the IETF meeting has been online only, all costs in this section
are eliminated. Some potential costs associated with running the
Hackathon online an entire week before the rest of the IETF meeting
include the following:
o Meetecho: costs associated with Hackathon kickoff and and closing
sessions on Monday and Friday.
o Gather: costs associated with premium service, required to enable
more than 50 concurrent users. This has not been necessary, but
will almost certainly be if Gather becomes a valuable way for
Hackathon participants to meet within and across teams.
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o Webex: IETF Webex accounts are made available to champions for the
duration of the Hackathon and some period beyond that encompasses
at least the rest of the IETF meeting. These accounts are at
present available at no additional cost to the IETF.
o Network: the IETF network, and remote access to it, need to be
available an additional week.
4. Timing
The first IETF Hackathon was held the weekend before the start of the
IETF 92 meeting. The rationale was to avoid conflicts yet make it
relatively convenient for those attending the IETF meeting to
participate in the Hackathon as well. Holding the Hackathon on the
weekend was also viewed as making it more accessible to non IETF
meeting attendees, including students and working professionals who
would have other commitments during the week. The weekend before was
viewed as better than the weekend after such that things learned
during the Hackathon could be shared and discussed with the rest of
the IETF community during working group sessions and the like. This
worked well at IETF 92, was repeated at IETF 93, and quickly became
an established norm with the IETF meeting being officially extended
to include the Hackathon at the start.
4.1. Agenda
The IETF Hackathon is a strenuous event. Though not a competition,
participants want to make the most of their time together, much as
with the IETF meeting in general. Competitive Hackathons typically
run non-stop for on the order of 40 hours. There is a strict
deadline and teams are judged and winners declared at the end.
Afterward everyone is wiped out and heads off to briefly celebrate or
commiserate, but mainly to recuperate. As the IETF Hackathon serves
as the start of the overall IETF meeting, we aim to strike a
compromise that provides enjoy time to get valuable work accomplished
without exhausting themselves before the main IETF meeting even
starts. While some people participate in the Hackathon only, the
majority of people remain and plan to be actively engaged in the rest
of the IETF meeting.
The typical agenda is as follows:
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Saturday before IETF meeting week
08:30: Room open for setup by project champions
09:00: Room open for all - Pastries and coffee provided
09:30: Hackathon kickoff
09:45: Form Teams
12:30: Lunch provided
15:30: Afternoon break - Snacks provided
19:00: Dinner provided
22:00: Room closes
Sunday before IETF meeting week
08:30: Room opens - Pastries and coffee provided
12:30: Lunch provided
13:30: Hacking stops, prepare brief presentation of project
14:00: Project presentations to other participants
15:45: Closing remarks and opportunities for next time
16:00: Hackathon ends
17:00: Tear down complete
The time on Saturday morning provides team champions time to setup
and participants time to socialize and learn more about projects and
team they might want to join. The kickoff presentation and
formalities are kept to minimum to leave as much time as possible for
team to work together with their team on their projects. The
proximity of teams to each other fosters communication and
collaboration across teams as well.
Lunch and dinner are provided as a convenience and an incentive to
remain at the Hackathon. Participants are free to come and go as
they like. It is well understood and accepted that there are other
things vying for time and that meeting with friends or colleagues
outside of the Hackathon is an entirely reasonable thing to do.
The room closes Saturday evening to give hotel staff unfettered
access to the room and to encourage people to pace and take care of
themselves. There are no rules against continuing work on Hackathon
projects outside of the Hackathon room. Similarly, working on
projects long before and after the Hackathon is allowed and
encouraged.
The end of the Hackathon on Sunday is driven by other IETF meeting
events. There typically are Newcomer events that start at 16:00.
The IETF Hackathon typically includes many newcomers in its list of
participants. It is important to provide them time to participate in
the Newcomer events. The opening reception typically start at 17:00,
and we want to make it easy for all Hackathon participants to join
that as well.
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Hackdemo Happy Hour (ref) and the Code Lounge (ref) exist to
facilitate ongoing discussion and work on projects beyond the
official end of the Hackathon weekend.
4.2. Hackdemo Happy Hour
Hackdemo Happy Hour provides an opportunity for more in depth sharing
and discussion than is possible within the time constraints of the
result presentation that occur at the end of the Hackathon. This
opportunity is made available to all teams. As with the results
presentation, participation is optional.
Initially, we did something similar as part of Bits and Bites. This
worked well for the Hackathon but the Bits and Bites event was
eventually abandoned for other reasons. Hackdemo Happy Hour was
created as a low cost, informal event to provide a venue for the IETF
community to engage with the Hackathon teams in more in depth
discussions related to their projects.
Hackdemo Happy Hour is typically Monday evening, roughly from 18:00 -
19:30, often overlapping a bit with the last working group session of
the day but continuing long enough to allow everyone an opportunity
to join. The goal is to make it convenient to attend by not
conflicting with other meetings but also no running too late into the
night.
Light snacks and non alcoholic beverages are provided, and a cash bar
is available to align with the spirit of a happy hour.
4.3. Code Lounge
The Code Lounge provides space for groups to gather and continue to
collaborate on running code after the Hackathon. It is typically in
the IETF Lounge and open the same hours as the IETF Lounge.
Champions are encouraged to look at the final agenda and determine
time slots best suited to ensure successful attendance of Code Lounge
sessions as well as any traditional working group sessions. It is
okay for multiple teams to sign up for the same time slots. This is
in fact encouraged for work that spans multiple working groups or
projects.
4.4. Code Sprint
Some efforts were made to have the Hackathon and the Code Sprint work
together or potentially be combined into a single event focusing on
the development of IETF protocols and IETF internal tools. There is
some concern that the events currently compete for resources. There
is also a great deal of synergistic potential. Several Hackathon
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projects, such as those related to YANG model validation, involve the
creation or modification of IETF tools.
The Code Sprint existed long before the Hackathon and has its own
identity and way of doing things. The Code Sprint organizers are
against combining the events and potentially losing this identity the
benefits of a customized event. The practice that exists today is to
locate the events physically close to each other to facilitate
switching back and forth between the two events.
4.5. Online Only
IETF 107 Hackathon was originally scheduled to be the weekend at the
start of the IETF meeting in Vancouver. When COVID-19 hit and it
became clear the IETF meeting could not occur in person, the
Hackathon already had 23 projects and 176 registrations. With only
10 days until the anticipated start of the Hackathon, a survey went
out to the Hackathon community, including all project champions and
registered participants, to see if they wanted to participate in the
Hackathon exactly as planned except with everyone participating
remotely rather than in person. A relatively small number of people
expressed interest in participating, with even fewer wanting to
continue to champion their projects. The fact that the Hackathon was
planned for the weekend before the IETF meeting and in the local time
zone, both of which were historically very convenient and attractive
to Hackathon participants, suddenly became huge obstacles.
Consequently, the IETF 107 Hackathon was cancelled.
We knew more in advance that IETF 108 would be an online only
meeting. We moved and expanded the schedule to run the entire work
week before the rest of the IETF meeting. The Hackathon kickoff was
set for Monday, the closing for Friday, with all the time in between
left for individual project teams to arrange to meet how and when was
most convenient for them. The kickoff and closing sessions were
schedule to align with the time frame established for the IETF 108
meeting. All of this was, of course, not ideal, and it worked much
better for some people than for others, but at least everyone knew
the plan and corresponding time commitment well in advance and had
the ability to plan accordingly.
The response was great. We ultimately had 19 projects and almost 300
registrations. It is hard to say how many people actually
participated and for how long, but many projects were able to get
substantial work done. For the closing, 10 teams produced and shared
presentations summarizing their findings and achievements. All
presentations as well as the agenda and a recording of the closing
session are available via the IETF 108 Hackathon
[wiki]((https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/108Hackathon).
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Hackdemo Happy Hour and the Code Lounge are not applicable for online
only Hackathons.
5. Project Presentations
Project presentations are an important mechanism for capturing what
each team accomplished and sharing this with the IETF community.
For the first few Hackathons, we had two very distinct types of
presentations,
1. Presentation that served as project pitches at the start of the
Hackathon
2. Presentations that summarizes results at the end of the
Hackathon.
5.1. Project Pitches
The project pitches were 5-10 minute presentations by a champion of a
project describing what they wanted to do and how they proposed to
accomplish it. This gave everyone in the room a better understanding
of all the projects and helped participants match themselves with
appropriate projects. This was fantastic when we had a small number
of projects, but it became unwieldy as the number of projects
increased. As knowledge of the Hackathon grew and advanced planning
became more common, many participants knew exactly which team they
planned to join and wanted to get to work as quickly as possible
rather than spend a couple hours listening to presentations. Project
pitches were dropped from the Hackathon. Champions are encouraged to
share this type of information in advance via the Meeting Wiki
instead.
5.2. Results Summaries
The project presentations are brief summaries by each team of what
problem they tried to solve, what they achieved, and highlights that
include lessons learned, feedback to associated working groups, and
collaboration with open source communities and other standards
organizations. We also highlight individuals who are participating
in their first IETF Hackathon or first IETF event to facilitate their
introduction into the IETF community. The production and
presentation of results summaries is optional. Fortunately, despite
the lack of awards and prizes, most teams participate.
As with the project pitches, results presentations can become
unwieldy as the number of projects increases. The formula used is to
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limit the total time for all presentations to 2 hours and allocate
time slots based on that. Time slots of minutes are typical.
All presentation are uploaded to a GitHub repo created specifically
for each IETF Hackathon (e.g., https://github.com/ietf-hackathon/
ietf108-project-presentations [1].
The contents of this repo are used as the source for all project
presentations at the end of the Hackathon and remain as a reference
after the Hackathon. For portability, presentations are requested to
be in PDF format.
One must be a member of the IETF-Hackathon GitHub org to upload a new
presentation or update/replace an existing presentation.
To be added as a member, presenters are asked to
o include the name by which they are known in their GitHub profile
o enable two factor authentication (2FA)
o send your GitHub user name to the Chair(s)
Presenters are asked to do this at their earliest convenience as the
Chair(s) typically get very busy as the start of presentations
approaches.
5.2.1. Presenting in person
Presentations are run from a shared ChromeBook at the front of the
Hackathon room. This Chromebook is provided by the Secretariat.
5.2.2. Presenting Remotely
Remote presenters are welcome to run their own presentations using
the screen sharing functionality in Meetecho. Alternatively, the
Hackathon chairs can share the presentation and advance slides for
the presenter.
6. Tooling
The IETF Hackathon makes use of the same tooling used by the IETF
community for its work and meetings.
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6.1. Datatracker
The Datatracker [2] supports the notion of Teams that are not a part
of the standards development process. The Hackathon exists as one
such Team. From the Datatracker menu, navigate to "Other", "Active
Teams", "Hackathon". Here exists a Datatracker space for the
Hackathon similar to what is available for working groups, including
meeting materials, agendas, etc. Initially, there was some attempt
to copy materials hosted in GitHub [3] to the Datatracker. Now this
is done only when required for integration with other IETF tooling,
including:
o requesting sessions [4] for the Hackathon kickoff and closing, and
for Hackdemo Happy Hour
o posting agendas [5]
6.2. IETF Website
6.2.1. Hackathon Webpage
The IETF website includes a dedicated page for the Hackathon webpage
[6]. This page contains information about the Hackathon in general
as well as links to past, present, and future Hackathons. The
relevant links are updated after each IETF meeting. Other content on
the page is updated on a more ad hoc basis.
6.2.2. Meeting Webpage
Each IETF meeting webpage [7] contains information about the
corresponding Hackathon, including the dates of the Hackathon in the
header, a link to the Hackathon webpage in the "Additional Events"
section.
6.3. Registration
Registration for the Hackathon is through the IETF meeting
registration [8] system. Participant registration for the Hackathon
is
o independent of participation registration for the meeting
o free
o required
As with meeting registration, registrants for the Hackathon
acknowledge the Note Well [9] during the registration process.
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6.3.1. Attendees List
An active list of all registered attendees (e.g.
https://registration.ietf.org/109/participants/Hackathon/) is
maintained by the Secretariat. Important information displayed for
each registrants include the set of projects and technologies in
which each participant is interested and an email address. This
information is optional at the time of registration and may be
updated or removed by editing ones registration.
6.3.2. Caps on Registrations
Registrations were capped for the first several Hackathons. This was
done both for space and costs considerations. The cap was hit
multiple times, each time resulting in temporary confusion and
frustration among would be registrants, followed by the cap being
increased. Currently, there are no caps enforced by the registration
system.
6.4. Wiki
The meeting wiki serves as the primary source of information for each
Hackathon.
6.4.1. Hackathon
A page within the wiki is created by the Secretariat for each
Hackathon and initialized with information that is based largely on
the information from the previous Hackathon. Once created, the
Hackathon Chairs update and moderate the wiki. Champions are
requested and responsible for adding information about projects for
which they are a champion.
Anyone can edit the wiki by logging in using their Datatracker login
credentials. Credentials can be obtained by requesting [10] a new
Datatracker account.
6.4.2. Lost and Found
A Lost and Found wiki page (e.g.
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/109Hackathon/lost&found)
is created by the Chairs for each Hackathon. Participants looking
for a team are encouraged to add themselves to the "Skills to Offer"
table, providing some information about their skills and interests.
This will help others with matching needs and/or interests find them.
Champions wanting help on their projects are encouraged to add their
teams to the "Skills Needed" table, providing some information about
the skills they seek.
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6.4.3. In Person Only
The following wiki pages are applicable for in-person Hackathons
only.
6.4.3.1. Hackdemo Happy Hour
A Hackdemo Happy Hour wiki page (e.g.
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/106hackdemo) is created
by the Chairs for each Hackathon. Champions are welcome and
encouraged to add their project by entering the project name/acronym
and a contact name and email address in the table displayed on the
page.
6.4.3.2. Code Lounge
A Code Lounge wiki page (e.g.
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/106codelounge) is
created by the Chairs for each Hackathon. Champions are welcome and
encouraged to add their project by entering the project name/acronym
and a contact name and email address in the table displayed on the
page.
6.4.4. Online Only
The following wiki pages are applicable for online only Hackathons
only.
6.4.5. Team Schedule
A Team Schedule wiki page (e.g.
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/109Hackathon/
teamschedule) is created by the Chairs for each online only
Hackathon. Online only Hackathons take place globally for an entire
week. It is up to individual project teams to determine the
preferred dates, times, and ways to meet to work on their project
within the context of that week (e.g. Zoom, Webex, Slack). This
page is meant to help facilitate coordination of schedules within and
across teams.
6.5. Mailing List
The Hackathon mail list, hacakthon@ietf.org [11], is used for all
email communication and announcement related to the Hackathon. All
registrants and given the option to subscribe to the list. Anyone
interested in staying up to date on the Hackathon is able to
subscribe at any time.
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6.6. GitHub
The IETFHackathon [12] is used to share code, presentations, and
other artifacts at IETF Hackathons. The Hackathon Chairs are
responsible for administering the GitHub org.
Code for Hackathon projects often exist elsewhere, which is perfectly
fine. Anyone needing a place to host code for the Hackathon can
request the creating of a repository for their project.
A repository is created and maintained by the Chairs for each
Hackathon (e.g. https://github.com/ietf-hackathon/ietf109-project-
presentations). This repo is for participants to upload project
presentations. The contents of this repo are used as the source for
all project presentations at the end of the Hackathon and remain as a
reference after the Hackathon.
6.7. Meetecho
Meetecho [13] is used for the kickoff and closing sessions of the
Hackathon. This provides many capabilities, including the following:
o allows participants to join Hackathon sessions in person or
remotely
o validate registration of participants at time of joining Hackathon
sessions
o enable remote presentations of project results
o capture recording of Hackathon sessions
6.8. Network
Access to the IETF network is an important aspect of the Hackathon.
The IETF network provides unfettered internet access that is not
typical within many residential, corporate, and university
environments. For many of IETF participants and projects, access to
the internet and each other via the wireless access to the IETF
network is sufficient. However, due to the nature of the work done
in the IETF, wired access and special networking capabilities are
often required.
The NOC has graciously met the needs of the Hackathon since its
inception and continues to add more capabilities over time.
Champions are able to request in advance wired access and special
networking functionality, including static IPv4 and IPv6 addresses,
IPv6 only networking, a closed user group, NAT64, and IPv6PD. All of
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this, and the IETF network in general, is made available by the start
of the Hackathon and in advance for setup to the extent possible.
6.8.1. Remote Networking
Online only meetings present not only a personal networking challenge
but a computer networking challenge as well. The NOC came to the
rescue with remote networking options to join the IETF network while
attending the meeting remotely. With a Raspberry Pi [14] 2 or newer,
or MikroTik hAP mini [15], the NOC has a recipe that allow teams to
be virtually connected to the IETF network with all the previously
mentioned options. Best of all, this same remote networking
capability can be used by remote and in-person participants of
Hackathons at in-person meetings.
6.9. Online Only
The following tooling is applicable for online only Hackathons only.
6.9.1. Webex
Webex accounts are applicable for online only Hackathons only.
Champions can request a Webex account [16] they can use to schedule
meetings for their team. These are similar to the Webex accounts
allocated to working group chairs to be used for virtual interim
meetings. An account can be requested by a team champion at any
time. Accounts remain active and available throughout the duration
of the Hackathon and the associated IETF meeting. A project name may
be used in place of "Working Group Name" in the request form.
6.9.2. Gather
Gather [17] is applicable for online only Hackathons. A dedicated
area of the space is created by the Secretariat. The area includes
tables that are assigned to teams. Seats around the table facilitate
group discussions within the team. A whiteboard at each table
facilitates sharing of information within the team. The tables also
provide a mechanism to collaboration across teams.
7. Statistics and Metrics
Metrics have been captured for each Hackathon. Adding these metrics
is on the todo list.
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7.1. IETF Survey Results
https://www.ietf.org/media/documents/survey-planning-possible-online-
meetings-responses.pdf
(From L-R: Very important, Important, Neutral, Not important, Not at
all important, Score (lower score is more important)) - Hackathon
6.73% 20.20% 40.65% 19.70% 12.72% 3.11
7.2. Hackathon Survey results
todo
7.2.1. Online Only
todo
8. Roles and Responsibilities
TBD. Should this info be in its own section or inline within other
sections? It is known to be incomplete and a mix of own section and
inline at the moment.
8.1. Hackathon Chair(s)
The role of a Hackathon chair is similar to that of a working group
chair. As with working groups, it is typically best to have co-
chairs share responsibilities and workload. The Chairs work very
closely with the Secretariat on all responsibilities. Key
responsibilities include:
o Organize and deliver a Hackathon at each IETF meeting, soliciting
help from all other roles to do much of the heavy lifting
o Encourage and provide guidance to champions who volunteer to lead
projects
o Maintain the Hackathon wiki (e.g.
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/109Hackathon) and all
of its child pages.
o Moderate Hackathon@ietf.org email list
o Request sessions for Hackathon opening and closing at IETF meeting
(i.e. https://datatracker.ietf.org/secr/sreq/)
o Emcee the Hackathon, including the opening and closing sessions
and announcements in between
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o Create and manage the GitHub repo used for each Hackathon (e.g.
https://github.com/ietf-hackathon/ietf108-project-presentations
[18]
o Main point of contact for all Hackathon questions and concerns
8.2. Secretariat
Key responsibilities include:
o Configure and manage Hackathon registration system
o Maintain Hackathon web page [19]
o Create and maintain web page for each Hackathon (e.g.
https://www.ietf.org/how/runningcode/Hackathons/109-Hackathon/)
o Create wiki page for each Hackathon (e.g.
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/109Hackathon). This
is initialized and updated at times by the Secretariat, but the
Chair(s) are ultimately responsible for maintaining it.
o Handle venue logistics for Hackathon, Hackdemo Happy Hour, and
Code Lounge (e.g. reserve room, food and beverages, AV, etc.)
o Internal IETF promotion (e.g. email messages to community)
o Assist with external outreach, as needed, including finding
sponsors
8.3. Sponsor
Key responsibilities include:
o Provide some funding to help offset costs of Hackathon (either per
meeting or per year, depending on model)
o Optionally provide t-shirts or other giveaways
o Optionally provide support staff to assist with Hackathon
8.4. Champions of Projects
Champions of projects are the key to a successful Hackathon. Key
responsibilities for champions include:
o Volunteer to lead a project at the Hackathon
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o Serve as primary contact for the project
o Add and manage information on the Hackathon wiki for the project
o Promote the project to appropriate groups inside IETF and outside
as well
o Welcome and organize members of the team
o Provide focus, guidance, and leadership for the project
8.5. IETF LLC, Director of Communications and Operations (was ISOC)
Key responsibilities include:
o External (outside world) promotion
o Outreach to local universities
o Provide photographer
o Laptop stickers
8.6. Judges
The first several Hackathon involved judges who listened to summary
presentations by teams at the closing of each Hackathon and
identified winning teams for an arbitrary number of project
categories. Prizes were made available to members of winning teams.
This was done as an incentive to participate in the Hackathon and
present results, and to provide a fun yet informative end to the
Hackathon that could be appreciated by the entire IETF community.
Judging and awarding of prizes led to confusion regarding the nature
of the Hackathon, making it appear to some overly competitive.
Procurement of appropriate prizes was financially and logistically
challenging. Arrangement of judges, determination of winners, and
awarding of prizes all became more time consuming, especially as the
number of projects and participants grew. Ultimately, it was deemed
best to eliminate judging, awards, and prizes entirely. Apparently
the IETF community has an innate incentive to participate and present
results in the Hackathon.
9. Security Considerations
None.
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9.1. Private Considerations
Participant email addresses are displayed publicly. Registrants
optionally include these are part of their registrations.
The email addresses of individual champions are often shared publicly
by the champions on the wiki.
The email addresses of the Chairs are shared publicly by the Chairs
on the wiki and via GitHub. It would probably be better to use an
email alias.
10. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
11.2. URIs
[1] https://github.com/ietf-hackathon/ietf108-project-presentations
[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/
[3] https://github.com/ietf-hackathon
[4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/secr/sreq/
[5] https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/agenda/
[6] https://www.ietf.org/how/runningcode/Hackathons/
[7] https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/
[8] https://registration.ietf.org
[9] https://ietf.org/about/note-well/
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[10] https://datatracker.ietf.org/accounts/create/
[11] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/Hackathon
[12] https://github.com/ietf-hackathon
[13] https://www.meetecho.com/
[14] https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
[15] https://mikrotik.com/product/RB931-2nD
[16] https://ietf.webex.com/webappng/sites/ietf/
dashboard?siteurl=ietf
[17] https://gather.town/
[18] https://github.com/ietf-hackathon/ietf108-project-presentations
[19] https://www.ietf.org/how/runningcode/Hackathons/
Acknowledgments
TODO acknowledgements.
Author's Address
Charles Eckel
Cisco Systems
Email: eckelcu@cisco.com
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