Back in Person! An AOSCC 2023 Recap

After several years of pandemic and lockdowns, in 2023, AOSCC, our annual conference has finally returned to in-person format. Thanks to the support from ShanghaiTech University's GeekPie Association and university staff members, AOSCC 2023 was held at the university's Pudong campus between July 15 and 16th. This marks AOSCC's return to this venue since 2016.

What a conference it was. This year, we were joined by over 120 attendees from different organizations, schools, and enterprises - a multi-fold increase over our last in-person conference in 2019. Amongst the attendees, we invited Wu Wei 吴伟 from the PLCT Lab, Chen Huacai 陈华才 from Loongson, Su Yunqinag 苏运强 from CIP United, Yu Changyuan 喻昌远 from the Shanghai Linux User Group (hereafter SHLUG), Zhang Yichi 张亦弛 from GeekPie, as well as our very own Liu Zixing 刘子兴 from Canonical. The event was also livestreamed on YouTube and Bilibili, with many interactions from our virtual attendees.

AOSCC 2023 attendees were presented with a packed two-day schedule. Mingcong Bai 白铭骢, our community founder, delivered a keynote which offered recaps and outlooks for community works from aspects of culture, outreach, infrastructure, as well as the various community projects. Community contributor Fu Xiaoyuan 傅孝元 demoed AOSC OS's next-generation package management frontend, Omakase, and responded to questions from the audience. Contributors Liu Zixing 刘子兴 and Yang Xinhui 杨欣辉, along with Mingcong Bai 白铭骢 presented on automation infrastructures for AOSC OS maintenance, as well as porting and support update for various domestic Chinese microprocessors.

The invited speakers also presented on a plethora of topics. Representatives and employees from the PLCT Lab, CIP United, GeekPie, SHLUG, and Canonical delivered presentations on a variety of topics and responded to questions from the audience. Given the high interest and popularity Loongson's latest 5000-series processors based on the LoongArch architecture enjoyed in-and-out of the open source circle, we assembled a Q&A session titled "Of Loongson and You: Ask Us Anything." There, Chen Huacai 陈华才 from Loongson sat down with Revy and Wang "xen0n" Xuerui 王雪瑞 to respond to community questions on the future of Loongson's hardware and software ecosystems. This marks the first time Loongson's corporate and community representatives conversed in a public sestting. We believe that such an occassion will not only help community understanding for Loongson's product and technical agendas, but also foster trust and mutual understanding between the two parties.

Outside of formal presentations, we also planned multiple lucky draws, assembled free discussion sessions, and distributed event souvenirs. We also set up a demo stand for domestic Chinese and Retro hardware. The line-up included a Loongson 3A5000-based desktop computer running AOSC OS's "New World" LoongArch port, an AArch64-based Phytium D2000/8 desktop computer, as well as an IBM ThinkPad X41 and a Vaio UX-58 running AOSC OS/Retro.

If you missed this year's AOSCC or would like to relish some of the highlights, we have uploaded replays on our community YouTube channel. ¹ All slide decks from the event is now available from repo.aosc.io. We are working on editing recordings for presentation sessions and will upload them to our official Bilibili² and YouTube³ channels, please stay tuned. Here, we would like to offer our utmost gratitude for our livestreaming workgroup. We will also release text transcripts for some of the sessions in the near future.

For those who would like to obtain event souvenirs but did not make it in-person or did not get a set in time due to the sheer volume of attendees, we are currently planning a re-run for all souvenirs in the coming weeks. Please watch out for announcements and updates from the various community chat channels.

AOSCC 2023 would not happen without the support from ShanghaiTech University's GeekPie Association and university staffs, as well as community donors and our peers from the aforementioned corporations. Thank you. We will begin planning for AOSCC 2024 in the coming months, we hope to see you again next year!

About GeekPike

ShanghaiTech University's GeekPie Association, or simply GeekPie, is a student group founded upon the principles of open source and sharing in 2014. GeekPie focuses on eight main areas - high-performance computing (HPC), blockchain, robotics, FPGA, systems and DevOps, application and Web development, informational security, as well graphics and imaging. GeekPie is the most geek-y student group in the whole of Shanghai.

GeekPie's Open Source Software Mirror is a public open source software mirror site operated by GeekPie. The mirror service include AOSC OS and tens of other open source software repositories.

GeekPie has graciously supported AOSCC 2023 with venue, device, and instrumentations, their crucial contribution to the success of this year's AOSCC is much appreciated.

• GeekPie's GitHub Homepage: https://github.com/ShanghaitechGeekPie

About the PLCT Lab

The PLCT Lab, or Programming Language and Compiler Technology Lab, aims to become an open source leader in compiler technologies. PLCT Lab pushes for technical advancements in open source compilers and foundational system runtimes with its leadership in development, maintenance, and management of key basic infrastructural projects.

The Tarsier Group is led by the PLCT Lab, with a goal to improve Linux distribution support for RISC-V to a level that equals or exceeds AArch64 platforms. Thanks to the hard work from interns and mentors from various communities, including that of our own, the project has seen significant achievements since its founding. AOSC OS has seen improvements to the quality of its RISC-V (riscv64) port thanks to this project.

The PLCT Lab has sponsored several lucky draw items during AOSCC 2023, thank you.

• The PLCT Lab's GitHub Homepage: https://github.com/plctlab
• The PLCT Lab's Internship Information Page: https://github.com/plctlab/weloveinterns

About Loongson Technology

Loongson Technology is the companhy behind the Loongson microprocessors, as well as its peripheral chip designs, sales, and services.

AOSC OS supports MIPS-cored Loongson-based systems as a Tier 2 port. An experimental port for LoongArch-based systems is currently underway, we anticipate that it will become a Tier 1 port, amongst x86_64 (amd64) and AArch64 (arm64) in the coming year.

• Loongson Technology's Homepage: https://www.loongson.cn/EN
• Loongson Technology's GitHub Organization: https://github.com/loongson/

About CIP United

CIP United is the sole licensor of MIPS IPs in China (including Hong Kong S.A.R. and Macau S.A.R.) and an IC design service. CIP United is currently working actively to improve the software and hardware ecosystems for the MIPS Revision 6 (MIPS R6) instruction set architecture.

• CIP United's Homepage: https://www.cipunited.com/

About Canonical

Canonical is one of the key contributors to the open source software ecosystem. It is also the developer and maintainer of the popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu, providing enterprise-class support for the distribution and the company's various software solutions. Canonical is a London-based firm with offices in over 30 countries.

• Canonical's Homepage: https://canonical.com/

About Shanghai Linux User Group (SHLUG)

Shanghai Linux User Group (often abbreviated as SHLUG) is a local community assembled by Linux users in the Shanghai metropolitan area. SHLUG aims to promote Linux software, free software culture, software skills, forming a local support group for local Linux enthusiasts.

SHLUG holds Hacking Thursdays every Thursday, mainly driven by free-flow conversation. Every month, the group also holds monthly meetups where guest speakers presents on popular topics on free software and open source technologies, practical skills, as well as other topics contributive to fostering geek cultures. The group also has a mailing list, WeChat group, and Telegram channel for online communications, staying fast to its "promote, propagate, communicate, support" motto.

• SHLUG's Homepage：https://www.shlug.org
• SHLUG's Mailing List：https://groups.google.com/g/shlug
• SHLUG's Telegram Channel：https://t.me/SHLUG

Author: Camber Huang <[email protected]>
Editor: Mingcong Bai <[email protected]>