---
title: OpenTelemetry Contribfest at KubeCon North America 2023
linkTitle: Contribfest at KubeCon NA
date: 2023-11-13
author: '[Alex Boten](https://github.com/codeboten) (Lightstep)'
cSpell:ignore: Boten Contribfest
---

![OpenTelemetry Contribfest at KubeCon North America 2023](contribfest-1.jpg 'OpenTelemetry Contribfest at KubeCon North America 2023')

This year marked many milestones for the OpenTelemetry project. The project
achieved the goals it had set in 2019 by announcing the general availability of
of the logging signal, the last of the signals it had originally committed to.
In addition, the project continued to grow the number of contributors, being the
second most active project in the CNCF for a second year in a row, behind
Kubernetes.

## What's Contribfest?

In an effort to bring more contributors to the table, OpenTelemetry maintainers
hosted the project’s first [Contribfest](https://sched.co/1R2rQ) at KubeCon
North America 2023. The goal of a Contribfest is to bring people with all levels
of experience together with community members to work through the steps needed
to make a contribution to the project. This year,
[Juraci](https://github.com/jpkrohling/),
[Anthony](https://github.com/aneurysm9/),
[Tyler](https://github.com/tylerhelmuth), [Daniel](https://github.com/dyladan),
and [myself](https://github.com/codeboten) volunteered to host the event and
guide newcomers. The hosts of the session prepared ahead of time by combing
through various repositories and labelling issues with the `Contribfest` label.
Since the session is only 90 minutes long, it was important to try and find
items that would be appropriate to tackle in that time. Some slides were also
prepared, to give attendees an overview of the project, help them navigate the
repositories, and explain the process of submitting code.

## The event

When the day of the event arrived, the room was completely full. After a few
minutes to cover the content in the slides, contributors were ready to write
some code, and questions came in fast. Questions from contributors ranged across
all levels of expertise, and many OpenTelemetry community members came to the
session to help answer them. The session began with 53 open issues, and by the
end of the session, 2 pull requests had already been merged with another 11 pull
requests having been opened.

![Contributors typing furiously](contribfest-2.jpg 'Contributors typing furiously')

Even more importantly than the contributions themselves, many great
conversations and much learning stemmed from the collaborations both for the
hosts and the attendees. The planning has already started for the next
Contribfest. Thanks to all the participants for making this inaugural event such
a success.
