The Workshop Upstream Manifesto

Note

TL;DR - A hands-on two-day workshop (May 6-7, 2026, Carpi, Italy) focused on mainline-first embedded development — covering Yocto, kernel upstreaming, Zephyr, swupdate, and RAUC challenges. - Mentored by Amarula senior engineers and special guest Michael Opdenacker (rootcommit).

“If it’s not in mainline, it’s technical debt.”

Location Carpi (MO), Italy in our Office Date: May 6-7 2026

What are the workshop principles?

No Vendor Crap

We don’t care about a “working” 4.4 kernel from a chip vendor. If it’s not in mainline, it’s technical debt. (We have a bit of experience here).

The Junior Drives

Senior, put your hands in your pockets. If you’re typing, you’re failing. The Junior writes the code; you explain the why.

Break It to Fix It

You don’t learn from a successful build. You learn from the kernel panic and the bitbake error log.

The Mailing List is the Goal

A hackathon project that stays on a laptop is a waste of electricity. The goal is git format-patch.

Keep it Simple

Don’t over-engineer. Use the framework the community already built.

What challenges does the workshop offer?

During the workshop, we propose 6 challenges:

  1. Yocto: Mastering the art of the upstream-compatible distribution.

  2. Mainline Resurrection: Upstream an unsupported board.

    See Workshop linux yocto mainline for more details.

  3. Zephyr Frontiers: Support a new architecture on Zephyr.

  4. Swupdate: Support FWU metadata on swupdate.

  5. RAUC: Support FWU metadata on RAUC.

  6. And more…

Who mentors the workshop?

We will have company senior engineering and Michael Opdenacker as a special guest and Senior mentor.

Tip

A hackathon project is only as good as its last upstream contribution. Interested in future workshops or embedded Linux training? Amarula Solutions offers custom on-site and remote training in Yocto, U-Boot, Linux kernel, and Buildroot. Contact us about training