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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: "Media & Entertainment SIG" |
| 3 | +--- |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +# Media & Entertainment SIG |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +## Special Interest Group for Visual Effects, Animation, Post-Production and other Media & Entertainment fields. |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +The AlmaLinux Media & Entertainment SIG is a Special Interest Group dedicated to supporting and enhancing the use of AlmaLinux within the professional visual effects, animation, and post-production industries. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Our mission is to ensure AlmaLinux becomes the trusted, production-ready Linux platform for studios of all sizes by serving as the central hub for collaboration between artists, engineers, and open-source developers. We will work to ensure AlmaLinux is the trusted, production-ready Linux platform for studios large and small, while contributing patches, documentation, and reference architectures back to the AlmaLinux ecosystem. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +## How to Join |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +Joining is easy! You can: |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +- Show up to a SIG meeting |
| 18 | +- Pick up an issue from our tracker by assigning it to yourself |
| 19 | +- Ask questions and get involved in our chat |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +Not every contributor wants to be a member of the SIG, but if you do, participation is straightforward and always welcome. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +## Where we chat |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +We use Mattermost (the [~sig-media-entertainment ](https://chat.almalinux.org/almalinux/channels/sig-media-entertainment) room)for communication. Discussions also occurs on the AlmaLinux mailing list: [[email protected]](https://lists.almalinux.org/mailman3/lists/media-entertainment-sig.lists.almalinux.org/). |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +## Where and when we meet |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +The Media & Entertainment SIG will hold monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of each month at 16:00 UTC. |
| 30 | +This time was chosen to accommodate members across Europe and Canada — aligning with late afternoon in Europe and mid-morning to midday across Canadian time zones. |
| 31 | +Meetings are open to all and will be held virtually through the AlmaLinux community platform. |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +## Activities, projects, and deliverables |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +The Media & Entertainment SIG will focus on: |
| 36 | +Certification & compatibility: Ensuring Media & Entertainment industry-standard tools (Nuke, Houdini, Maya, Blender, etc.) run smoothly on AlmaLinux. |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +Reference builds: Providing guides for configuring workstations, render nodes, and storage systems. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +Studio workflows: Documentation for hybrid and on-prem Media & Entertainment pipelines (storage, networking, render farms). |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +Best practices: Security hardening, performance tuning, and reliability guidelines for production environments. |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +Community contributions: Packaging, testing, and bug reporting related to Media & Entertainment software. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +## Help wanted |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +We welcome contributions of all shapes and sizes! Areas where help is needed: |
| 49 | +Packaging: Assist in building and packaging ASWF projects into RPMs and Creating automation playbooks for render farms, storage, and pipeline tools for AlmaLinux |
| 50 | +Testing: Run validation tests, Benchmarking and publishing performance data for hardware and workloads projects to ensure stability and compatibility with other Media & Entertainment / Animation software on AlmaLinux and reporting issues. |
| 51 | +Documentation: Write guides on how to install, configure, and integrate these projects into studio pipelines and transitions to AlmaLinux. |
| 52 | +Bug Reporting: Identify and report bugs specifically related to running ASWF software on AlmaLinux. |
| 53 | +Upstream Collaboration: Work with the upstream ASWF project teams to contribute patches and provide feedback from the AlmaLinux community. |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +Project/task tracker: [GitHub Issues link TBD] |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +## SIG members |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +- Tristan Theroux – SIG Lead (IT Infrastructure & Security Director, SHED Inc.) |
| 60 | +- Cristian Slavik – Founding Member (NOX, VFX Supervisor) |
| 61 | +- Mike Owen – Founding Member (AWS M&E) |
| 62 | +- Eric Marundee - Founding Member (Independent) |
| 63 | +- Aubert Vachon - Founding Member ( IT Operations Manager, Cinesite) |
| 64 | +- John Kirkman - Founding Member ( Director of Platform & Infrastructure, Disney Animation Studios) |
| 65 | +- Alex Fuller - Founding Member ( Lead R&D Software Developer, Flying Bark Productions) |
| 66 | +- Laurence Cymet - Founding Member ( Head of Technology, WeFX) |
| 67 | +- Timothy Toulis - Founding Member ( Systems Engineer, WeFX) |
| 68 | +- Neal Gompa – Founding Member (Engineer, Velocity Limitless) |
| 69 | +- Samuel Bissonnette - Contributor, Member (Pipeline TD, SHED Inc.) |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +## Additional information for SIG application approval |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | +Timeline |
| 74 | +Q1 2026 Official kickoff, initial focus on documenting AlmaLinux workstation and render farm configurations. |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +Mid to late - 2026: Publication of reference architectures and compatibility guidelines for Media & Entertainment studios. |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +## Resources |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | +Infrastructure: A Mattermost channel, mailing list, and GitHub space under AlmaLinux. |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +## Funding |
| 83 | + |
| 84 | +None required at this stage, though future sponsorship may be requested for industry outreach (e.g., SIGGRAPH presence or licensing to test softwares). |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +## Why now |
| 87 | + |
| 88 | +The Media & Entertainment industry is experiencing significant disruption due to recent licensing and support changes from established platform providers. This has created a clear and urgent demand for a stable, open-source, and enterprise-grade Linux distribution that studios can rely on. AlmaLinux is perfectly positioned to fill this gap. |
| 89 | +This SIG will act as the crucial bridge between the AlmaLinux community and the M&E industry. We will ensure the needs of studios, artists, and engineers are not just heard, but are actively documented, addressed, and integrated into the AlmaLinux ecosystem, guaranteeing it is the trusted, long-term platform for production pipelines. |
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