[Linux-aus] Should Linux Australia change its name

[Tim Ansell]

To make a counter point to Chris, having Linux Australia as the backer for
the first two PyCon AU's was an obvious advantage.

Linux Australia has established itself has being able to finance and run
good conferences, going to sponsors and say "we have the backing of the
same people who do Linux.conf.au" was a great way to get people over the
"your a new conference" hump. Linux Australia already has relationships
with a lot of our previous sponsors and thought of kindly. It was very easy
to sign sponsors who had dealt with LCA and had a good time without having
to do too much selling. Having a group which has been around for 10(?)
years gives confidence over a new kid on the block.

Obviously this is changing now that PyCon AU has successfully run for two
years and has established itself. I believe Chris is also targeting people
who might not have been targeted previously and thus running against new
problems.

On a side note, Microsoft Australia had no problems that they explained to
us sponsoring a conference run by Linux Australia.

Tim

On 26 April 2012 09:28, Chris Neugebauer <chrisjrn at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 23:13, David Newall <david at davidnewall.com> wrote:
> >
> > Would it be fair to say that our name hasn't damaged our ability to
> assist
> > the Python community, but merely caused an additional task for the
> > organisers?
>
> Only if it didn't directly affect our ability to sign up sponsors, and
> restrict the delegate pool that would otherwise be interested in the
> conference.
>
> And even if it *were* fair to say that, as an organiser, I'd much
> rather have the time to chase more sponsors so that we can put on a
> better conference.  The time spent explaining the role of LA to one
> large, potential sponsor could have been used tracking down further
> keynote speakers.
>
> Our time is limited.  If an *avoidable* task has been created, it
> directly affects our ability to serve the Python programming community
> through running PyCon Australia.
>
> > One other point: how is Python on Linux different to Python on other
> > platforms?  Isn't it more similar than different, to the point that the
> > underlying platform is almost irrelevant?  Doesn't angst at attending a
> > Python conference sponsored by us indicate a hostility to Linux that
> exceeds
> > devotion to the language?  Religious mania is core to our principles and
> > history, and frankly, won't be mislead by a change of name.  If they hate
> > Linux they'll hate it just as much under a different name.
>
> It's absolutely not about them hating Linux.
>
> It's a more subtle issue.  People decide on what conferences they go
> to based on limited funding.  There are three other PyCons in the
> Asia-Pacific region that they could chose to go to.
>
> If people don't do their work in Python on Linux (yes, there can be
> differences between python on specific). The thought process is thus:
> "Oh, it's a Python on Linux conference.  I do my work on $_OS, so this
> conference won't be relevant to me.  I'll go elsewhere.".  Thus we
> lose delegates that we wouldn't have otherwise lost, and that we
> *shouldn't* have lost, because the conference is just as relevant to
> them.
>
> To further discount the issue you raise: the sorts of delegates that
> we're losing from this process are people we *want* at the conference.
>  They're people who *would* take part in LA events if they went to
> *just one*.  These are the sorts of people we can attract.
>
> --Chris
>
> --
> --Christopher Neugebauer
>
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> AIM: chrisjrn157 -- MSN: chris at neugebauer.id.au -- WWW:
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>
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