[Linux-aus] LCA 2023 ?

[Kathy Reid]

Hi everyone,

One of the things I'm observing here is people wanting news on future 
open source events from Linux Australia. What I am *not* observing are 
folks putting up their hands to volunteer to help run those events. 
We've seen PyconAU 2022 not go ahead (quite rightly) to ensure 
sustainability and prevent (further) volunteer burnout. OSDC was last 
held in 2015 (fantastic event by the way, thanks Morgan and Tim and 
team), for similar reasons.

Having been involved in running a few* open source events now, they 
happen in one of a few ways (think of this as a rough typography of open 
source events):

The first is where a dedicated, volunteer team develops and unites 
around a vision, pulls together, overcomes obstacles, floods (looking at 
you Brisvegas, and Gold Coast, and oh, G-town), norovirus (kia ora, 
Dunedin), bushfire reconstruction delaying the opening of Penguin Dinner 
venues (Yama, Canberra), airport buses not showing (hey Ballarat), and 
always manages to deliver a memorable experience for hundreds of 
delegates. The costs are generally low, because the event relies on 
volunteer labour - which is essentially offsetting the labour cost of 
the event.

The second is where event management professionals are engaged to run 
part or all of the event, necessitating increased costs. Those paid 
professionals may be in areas such as event management, audio visual, 
sponsor engagement, communications and marketing and so on.

The third is where a commercial enterprise that has an interest in 
engaging the open source community runs an event. These can be either 
free or low-cost, with the downside that the content is usually 
sponsor-flavoured or heavily skewed to the company's interest in putting 
on the event - think "make X easier with our product Y" or "Hero TM 
stories featuring our product Y but not explicitly referencing our 
product Y". If they are higher cost, then the aim of the company is to 
derive a profit from the event. The event is a profit generation 
mechanism. Sometimes they can be both - sponsor-flavoured and 
profit-generating.

Linux Aus events (LCA, PyConAU, OSDC back in the day, GovHack for a 
couple years, HealthHack, a few BarCamps and such) have tended to move 
from type 1 to type 2 as they have grown in size and complexity, but I 
think are definitely not in type 3 territory. Sure, there are often 
profits from LA events, but they go back into a) the event itself with 
b) 6% going to LA to cover things like insurance and filing taxes and 
adminis-not-trivia.

Even if events run as type 2 events - with lots of professionally-paid 
skills on board, they still require type 1 event volunteers to set 
direction and take ownership of the event. Without this, events are type 
3 events - where the event is run as a commercial endeavour.

My point is this - LCA, PyConAU and similar events simply don't run if 
we don't have volunteers to run them. And if the events weren't fun, or 
worthwhile, or high value, we wouldn't have people missing them. In a 
perverse way, it's a good thing that we're missing LCA and PyConAU - 
because it's highlighted the invisible labour, the taken-for-granted 
volunteers and the thousands of hours of time and passion that go into 
these events. We've gotten comfortable expecting an LCA every January or 
a PyConAU every September. Because the work of delivering them has been 
hidden - behind maturity, behind dedicated people, behind better 
processes and systems and technology and communications.

Without that passion, that time, that labour, these events don't happen. 
So, if you want an open source event to happen in 2023, you know what to 
do. Patches welcome.

Kind regards,

Kathy Reid

* BarCamp Geelong 2011, LCA 2012, GovHack Geelong 2015 & 2016, LCA2016, 
and a bunch of years on LA Council


>
> I haven't seen any further announcements - has there been any further 
> progress on this?
>
>
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