Re: [Linux-aus] linux.conf.au in January

[Andrew Cowie <andrew@operationaldynamics.com>]

On Mon, 2005-07-02 at 19:32 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> It's important to have a consistent timeframe for a conference (cf. OSCON,
> LWE, OLS, most other major conferences in any industry), and Australia in
> January has been a great drawcard for our international audience in previous
> years.

I wholly agree with Jeff's sentiments.

I believe January is a good time relative to the global conference
schedule (LinuxTag June, OLS July, Linux Kongress September, Linux
Bangalore December, to say nothing of the more specialized meets for
communities like PHP, MySQL, Samba, GNOME, etc).

The attraction to our guests from the northern hemisphere cannot be
overemphasized - we have consistently identified the presence of such a
diverse group of international speakers as a critical success factor for
LCA, and the chance to get away from the snow is unbelievably important.
There's less snow there in April.

I also agree that consistency is extremely important, especially given
people who have planning horizon's that extend beyond 18 months (as many
speakers and corporate people do).

And finally, January is probably the slowest month in the Australian
corporate calendar; between Christmas/New Year's, school holidays, and
Australia day, no decision makers are anywhere near their offices - and
so anyone who doesn't already have a previous commitment is unlikely to
be make any progress towards getting a new one.

Given all these factors, January is a fantastic month for LCA. I hope
that we continue with it in the future, but have no doubt that we'll end
up having this debate each year. Oh well. Good try, though, Jeff.

AfC
Sydney

P.S. I should add the disclaimer that I was fully complicit in the
decision to hold LCA '05 in April was made in Dec '03. My views then
were the same, but that's when they wanted to hold it, they made a good
case, and this ain't a dictatorship. <shrug>

-- 
Andrew Frederick Cowie
Managing Director

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