Re: [LACTTE] Re: [Linux-aus] About a User Conference (was...)

Bret Busby <bret@busby.net> · Tue Mar 1 17:24:02 2005

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Anthony Towns wrote:
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 01:33:27 -0500
From: Anthony Towns <secretary@linux.org.au>
To: Michael Still <mikal@stillhq.com>
Cc: linux-aus@linux.org.au, committee-LA <committee@linux.org.au>,
    AUUG Board of Directors <auugexec@auug.org.au>
Subject: Re: [LACTTE] Re: [Linux-aus] About a User Conference (was...)
Michael Still wrote:

- users are extremely price sensitive

Note anything more than $0 is too much.

Perhaps. How do you fund an event without having any money though?

There're at least three ways:
* have people who present pay for it (tradeshow)
* finance it by sponsors (essentially advertising)
* run it at a loss (mistake ;)
The second two options are how the open source forums are run; but they're 
pretty small and expected to stay that way, so the loss doesn't matter so 
much.
Absolutely. I was more thinking of Windows-centric ISV / bespoke 
programmers wanting to port their worlds to Linux / open source however.

Some possibilities:
 * people who'd like to know if they can switch to Linux, and why they
   would, and get some idea how to -- they don't want to devote too
   much time (it's all wasted if the answer's "no they can't switch"),
   and aren't too fussed if it's not too in-depth.
 * people who've already decided they want to swich to Linux, and want
   to get some real useful help in making the step -- they probably
   want to actually devote a day or two in their entirety to seeing
   tutorials, networking with consultants, and whatever else.

So it is for prospective users...
 * people who're already using Linux and want to use it better --
   they're not so interested in basics, and want in-depth tutorials and
   a chance to talk to people in depth.
 * people who're using Linux and want a chance to "give back" to the
   community in some valuable way, but aren't able to hack on the
   kernel or openoffice.org -- not sure what we might want to offer
   these folks, but they're probably worth considering

....and for users?
Maybe we should try a user conference that caters variously to all the sorts 
of people we can think of, then get feedback on how to do it right next time 
-- more as a deliberate experiment, than a first actual run?

I suggest that, perhaps it would be a good idea, to define the intended 
audience.
It is a bit like the quote in my signature.
I believe that a "this is Linux, have a look at it, and see what you 
can do with it, and compare it with what you are using now, and 
determine whether you are interetested in moving to it" kind of thing, 
would be better as a stall in a computer show, or as a separate event, 
and, that a "so, you're using Linux, this is how you can improve your 
use of it, and how you can get work with your knowledge of it, and how 
you can get recogition of skills with it" kind of thing, would be a 
Linux Users Conference.
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............
"So once you do know what the question actually is,

 you'll know what the answer means."

- Deep Thought,

  Chapter 28 of

  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

  A Trilogy In Four Parts",

  written by Douglas Adams,

  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................