[Linux-aus] Re: LCA: bringing the process forward

[Leon Brooks]

On Tuesday 21 February 2006 20:04, Michael Bennett wrote:
> It also means that a lot of the same work is repeated
> year after year.

This seems to be the nub of the matter.

LA has instituted processes like the "Ghosts of Conferences Past" 
meetings (the kiwi group should pack some Maori masks) to pass the 
torch of knowledge along to some extent.

Such processes can and should and almost certainly will continue and be 
further developed, but one thing I want to do here is call into 
question the unwritten assumption that near-total rewrites-from-scratch 
are an inherently Bad Thing.

Yes, some effort is wasted, but I doubt that as much of the effort in 
raising a conf is as reusable as many people seem to think.

Over against this, you have to set the potential for innovation and 
fresh ideas that LCA harbours. For technically minor but illustrative 
examples, Linus wore his first (and so far only) penguin suit at 
LCA2003, and got dunked at LCA2004. About the only commonality in 
schwag has been those IBM LAN/phone cable thingies. The tee-shirt 
designs have all been utterly different. We had water-pistol wars at 
Adelaide, cycling and a pizzavalanche at Canberra, dinner at a castle 
in Dunedin.

All different, all fresh*, all new people, all of the _non_core_ stuff 
was "+++ REDO FROM START"ed. Much of the core organisational effort is 
location-dependent, so has to be redone at each new spot anyway.

Cheers; Leon


* Freshilicious, straight-out-of-the-ground fresh!
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