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Re: [Linux-aus] Nominations and their spiels for the LA election

Side conferences don't just happen by asking for them. Somebody has to
organise them, be on the ground, get locations, get funding together
etc. Do not underestimate the effort required for even a small
conference.

We have organised FOMS (http://annodex.org/events/foms2007/) as a
media developer conference in the week before LCA to take advantage of
synergies. It has turned out that this has both advantages and
disadvantages.

In order to run a conference - even a small one - you need sponsors.
If LCA and a number of other conferences are competing for sponsorship
by bugging the same companies, this will be negative for the
community. So, with FOMS, we stuck out of the way of potential LCA
sponsors. Since Australia is fairly, this excluded essentially all
Australian open source related companies and turned sponsorhip
acquirement into a rather difficult situation for FOMS.

FOMS will still be a nice little conference with good international
speakers and we have learnt a lot through it. But imaging a collection
of open source related conferences all trying to address sponsors for
different but related purposes - that just won't do.

Then there is the logistics problem: we are seriously considering
where to hold the next FOMS. Will it be possible to organise it in
Melbourne? We have nobody on the ground in Melbourne - organising
location, catering etc over the distance is nearly impossible. So, we
may decide to hold FOMS again - but in Sydney!

So, just to repeat: it's all about the people who organise things!
Organising a miniconf is one thing - organising a whole stand-alone
conference is a very different type of cattle, needs continuity, and
people on the ground! Be carful what you're asking for...

Regards,
Silvia.

On 1/3/07, Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote: 
On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 07:41:01AM +1100, Pia Waugh wrote:
> President
> ---------
>     * Jonathan Oxer (jon@oxer.com.au)
>       [...] we need to examine how Linux Australia relates to the extended
>       FOSS community. [...] Should we rebrand Linux Australia or LCA
>       to remove the Linux focus? Personally I don't think so. [...]
>       That doesn't mean there's nothing to be done though: maybe the
>       time has come for a more generalised FOSS organisation of which
>       LA could be a part, or even just for LA to be more consciously
>       inclusive of those who have made the step of using FOSS but
>       haven't switched out their underlying OS. [...]

> Vice-President
> --------------
>     * Pia Waugh (greebo@pipka.org)
>       [...] my aims for 2007 include: to create a way for FOSS groups to
>       participate freely that aren't specifically "Linux".  This last
>       point is really important, there are many groups out there that
>       are part of the FOSS community, but aren't Linux specific (eg -
>       Perl, Python, Open Solaris), and LA needs to find a way to be
>       more formally inclusive of non-Linux FOSS groups so we can all
>       be stronger together. [...]

I'd like to note in advance that I've been drinking, just in case I want
to disavow the following later. :)

Towards the end of the AUUG thread [0] there were some off-list
discussions about the possibility of not so much changing lca as adding to
it -- not just having some miniconfs as part of lca, but encouraging other
free software people to run a separate conference in conjunction with lca;
so in 2008 you could go to Melbourne for a week or so, and not just have
the opportunity to go to linux.conf.au and a Debian or virtualisation
miniconf, but to go to an OpenSolaris conference, or a Mozilla conference,
or a free Java conference, or see stuff about free accounting programs for
Windows, or hear about the latest Fink and Darwin stuff if you own a Mac,
or what's up with ReactOS, or whatever. In effect, it could be a festival
of free software conferences, happening in the same city at the same time,
with aims that are similar and complimentary, but not exactly the same.

By the sounds of things Sydney's probably going to max out the current
way of doing lca's -- with the number of papers they've had to say no to,
the number (and quality) of the miniconfs they've managed to accept, and
the number of attendees they're going to have, so working out new ways
to have lca grow is probably worthwhile -- and with lca going back to its
birthplace in 2008, it might be the right time for that sort of change.

I dunno, maybe it's too big an idea, or not the right time and I guess
ultimately it's up to the mel8ourne team, and the candidates for the
2009 lca to tell us what they thing. But I'd love to see it happen.

Cheers,
a "the Australian Festival of Free Software -- www.fosstival.conf.au" j

[0] http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00072.html



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