Re: What is GUADEC?

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Tim Ney, GNOME Foundation a écrit :
> On Wed, 2005-09-07 at 16:05 +0200, Quim Gil wrote:
> > For some the GUADEC is an opportunity to meet, for others is a way to
> > get new contributors, for others is a way to get some money for the
> > Foundation, for others is a way to enhance a common vision of GNOME, for
> > others....
>
> That's a fair summary of what the board has discussed, as recently as
> June.  Jonathan Blandford once termed GUADEC as GNOME's mothership, an
> annual place to meet and recharge batteries.  It has played at least
> four important roles for GNOME and the foundation over the last six
> years:
>
> *Technical 
> *Outreach 
> *Community (Social)
> *Fundraising
>   
> Press announcements about the event state:
>
> About GUADEC
> The GNOME User and Developer Europe Conference (GUADEC) is an annual
> gathering of GNOME developers, enthusiasts and individual, business,
> education and government users worldwide. It provides a forum for
> members of the GNOME project to showcase their work and to discuss the
> future of GNOME development. Housed in a different European country each
> year, GUADEC is a catalyst for the future development and direction of
> GNOME. 

The point is, Tim, that is is huge. It's wide open. And aiming too wide 
is at the root of the problems that there have been with GUADEC over the 
past two years, where a large portion of the attendees were either 
completely uninterested in the first two days, or completely 
uninterested in the 3rd.

Aiming a conference at "developers, enthusiasts and individual, 
business, education and government users worldwide" is madness. We might 
as well say "everybody", and be done with it.

If it's outreach, who are we reaching out to?

There is no argument on at least 2 of the points - everyone who goes 
sees GUADEC as a technical, social conference. No-one disagrees with 
having outreach either - but I would prefer to see us reaching out to 
people just off our radar - converting GNOME users into advocates, 
converting local free software developers into GNOME developers, and 
converting local hobbyists into free software and GNOME users.

The ROI for the enterprise & government outreach has been small, and I'm 
not sure we should continue it.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
David Neary
bolsh gimp org