Re: GNOME Foundation Board Meeting Minutes :: 7/6/07

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Paul Cooper">

> I would tend to agree with Quim here and perhaps go a bit further

I largely agree with Paul and Quim. A few comments about practical future
stuff Paul raised:

> * Possibly in the same place every year - this would have massive
> organisational overhead savings and benefits.

Big danger with this is volunteer burn out. You only have one local pool to
work with, and things change. Going "with the wind" a bit, as we've done,
means we get to work with the most energetic community every year. This is a
recipe that has worked well for linux.conf.au for almost a decade now. That
said, linux.conf.au has the benefit of a very tightly knit local community
around Australia, while GUADEC is in a melting pot of languages, sovereign
law and culture in Europe. :-)

> * The organisation of the conference is contracted to a company like
> O'Reilly

VERY expensive. Plus, it increases bureaucracy and reduces flexibility. If
we do it ourselves, we have an *option* to make a loss or come out somewhere
close to even. GUADEC runs on only slightly more than the whiff of a petrol
rag (linux.conf.au generally has a bigger budget). If we got professional
organisers involved, registration prices would go up (there's enough hand
wringing about that already) alongside cost of administration... The bit you
are very kindly volunteering this year. :-)

> * need to switch the GNOME community focus and organisation to smaller
> Boston summit or barcamp type events that happen around the world

Quim raised this too... But I think we really do need a central festival for
everyone, like GUADEC is at the moment, and support it with local events. I
would worry for our core social cohesion if we didn't have a single major
event. (Mashing that event with something else worries me even more!)

> While I don't want to add any stop energy to those persuing the joint
> conference idea - just thinking about doing joint sessions, programs, or
> even booths at OSCON, FOSDEM, SCALE, Ohio Fest, LCA, CHI, etc would seem
> enough of a challenge. And again since they rely on volunteer energy
> combining forces might be rational but might not be the best way to go.

GNOME.conf.au, rocking since 2004. :-) http://live.gnome.org/GnomeAustralia

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia        http://lca2008.linux.org.au/
 
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