Re: Call for hosts for GUADEC 2009

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org>]

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 13:17 -0400, Og Maciel wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> As I'd love to see GUADEC (as well as Akademy) being hosted in North
> Carolina, and as this is not an official bid, I was wondering if there
> is anyone interested in helping/coaching me? I don't have any
> experience with this kind of activity, but I do know a lot of people
> and we have big companies around the area such as Red Hat, IBM, rPath
> as well as most of the Foresight Linux developers.
> 
> Anyone want to adopt me?

Hi Og,

There are two main issues with having GUADEC in the US:

  - The Big Pond.  It's just more travel to fly everyone to the US.

  - US visa.  It's a real issue.  It's not a predictable and fast
process like most European countries are.  It literally takes months to
get a US visa for those of us that need one.  And many people going to
GUADEC need one.

For those reasons, I don't think having GUADEC in the US is practical as
of now.  Things of course may change in the future.

Cheers,

-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
 Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
        -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759