Re: Call for hosts for GUADEC 2009

[Dave Neary <bolsh gnome org>]

Hi,

Johannes Schmid wrote:
> Sorry, to step into this discussion, but I would really like to point
> out that every part of the world may have a gnome conference, even an
> important or *the* GNOME conference. But why can we keep GUADEC the
> "european" conference?
> 
> If you want to do a GUAD*C at any other place of the world, I am fully
> ok with that but let's keep one GNOME conference in europe as there is a
> huge community there.

I also feel this way. Pretty much every continent has their GNOME
meeting, and Europe has several (the GNOME devroom in FOSDEM, GUADEC,
Guademy, the Boston Summit, Forum GNOME, the GNOME developer meetings,
GNOME Asia Summit, gnome.conf.au). All are co-ordinated by local GNOME
user groups or individuals except for the Summit and GUADEC.

GUADEC is different from the others for two reasons:
 * We make an effort to get as many GNOME developers as possible
together, regardless of the cost
 * Thus, we need more money, sponsorship and infrastructure

Those two things would become orders of magnitude more difficult if
GUADEC were outside Europe. Costs would be multiples higher for a
flagship GNOME conference in the US (just ask the LUG Radio guys). We
would perhaps get more US attendees, but much fewer European attendees.
Overall, I think we'd probably have fewer participants and higher costs.

> Nevertheless, we would need some host applications anyway, before we can
> discuss the place further.

I also agree whole-heartedly with this.

Cheers,
Dave.
-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
bolsh gnome org