Re: GNOME and KDE to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009

[Jonathan Blandford <jrb redhat com>]

On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 14:10 +0200, Dave Neary wrote:


> I've been pushing the board to do the following:
> 
> Shared:
> * sponsorship
> * registration & accommodation recommendations
> * local team
> * organising resource & infrastructure costs
> * Some social events
> 
> Co-ordinated/negotiated/agreed:
> * Travel budgets
> * Target surplus and its distribution
> * Programme for shared sessions
> 
> Separate:
> * GUADEC and Akademy programs/BOFs/meetings
> * At least one social event
> * Decision on sponsored attendees

This doesn't sound like colocation, and sounds very much like the one
conference that has two tracks.  Colocation means (to me) that we are in
the same city at the same time, and have the possibility for a couple
events.  I would rather see registration, and  some of the resource
costs per-conference, and especially sponsorship be per-conference.

> I'm pretty sure everyone's aware that the devil is now in the details,
> and there will be times when we are in conflict over some issues. I
> expect clearing up sponsorship and distribution of surplus will be the
> biggest one, and the one we most need to settle quickly.
> 
> To my knowledge, Akademy runs at a loss, or no better than break-even,
> while GUADEC has allowed the GNOME Foundation to propose hackfests, fund
> speakers travelling to conferences, pay for the Boston Summit, fund the
> GNOME Outreach Programme: Accessibility, and more.

Agree with this last statement a lot.  I would consider that an
institutional and structural advantage of GNOME, and I would really
rather not see us give that up.  Looking at the aKademy sponsorship
list, I see significantly fewer sponsors, a smaller conference, and less
money raised.  It would be crazy to effectively cede a couple hackfests
to KDE.

I must admit, I am pretty disappointed that the board did not really
discuss this prior to putting out the call for bids (or even accepting
any) and only now are we trying to figure out what we have agreed to.
As you said, the devil is in the details, but these are some really big
details!

Thanks,
-Jonathan