Tim makes a good point about trying to attract hardware sponsors. There is an interesting opportunity here since there is less of a conflict of interests in having for example, Leica or Trimble sponsor the conference than, say, ESRI - since most (if not all?) of the osgeo projects probably have some need for or connection to GPS and other hardware. I know that the MapWindow community probably has 20 different developers working on GPS related projects... - Dan
<br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/26/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Tim Bowden</b> <<a href="mailto:tim.bowden@westnet.com.au">tim.bowden@westnet.com.au</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Well, I've taken Paul's advice and I'm here to agitate ;-)<br><br>After looking over the list archives and wiki material, I've a few<br>thoughts to offer. Before I go on though, a disclaimer: My open source
<br>conf experience is limited to being on the periphery or sidelines of a<br>number of lca's- <a href="http://linux.conf.au">linux.conf.au</a> and my observations are coloured<br>accordingly (and yes, that is how you spell coloured!).
<br><br>Background: lca is one of the worlds best technical linux/open source<br>conferences that rotates around aust each year. It's entirely volunteer<br>run, has a strong developer focus and has been growing at an amazing
<br>rate every year since 1999 when it was first held. This year it capped<br>numbers at 800 with a budget of abt AU$1m. That's around US$800,000.<br>The speaker travel budget this year was equivalent to the entire budget
<br>for the first conf. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting we adopt the<br>model Linux Aust is using; There are some significant differences<br>between the two communities, but I do think there are some lessons
<br>learnt at lca that we can take advantage of.<br><br>Ghosts of lca's past: Being a rotating conf with new people running<br>things every year, the wheel was being re-invented too many times. LA<br>put in place a process to pass on learnt knowledge. It has proved very
<br>valuable. Key organisers from the previous year are flown to the next<br>location for a meeting with the next organisers and LA committee to pass<br>on their experiences, help solve problems and raise issues that may not
<br>have been considered. Given that in this instance all the travel is<br>domestic (apart from when Linux Australia held the conf in NZ last year)<br>the costs are reasonable. They would be much greater for OSGeo to do the
<br>same but perhaps OSGeo could find some way of formalising the transfer<br>of knowledge from one team to the next.<br><br>Equipment: LA is starting to build up a cache of equipment that can be<br>rotated around conferences. AV recording sets, wireless access points
<br>etc. In the long run, it saves money and is one less problem for local<br>teams to deal with. Processes need to be put in place to keep track of<br>it all and so on, but it looks like it is working so far. It's taken a
<br>few years to get to this point though.<br><br>Cost: LA strives to keep the conf as cost friendly as possible. All<br>work is done by volunteers (though this does result in a high burnout<br>rate- It takes some years of recovery before anyone is willing to have
<br>another go at it). The venue is always a local uni that offers<br>sponsorship in the form of cheap facilities and has a keen community of<br>CS students that get involved. This year cost was $99 for students,<br>$300 for hobbyists and $690 for professional delegates (if your boss was
<br>paying or you were 'on the FOSS gravy train', you were considered a<br>professional delegate). The rest of the costs were covered by<br>sponsorship.<br><br>Now that the conf is well established, this is not too hard to do.
<br>Sponsors line up for the chance; IBM, HP, Google etc. As one local<br>luminary said in the early days, The sponsors need lca more than lca<br>needs the sponsors. Maybe that's got something to do with the calibre
<br>of the delegates. Look at it this way, if the OSGeo conf is a developer<br>rich environment, with the cream of the open source GeoFOSS community<br>there, do you really thing companies like google are not interested in
<br>being associated? Do you really think they are uninterested in paying<br>to be involved in an event attracting some of the best open source<br>geospatial developers in the world? Have we approached google about<br>sponsorship?
<br><br>Potential sponsors know that many of the hardware and software system<br>purchasing decisions are made or strongly influenced by the tech<br>community at the conf. It's also a great way to pick up key staff. In
<br>the case of LA and linux, it's a cool tech to be associated with. To<br>what extent does OSGeo and GeoFOSS in general have this type of buzz<br>about it? Maybe not quite as much as linux, but I don't think it should
<br>be discounted. This 'reputation buzz' is growing and is a valuable<br>asset for the long term. Lets not sell ourselves too cheaply to<br>sponsors. I suspect if sponsors always got their way, everything would
<br>end up a trade show and we would all be the worse off for it.<br><br>As far as the balance between suits/developers/hobbyists/students goes,<br>I think we are best served by keeping it as 'community' as possible; To
<br>me that means having a focus that is developer friendly. If the<br>developers aren't interested in coming, then either the rest will fade<br>away or it will become just another trade show. If the developers are<br>
there, the rest will want to tag along anyway. Keep the event<br>accessible to students; in a few years they will be the professional<br>delegates we want actively involved. To me this is an opportunity to<br>serve /our/ needs, rather than a sales pitch to the rest of the world
<br>(though that will be an incidental benefit).<br><br>Lead time: Experience with lca has shown that it takes a local user<br>group about two years to get to the point where they can make a<br>successful bid to hold the conf. In part this might be because every
<br>conf gets better, but it takes a lot of volunteer manpower and learning<br>be in a position to make a go of it. The lead time once the successful<br>bidding team has been chosen has been extended to 18 months from 12
<br>months. There is just too much to do for a conf of that size to be<br>organised by volunteers in 12 months. LA has looked at the option of<br>using a professional conf organiser, but has rejected it several times<br>
because it would drive up costs and change the character of the conf<br>away from being a grassroots event. I don't know if that's so, but it's<br>the decision that has been made several times.<br><br>Website: Could
<a href="http://conf.osgeo.org">conf.osgeo.org</a> be a permanent pointer to the current or<br>immediate past conf? It provides a permanent point of reference for the<br>conf.<br><br>We don't have the same manpower available as the linux community and our
<br>needs are not always the same; we're a lot smaller in numbers so we<br>certainly can't do things the same way. If we rely on volunteer efforts<br>only, we may be limiting ourselves too much, but I think we should still
<br>be trying to maximise that avenue. The more we can contain costs, the<br>more community involvement we will have. At the end of the day, if we<br>loose community, we loose everything, because community is the lifeblood
<br>of open source.<br><br>FWIW, that's my take on things. It's probably different to what many<br>others are thinking, but that's what makes an interesting community.<br>Now who is interested in hosting foss4g2008? ;-)
<br><br>Regards,<br>Tim Bowden<br><br>PS, I just got this feedback from Michael Davies of LA, who has been<br>involved in the LA ghosts program.<br><br>On 27/03/07, Tim Bowden <<a href="mailto:tim.bowden@westnet.com.au">
tim.bowden@westnet.com.au</a>> wrote:<br>> Hi,<br>><br>> I'm looking at giving some input to the conf committee of the Open<br>> Source Geospatial Foundation, and I'd like to get some feedback on the
<br>> lca ghosts program. Specifically, how beneficial has it been and what<br>> sort of costs (ballpark) has it involved?<br><br>Hi Tim,<br><br>The "<a href="http://linux.conf.au">linux.conf.au</a> Ghosts of Conference Past" program has been in
<br>place for a while now, and it serves a number of purposes:<br><br>a) provides a debrief opportunity for last conference's team to tell<br>LA and next year's conference organisers things they need to be aware<br>
of, do both a physical and virtual handover, including sponsorship<br>arrangements etc etc etc;<br><br>b) provides an opportunity for the next conference to bounce ideas off<br>Linux Australia and previous conference organisers, to validate their
<br>thinking;<br><br>c) provides continuity for LCA by allowing input into the planning of<br>the next conference by those who have been there and have sweated<br>blood before (to maintain the flavour of the conference);<br>
<br>d) provides an avenue for Linux Australia to audit where the next<br>conference's planning is at, and what intervention (if any) it needs<br>to make to ensure the next conference rocks (especially financially<br>since LA "underwrites" the conference);
<br><br>e) allows support structures to be put in place to support the<br>organising committee of the next conference.<br><br>As someone who has benefited from "ghosts" and has also been involved<br>in supporting LCA in this capacity over the past 4 years, I think it's
<br>very beneficial to a roaming conference like LCA with a different<br>organising committee every year.<br><br>Cost wise, we're looking at domestic airfares and accommodation for<br>approx 6 people over a weekend. I think it's a small investment
<br>considering the size of the budget for LCA these days.<br><br>Hope this helps,<br>--<br>Michael Davies "Do what you think is interesting, do somthing<br>that<br><a href="mailto:michael@the-davies.net">michael@the-davies.net
</a> you think is fun and worthwhile, because<br>otherwise<br><a href="http://michaeldavies.org">http://michaeldavies.org</a> you won't do it well anyway." -- Brian<br>Kernighan<br><br><br>_______________________________________________
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</a><br></blockquote></div><br>