My two-cents...<div><br></div><div>Maybe it would be worth encouraging the development of regional events and then just have the international FOSS4G rotate through. This provides for two things:</div><div><br></div><div>1. The regional LOCs don't feel like they wasted their time if the effort was towards a known conference. So, instead of creating an entire, big conference, we just get asked to increase the size of what we are already doing.</div>
<div><br></div><div>2. Groups in the further reaches actually get to develop regional support for FOSS4G. Folks who cannot travel are able to participate, rather than just the fortunate few globetrotters who can make it to the big international event.</div>
<div><br></div><div>What I saw of the Beijing proposal almost had more of a regional character. And I'm sure China has both a strong FOSS community and a large number of people who are not allowed to travel abroad. The same could be said for South America. There is some fantastic support for FOSS but they weren't even represented with a bid (or even mentioned in Paul's discussion).</div>
<div><br></div><div>I'm very interested in a US regional FOSS4G conference. If we have to wait for 2011 (at the soonest) for a US FOSS4G, it'll be at the end of Obama's first term. I think it's important to establish that there are FOSS alternatives to ESRI when it comes to meeting the new President's goals for sharing government information.</div>
<div><br></div><div>That's my 2cents..</div><div><br></div><div>-Eric<br clear="all">-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-<br>Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818<br>USGS Geographer<br>Center of Excellence in GIScience<br>
PhD Student <br>CU-Boulder - Geography<br><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Paul Ramsey <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pramsey@cleverelephant.ca">pramsey@cleverelephant.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
I'd like to raise the idea of being more explicit about what we,<br>
OSGeo, desire in bids. We have in the past said we weren't going to<br>
explicitly add "geography" to the RFP, but I can't help but feel that<br>
we are to some extent we are doing it implicitly, and that's probably<br>
not fair to bidders who aren't in the "target region" for a given<br>
year.<br>
<br>
In my handicapping of the process for this year, I figured that if<br>
credible bids from North America or Europe were available, it was<br>
unlikely that a bid from anywhere else was going to win, just because<br>
the previous two events were "afar" from the bulk of the OSGeo<br>
development community. As it happened, we had bids from both, and one<br>
of the European bids won, which is kind of as one would expect, given<br>
that the last European event was in 2006 (that's a four year<br>
interregnum, had they failed to win, it would be at least a five year<br>
gap between events in a very FOSS4G-friendly and FOSS4G-funding<br>
locale).<br>
<br>
Was this fair to Beijing? How much better would their bid have to have<br>
been for us to choose another location in Asia/Pacific, right after<br>
Sydney, and a third non-NA-EURO location in a row? I felt that the top<br>
bids were all sufficiently good that there was little left to<br>
distinguish them at a rational level, which doesn't leave much room<br>
for someone to really "blow it out of the water". All that's left is<br>
our own biases, which probably include, let's face it, geography.<br>
<br>
We've got a pretty demanding bid process now, and bidders are doing a<br>
fair amount of leg-work. Four bidders means three bidders who feel<br>
they've worked hard "for nothing". I don't want people entering the<br>
bidding process if they really don't stand a chance for (implicit)<br>
geographical reasons.<br>
<br>
I think we should be explicit, and try to get bids from particular<br>
regions on a schedule: Europe, North America, Other. I apologize to<br>
Other in advance, but if FOSS4G is going to be the "meeting of the<br>
tribes" we need to hold it closer to the tribes more often, and the<br>
tribes are mostly in Euro/NA.<br>
<br>
P.<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Conference_dev mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org">Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev" target="_blank">http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>