[Board] FOSSGIS?

[Tyler Mitchell]

On 7-Feb-07, at 12:16 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote:
> There will always be local conferences and I hope that next year  
> Portland is going to stand up and do what they proposed this year.  
> Because it will take several years until the FOSS4G is going to  
> come back to north America and you wouldn't want to stay without a  
> conference and exhibition to promote you business that long - would  
> you?

While I do see the value in local conferences, there is one official  
OSGeo International conference in the year regardless of where it is  
held.  As a Canadian I'd still want local options, but I could likely  
find these at Where 2.0 and Geotec, among others, where OSGeo members  
will be meeting.  For me the main OSGeo event will always be the  
International FOSS4G conference - that is the whole idea of having an  
official major conference.

In my opinion, us Canadians have enough in our (geographically huge)  
area to meet up with other OSGeo folks without creating another event  
that potentially detracts from FOSS4G being #1. Instead we work with  
other conferences to add on a day or borrow some rooms, etc.

So, no, the several year wait for the conference to come back to  
North America is not a problem for many of us since there are other  
opportunities to engage.  If really desperate we want to pursue some  
management events for more regional groups to get together, but not  
with similar scale as FOSS4G.  Of course others may disagree, but I  
don't help with FOSS4G only when it is on our turf.

Tyler