[Board] Teach-in 2009

[Frank Warmerdam]

Arnulf,

I must confess, I'm somewhat confused on your reaction.

Arnulf Christl wrote:
 > Encourage things to happen elsewhere? Haha. Where do you have local
 > conferences? Everywhere - except in NA. Your problem. Solve it.

I take exception to this comment.  Monday I'm attending OSBootCamp 6
(aka GeoBootCamp), which is a local mini-conference in Ottawa aimed
at roughly Eastern Canada (please - no Western Canadian angst today!).

 > You get
 > all the help you need but not by using the OSGeo brand on your event.
 > Why not make it a full blooded commercial event? Rid the community. You
 > don't need the community sanction when you do money. They will complain
 > - no matter how well intended your reasoning is.

Are you suggesting that Paul and Jeff are better off avoiding an OSGeo
tie-in because the parts of the community are likely to complain about
OSGeo santioning a for-profit activity?

Or are you suggesting that OSGeo needs to avoid santioning the event
because it is for-profit but not for OSGeo and thus not a community
event?

Or perhaps I missing your meaning?

 > And if you are friendly
 > then you can nonetheless promote OSGeo (as we do all the time without
 > ever getting back anything) and use OSGeo's outreach (announcement,
 > calendar, SPD, Wiki, maybe even website - got to discuss that) to
 > enhance visibility of your high level money-making event.
 > I get the creeps when I hear that YOU want to tell the REST of the world
 > how to do an OSGeo teach-in so that they carry it elsewhere. Who the
 > hmmm do you think you are? This is exactly what makes non-NA people
 > react superbly negative (knee jerking and all).

It wasn't Pauls suggestion that the rest of the world needs to learn
from his teach-in and replicate it in all the less enlightened places.
I believe that came more from others in reaction to the "why should
this happen in north america" feedback.

Obviously a variety of workshop models are being applied in a variety
of places already - notably at FOSSGIS.

 > You and the REST of the world.
 > You (small, tiny, just a few overfed nerds) - you are an appendix,
 > nobody needs an appendix. REST of the World (large, really big, many
 > many form all walks of life) that is the body.
 > Ahrgl!

Well, I'm not sure how this is actionable.  I need actionable or I
get befuddled and confused.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org