[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2007 - whats in a name?

[Arnulf Christl]

On Sun, October 1, 2006 20:31, Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> Arnful wrote:
>> Ah - I see another North American centered opinion (Hi mpg) added the
>> Open-only notion. So we are balanced now in numbers but the Free folk
>> cover more space. We still win the argument - at least spatially.
>
> Is this really North America vs. the world?  Then Helena and Allan
> better move!

Ah, I hope that not all of North America is a homogeneous mass. There is
the Canadians who have a very distinctive view on some things that I very
appreciate. I think its more an Open/Free tradeshow/conference focus we
are discussing here. we need both and one that I have been organizing, the
Intergeo 2006 has practically not being at any kind of focus. Although it
attracts 10 times the people going to Where 2.0 and so on. I dunno, I did
not sell it well to OSGeo it seems. :-/

> You are coming at this from an ideological standpoint.  Do you

Yes. And I am not trying to hide it. Thats correct.

> believe that having "F" in the name of a conference is going to teach
> people that "free, as in speech" is important?  I believe that to
> many people, seeing "free" in a title will still just mean "free, as
> in beer".  Rather than trying to use the conference name as a way to
> teach, aren't there better ways you can help educate the masses to
> the importance of "free"?

Maybe I want this to be a sign dangling above our own heads all the time
so we do not lose track in all the promotion hollering that we - yes -
must and will do.

> I doubt care to teach anything with the conference name, but want to
> use it as an effective marketing tool for all the great project
> communities and for OSGeo as the sponsoring organisation.

Yes but the people we are trying to reach there are educated people. Those
who will make our community grow are sparsely sewn. Those we can do
business with and solve their problems are not suppose to go to the
meeting of the tribes.

> I do believe that FOSS4G worked fine for this (and past) years, but
> so did all the other names --OSG, MUM, EOGEO, GRASS, etc.  I don't
> think it has hurt us, but I wonder if we can do even better with
> something new that is distinct from historic conferences.  We are
> bigger and better now that we are combined.

OK, take Pauls one (already forgot, but it had the Free in it).

> I guess no matter what it is called this year, I want to say it's the
> "OSGeo conference called..." so that I don't have to say it's the
> "Free and Open Source Software For Geoinformatics conference".  (Life
> is too short to waste those precious few syllables!  Just kidding.
> It is a mouthful, but does taste good with a bit of Gruyeres.)

Yes, For promotion issues we will say "The OSGeo Foundation is announcing
the next hmm Free hmm conference" and so on. Very good.

> Thanks for the debate,
> Tyler

Yes, very constructive and polite as only we spatialese seem to be capable
of being. Probably because we know that we only meet once a year and then
rather not yell at each other but drink up new strategies.

Best regards,