[OSGeo-Conf] 2011 Process

[Paul Ramsey]

Venka,

While I agree that I need a far less dismissive signifier than
"Other", I feel that a five-step rotation
Africa/Asia-Pacific/Europe/North America/South Americas puts far too
much space between the NA/Europe gatherings. The plain fact is that
the participation in the development communities is overwhelmingly
Europe/NA.

In addition, our attendance has been far better in EUR/NA. If
Barcelona makes 1000 attendees, which seems highly likely, the
combined Europe/NA attendance (1700) will almost double the combined
Asia/Africa attendance (1000) over this cycle.

Finally, in financial terms, the situation is even more unbalanced --
the combined $50K net of Asia/Africa is far less than the $120K net
from Victoria alone.

Anyhow, that is my personal opinion, but at the risk of having my ox
gored let me put another option on the table regards rotation and take
the temperature of the room:

Option 1: Europe/NA/Elsewhere
Option 2: Europe/Elsewhere/NA/Elsewhere

Yours,

Paul

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:53 AM, Venka <venka.osgeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Claude Philipona wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 23:26, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I would like to add one more decision before we start 2011 planning,
>>> and that is "regional rotation". Namely that, before we solicit
>>> letters of interest, we clearly state that acceptable proposals from a
>>> particular region will receive preference. Further, I would like to
>>> propose that the rotation be set as Europe/North America/Other, with
>>> 2010 being Europe, 2011 being North America and 2012 being the next
>>> other.
>
> Agree to the regional rotation but not the idea that half the
> people planet on this planet are clumped as "others".
>
> Perhaps we can consider Africa/Asia-Pacific/Europe/North America/South
> Americas. I keep Balkan states, Central Asia, Middle East,
> Russia in reserve as we have not seen participation
> form that part of the world in past of the world at the past FOSS4G
> conferences. Hope to see some of them folks in Barcelona.
>
> FOSS4G will complete its "rotation" in Europe, North America,
> Africa and Asia-Pacific, Europe by 2010.
>
> The next in line would be North America/South Americas
> considering the fact that we have done 2 stops in Europe before
> reaching somewhere it 2011, we might as well stop again at
> North America (if our friends in South Americas do not
> strongly disagree).
>
> That would leave us a choice of stopping again in Asia for 2012
> or walking along to the South Americas. Personally, I
> hope we could bring FOSS4G-2012 to a place that I would not
> feel jet lagged nor require a travel visa.
>
> And talking about travel visa, if we do decide to stop again
> in North America in 2011, the organizing folks should take
> care of this issue because half the people living on this
> planet whom we now classify as "other" may find it
> annoyingly cumbersome to get their travel documents.
>
> Venka
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