[OSGeo-Conf] 2011 Next Step: Question period and voting

[Eric Wolf]

Paul & Committee,

Question: Can you address any issues you might see with holding the
> conference within the approximate "usual" date range for FOSS4G
> (September/October)


You are right to put "quotes" around usual in this case. FOSS4G 2009 was
held 20-23 Oct. FOSS4G 2010 will be held 6-9 Sept. The temporal distance
between the two is 41 days. If we hold FOSS4G 2011 the week before (Nov
28-Dec 2) AGU 2011 (which is Dec 5-9), the temporal distance is 36 days.
Technically, those dates are closer to 2009 than the 2010 dates.

There are two main arguments for the later date: cost and preparedness. Late
November/early December is in the off-season for conferences in Denver. Both
venue costs and travel costs are reduced. As for preparedness, the decision
where to hold FOSS4G 2010 was made in December of 2008. The Barcelona LoC
will have had over 20 months to prepare. It is almost May 2010 and Denver
does not have an actionable decision. This means, even with a December
conference, we will have at most 19 months to prepare. According to the RFP,
we will not have a final decision until 11 June 2010. If we have a September
FOSS4G, the LoC will only have 15 months to prepare.

The Denver LoC would be willing to provide alternate budget figures for
September dates.

-Eric Wolf
On behalf of the Denver LoC


-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-
Eric B. Wolf                    New! 720-334-7734
USGS Geographer
Center of Excellence in GIScience
PhD Student
CU-Boulder - Geography

GPG Public Key: http://www.h4h.net/ebwolf.public.key.txt
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