[OSGeo-Conf] OS conference platform

Volker Mische volker.mische at gmail.com
Mon Sep 2 10:42:48 PDT 2019 

Hi all,

On 2019-09-03 02:00, michael terner wrote:
> I am all for having a standard set of tools that are available to FOSS4G
> teams whether the conferences are at the Global, National or Regional
> levels.

+1


> That said, I firmly agree with Maria's statement that "we shouldn't
> force any decision over the LOCs." For example, in the Boston
> Conference, the Registration system and the Abstract submission/scoring
> system was /provided by /our Professional Conference Organizer at a very
> reasonable cost and part of the complete "package" they offered us. This
> saved our volunteers time and focus and it worked very well (e.g., our
> PCO also acted as our "bank" and the registration system they used
> easily integrated with their banking).

+1


> I would also observe that "open source options" aren't necessarily
> /always/ the lowest cost, if you look at them through the lens of "total
> cost of ownership." [...]

I'm in agreement with Michael here. For me using pretalx is not about
reducing costs it's about spending money in a different way.

> Is there really an open source option that is as good
> and easy to administer as Attendify? The mobile app is mission critical
> and Attendify has now proven itself as effective across 3 successive
> FOSS4G's? Also, Attendify - at least for Boston - was extremely cost
> effective and we spent only around $1,000 (I don't know what the current
> cost for Bucharest was?). My point is that finding a volunteer to figure
> out and successfully deploy (and extend?) an open source solution could
> easily lead to a total cost of ownership that is higher for using an
> open source solution (if you value the time that volunteers would need
> to invest in making it work). Of course, the GDPR issue is different and
> very important and needs to be resolved. I would hope that Attendify is
> working on it. As per above, this should be an LOC choice and if there
> is a good open source solution, and a team ready to deploy it, then more
> power to that team.

For the Bucharest LOC it was a good solution given the limited time (in
the last week before the conference) they had to pull such a system of
(that's a long story and wouldn't contribute any meaningful to this
conversation). I've spoken with Codrina (the chair of the program
committee) and she would not recommend it if you have the time to use
another system. It wasn't straight forward to get all the information
they needed into Attendify. Several scripts where needed to get the data
from pretalx (the source of truth) into Attendify (the scripts can be
published for the next team).

If you use categories in Attendify, you won't have a way to see all the
scheduled things at once. This can lead to people missing talks. Hence
the Bucharest team was putting everything into one category (even the
coffee breaks). This means that we didn't use Attendify the way it was
supposed to be.

The costs for Attendify were around $1000 USD.

Hence I'd like to stress that Attendify may be used (perhaps even for
2020) but we should definitely look for better solutions in the long run.

Cheers,
  Volker


> On Mon, Sep 2, 2019 at 12:15 PM María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com
> <mailto:delawen at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi,
> 
>     Good to start this already!
> 
>     For those of you who were not on the codesprint: the talk about
>     deploying an open source stack for conference management software in
>     OSGeo was to have a tool not only for the international event but also
>     for local and regional events. If I'm not mistaken, the stack
>     suggested was the same used in FOSSGIS (?) and has ticketing system,
>     program planning and mobile app:
>     https://pretix.eu/about/en/
> 
>     I wasn't the full conversation so maybe there were more options
>     discussed there.
> 
>     In my opinion, we should get rid of Attendify ASAP. For a start, it is
>     not GDPR compliant (!!!!!), it has a strong vendor lock-in and, what
>     is worse, costs a lot of money every year (compared with open source
>     options) :-/ Let's apply what we always say of using "licensing" money
>     to extend and own the open source software :)
> 
>     At the same time, we could suggest options but we shouldn't force any
>     decision over the LOCs because maybe in some countries the software
>     stack chosen is not available/feasible/useful/possible for who knows
>     what reason. Thinking for example on blocked countries of the origin
>     company.
> 
>     Cross-posting to the local-chapters mailing list, where I think the
>     conversation was going to take place once people arrive at home. So in
>     case someone is there, conversation just started! Also there was
>     movement to start some shared knowledge between regional chapters
>     about how to build community and organize events. But maybe that
>     should continue only on the local-chapters mailing list?
> 
>     Thanks for bringing this up!
>     María.
> 
>     On Mon, Sep 2, 2019 at 4:59 PM Gavin Fleming <gavin at kartoza.com
>     <mailto:gavin at kartoza.com>> wrote:
>     >
>     > Hi all
>     >
>     > The topic of consistent conference infrastructure came up again at
>     Bucharest, with the emphasis on giving conference teams maximum
>     space to focus on the conference rather than selecting and building
>     new back-ends each time. I’ve recently experienced ‘Open Source
>     Event Manager’ [1] through my interaction with the Postgresconf
>     coming up in Johannesburg [2]. It was a pleasant and slick
>     experience and seems to do most of what a FOSS4G would need.
>     >
>     > If we like it (or something else) we could specify it for 2021
>     (along with Attendify which seems to be and accepted component now)
>     >
>     > Gavin
>     >
>     > [1] https://github.com/PostgresConf/pgem, which is a fork of
>     https://github.com/openSUSE/osem
>     > [2] https://postgresconf.org/
>     >
>     >
>     > --
>     >
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     > Gavin Fleming - Joint MD - PrGISc [PGP1234]
>     > Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
>     > * Desktop GIS programming services
>     > * Geospatial web development
>     > * GIS Training
>     > * Consulting Services
>     > Skype: phlemingo
>     > Office: +27(0)878092702
>     >
>     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     >
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Michael Terner
> ternergeo at gmail.com <mailto:ternergeo at gmail.com>
> (M) 978-631-6602
> 
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