[OSGeo-Conf] OS conference platform

Mon Sep 2 10:46:57 PDT 2019

Thanks. That's what I tried to say. Bad phrasing on "cheap", I meant using
the money for extending it and making it our own.

El lun., 2 sept. 2019 20:42, Volker Mische <volker.mische at gmail.com>
escribió:

> 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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> > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
> >
>
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