[OSGeo-Discuss] regional conferences

[Dimitris Kotzinos]

Dear all,

I saw with great pleasure the call for organizing the 1st Latin America 
FOSS4G conference.
Congrats to the friends there and let me add my offer to help in any 
possible way to those who preceded me.

The purpose of my e-mail though is a bit different. Taking into account 
the fact the this year we had the North America regional conference, the 
central European regional conference and now the Latin America Regional 
Conference I feel that it is due time to move to a mixed scheme of an 
international and regional conferences.

Thus I propose that we have the odd years (starting from 2013) ONLY the 
international event (our very successful FOSS4G conference) and the even 
years (starting from 2014) ONLY the regional conferences.
Being in a world in crisis where funding for travel becomes more 
difficult and where people cannot participate in too many conferences in 
a year I feel that this is an acceptable compromise.
So I call upon the board to decide on this proposal and, of course, all 
of you to argue in favor :) or against!

One final note for the European participation on this list: I suggest 
that we start organizing a regional European level FOSS4G (if there is 
agreement also integrating in it the Central-Eastern Europe event) 
starting from 2014. I volunteer Greece to host the first such event (OK, 
given that things in Greece will not turn out too bad :)).
If there is an initial agreement we can organize things a bit more.

Thanks for the consideration of both proposals,

Dimitris Kotzinos