[OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Conf] regional conferences

Mon Jun 18 07:03:39 PDT 2012

Jachym, Karel,

I hope this mail was general enough so it can be seen as a reply to your
mails as well.

Cheers,
  Volker

On 06/18/2012 03:59 PM, Volker Mische wrote:
> Hi Bart,
> 
> good points. You are right, spreading open source geospatial is a good
> thing.
> 
> Your mail really changed my view. Perhaps I'm blind on one I eye,
> because I just enjoyed the previous FOSS4G's so much, that I try to do
> everything to keep it.
> 
> Hence I should perhaps have written it under the tagline: "if we don't
> want to lose the gathering of the developer tribes, I think we should ...".
> 
> But perhaps things must change and we can get the same nice warm fuzzy
> feelings the FOSS4Gs had for developers in some other way. Like moving
> only the yearly aspects, like the AGM, Sol Katz award, Board F2F meeting
> and the code sprint (perhaps even extended?) to one of the semi-regional
> events.
> 
> Cheers,
>   Volker
> 
> 
> On 06/18/2012 03:25 PM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote:
>> Hey Volker,
>>
>> personally I don't think this "denial" approach will work. FOSS4G-NA has
>> already happened, and it will continue to happen, at the same scale or
>> maybe even larger (preparation time was very short).
>>
>> IMHO any event that promotes free and open source for geospatial is a
>> good thing, even if this is at the expense of the meeting of the tribes.
>> That should not be our main focus, even though for me that is the main
>> reason to attend.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Bart
>>
>> -- 
>> Bart van den Eijnden
>> OSGIS - http://osgis.nl
>>
>> On Jun 18, 2012, at 2:44 PM, Volker Mische wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> thanks Jachym for bringing up the smei-regional events. My preference
>>> lies towards having one global event a year and also *real* regional
>>> events, but no semi-regional events. Before I come to more details about
>>> what I think a real regional event is, I'd like to state that I think
>>> FOSS4G-CEE is real regional event, FOSS4G-NA is a semi-regional.
>>>
>>> What I understand under real regional events (they are not sorted by any
>>> priority, I just give them numbers for later reference):
>>> 1. In the language of the chapter if that's possible. FOSSGIS
>>> (Germany), GFOSS (Italy), the conf (currently only a day) from
>>> OSGeo.nl <http://OSGeo.nl>
>>> (Netherlads) are examples. FOSS4G-CEE is an exception, there's no common
>>> language in the area, hence it's in English.
>>> 2. Attracting people from the region. At least at the FOSSGIS the
>>> audience it quite different from the global FOSS4G. The FOSSGIS attracts
>>> more governmental people and end users. There are even talks about
>>> people using the software for their work (I find them boring, as I'm a
>>> dev, but I think it is interesting for a lot of people).
>>> 3. You can hardly tell your boss to send you to the regional event,
>>> except you are from this region.
>>>
>>> How's that different from a semi-regional event. Point (2) is the most
>>> important one for me here. If there is an NA event (and a potential EU
>>> one), it will attract more people, but at what price? I think you can't
>>> tell your boss that you need to go to a global and to a NA (resp. EU)
>>> event + a regional one. So you would need to chose between the global
>>> and the semi-regional one, which would make both of them a bit smaller.
>>>
>>> My solution for this problem is: Don't do semi-regional events. The
>>> FOSS4G-NA just spans a way too big region. Many, if not even the
>>> majority of the Open Source geospatial development happens in the US and
>>> Canada. You will attract people from abroad as so many of the major
>>> players will be there. Just do real regional events instead. Do e.g. a
>>> California one. The local chapter is quite huge (I gave a talk there a
>>> year ago, and there were about 100 RSVP). Do this on several places in
>>> NA (e.g. a Midwest one).
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>  Volker
>>>
>>> On 06/18/2012 01:54 PM, Jachym Cepicky wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> not sure, if this proposal is the best for the scope of FOSS4G.
>>>>
>>>> As I already wrote in one of previous mails, we have to try to find the
>>>> balance between global, semi-regional (approx. continent level) and
>>>> regional (GFOSS, FOSSGIS, ...) events.
>>>>
>>>> Another working (not sure, if better) model could be:
>>>>
>>>> * Global event as it is - every year
>>>> * Semi-Regional events (NA, E, Asia, ...) - every year too, of course
>>>> not on the continent, where the global event is going be organized
>>>> * Regional events (GFOSS, FOSSGIS, Geoinformatics, ...) every year but
>>>> in e.g. spring
>>>>
>>>> Having global event every second year means implies, that OSGeo meeting
>>>> will take place only every second year? And what about people, who would
>>>> like to meet other people, but for some reason (usually financial) are
>>>> not able to travel to other part of the world?
>>>>
>>>> Any opinion to this?
>>>>
>>>> Jachym
>>>>
>>>> Dne 16.6.2012 13:42, Maria Brovelli napsal(a):
>>>>> +1. I will be happy to help Greek friends in organizing the meeting.
>>>>> Anyway
>>>>> I'm wondering if sooner or later is possible to organize a Mediterranean
>>>>> conference....
>>>>> Maria
>>>>>
>>>>> 2012/6/15 Dimitris Kotzinos <kotzino at csd.uoc.gr
>>>>> <mailto:kotzino at csd.uoc.gr>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> 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
>>>>>> ______________________________**_________________
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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