[Marketing] Re: [OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G Sydney and conference software

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

I'm much in the same boat as Frank - I personally see high value in  
having open access to our content and the underlying system, but  
don't think I can help support a choice either way now due to lack of  
time.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a good job here for  
someone, either as a volunteer or possibly in some part time work.  I  
see several ads for OJS/OCS developers, for example.

In the end I see it as more of a question of having access to  
presentations and other organisational details from year to year.    
So far we are fine because our past events are still being  
(voluntarily) hosted by past organisers and, presumably, we still  
have people on the inside that can access the systems to suck the  
info out when needed.

If we were able to implement a solution (and really, we already have  
with OCS) and improve it so it met all our/PCO needs - the FOSS-lover  
in me dreams that PCO's would have a free tool they could use  
internally too.  I've seen some PCO's have to sub-license these kinds  
of tools from other service providers as well, so they are not always  
100% in charge of the tools anyway.

Tyler


On 21-May-08, at 6:00 AM, venka.osgeo wrote:

> Markus Neteler wrote:
> ...
>> On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 12:22 AM, Cameron Shorter  
>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote: ...
>>> I suspect that conference software has become a commodity item and
>>> that there is little to be gained by using the same software every
>>> year. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>> IMHO there is a lot to gain: - OSGeo branding effect: if you change
>> every year the software, we never reach a feel-at-home effect -
> ...
>
> I would agree with Markus. Apart from branding effect, using the
> same software will help to manage and maintain the annual conference
> content more easily instead of many people managing contents on
> disparate web sites.
>
> Despite some shortcomings in flexibility, OCS is still a good
> Open Source tool for conference management.