On Thu, 10 Apr 2008, Andreas Rogge wrote:
I don't have any idea if a devroom is a good idea or not. However, I feel that running a devroom and especially doing discussion there is a general issue on every event. People want to attend presentations, they should take part in discussion and somebody has to man the booth. So what I'd suggest is that we do not have any "official" CentOS discussion during the day, so we still have enough people to man the booth even when someone wants to attend a presentation.
I think I agree :)
The downside is that we'd have to do the discussion in the morning or in the evening. As I don't like to get up even earlier (I guess most people will agree) we'd have to do the discussion in the evening. For most events that means the devrooms are closed (because the whole event site is closed) and usually people are hungry and want to go to dinner.
So I guess the best way to run a working discussion (i.e. one where everybody can attend and nobody is waiting for food) would be in the evening during and after dinner. This would require a bit more organization concerning the dinner, because whoever organizes the dinner would have to make sure that the enviroment is discussion-friendly.
What would be required imo are quiet surroundings (i.e. not dozens of uninvolved people talking in the background), a table where everyone can see everybody's face (possibly a round table) and of course the optional, but highly recommended WiFi. I think it should be possible to find a place offering all that near every event site as long as we have someone living near there who can organize the event. After all, that means we'd have to find someone who organizes the evening event(s) ahead of time, but I think that should be doable.
I agree we should consider FrOSCon an event for users and potential users, and keep an internal meeting seperate and at a different time/location ?
And maybe we should consider doing the same for FOSDEM in the future.
Thanks for the offer ! Let's see how many CentOS people are interested to come ?
PS Are you interested in organising the booth ? Since it is close to where you live and you speak German there is less confusion ? If not I will do best-effort like last year :-)