On Sun, 2011-08-28 at 20:51 +0200, Bert Desmet wrote:
it seems you are more Dutch (or Flemish) than I thought, Ghent is just the English name for Gent :-)
The English often use third-country spellings for some second country names. It is like calling Mme de Ville, Mrs Stad or Dhr van Drie, Mr Three. Call them by their real names is my preference. Gent is always Gent. Köln, München, Bayern, Lisboa, Roma, Vlaanderen, Porto (Oporto), Danmark, and of course Vlissingen (Flushing) too.
I'm just an ordinary English man. An European who thinks the Euro arrived 30 years late and Britain is often an European embarrassment with poor education, lack of European languages, more knowledge of the USA and little, if any, daily knowledge of the rest, partially the western part, of mainland Europe. British politicians and the BBC actively replace English words with Americanisms which confuses the public. Ever heard of 'passporting money' and 'outturn' ?
Anyway, yes, it's a nice city, not expensive, university and colleges, tech companies, everything you want.
The add-ons are important for the rest of the family etc.
Shopping is always a big attraction for the women.
if you want to do a 7 days event (which is very long, and I'm not sure if a lot of people would want to take a whole week off) we should do it during a school holiday and try to host it in the buildings of $college I think.
7 days =
day 1 : arrival day 2 : minor events day 3 : major events day 4 : THE EVENT day 5 : major events day 6 : minor events day 7 : departure
Something for 'all the family' is needed because whilst you can expect a computer fascinated person to attend, his wife, girl-friend and possibly children may not share that interest with equal enthusiasm.
Sometimes it is easier to get away, especially if you have a spouse or full-time partner and even children, if they will enjoy themselves too.
If the idea is to cater for single people, including those who leave their wives, girl-friends etc. at home, then obviously that becomes a material factor.
After the daytime events, then social events and even presentations and courses are possible in the evenings. Thus it is not a 10:00 - 18:00 hours happening. Education, enlightenment and enjoyment is the objective.
But as I said, from my Fedora -FUDCon- experiences, 3 or 4 days is already enough to host talks, brainstorm sessions and more. You can not forget how costly such an event is, even if you try to make it low budget.
Never heard of FUDCON or FOSDEM (in KB's email later on) until you and KB mentioned them. That shows the failure to widely publicise those events.
I think it essential to entertain, inspire, enlighten and educate in a manner that makes people want to join-in. Computer events in the Western world are big, usually boring, and good for getting carrier bags of free 'give-aways'. There should be no 'hard sell' but an atmosphere that people can remember long after and want to tell others about.
University residential blocks, although convenient, are not always so cheap in my experience. Good idea for a short event of 2 or 3 days. Camping, for example, is different. In the good warm weather of June, July, August it adds an extra and different dimension that hotel and university accommodation lacks. It will attract those who have have had enough of hotel centred events. With camping for example, one can stay longer after the event or arrive a week before. It is more flexible and relatively cheap and relaxing.
Apart from inviting the VICP (very interested computer person) the joint-objective should be to welcome non-VICPs too. "Come and see Linux in person. See a real alternative to blue screens, slow computers, expensive software and top prize if you can spot which computer screen in not running Windoze."
"With Centos you can play on Facebook, read your Hotmail emails, play games, browse the Internet and you can use it for doing serious business work too. You can install Centos on your ordinary computer and when it starts-up you can chose to use M$ Windoze or Centos' windows Gnome and KDE and ..."
All this makes me re-examine what is the core sector that will attend an event. Joe Public or the Centos fanatics? Business users or home users ? What would they like to experience ? What are their real needs ?
Is Centos too business orientated ? It is not leading edge like Fedora, just a stable, dull (because it just works without all the M$ hassle) and dependable operating system.
What should any 'Centos' event think of offering attendees ? A company paid break, enlightenment and technical workshops, a social meeting and exchanging of experiences and opinions, a vision of the future (which is primarily controlled by Red Hat) ?
Perhaps a camping event with hotels for those that want them ?
Bert Desmet 0477/305361
I don't (yet) have a Belgium number. My nearest to you is in Holland and my furthest is in USA. VOIP is the future of telecoms (PAP2, SPA941, SPA942) and EU is the future of the 47 countries in Europe (46 excluding Russia).
Paul.