[CentOS-promo] FrOSCon 2008

[Andreas Rogge]

Hi,

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.

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.

For FrOSCon I could offer my apartment to have a discussion (and dinner) 
with up to 6 people. If there are more people I know a few places which 
should be able to fulfill most of the requirements. If desired, I could 
organize that.

Concerning regular meetings I absolutely agree with you. As stated 
above, I don't think an event is a good place to have internal 
discussion. After all the events are there to show off the project and 
to get in touch with other people/projects and not for internal discussion.
I wonder if there are enough people who would attend a "developer 
weekend" somewhere. Organization for that isn't too hard to do and the 
event itself is cheap. The problem that always arises is travel and 
accomodation expenses.
However, I remember last year at FrOSCon there was somebody from 
Linuxhotel[1] at our booth and offered a special deal for free software 
projects that isn't officially announced on their website. That would at 
least lower the accomodation expenses, but the travel cost will stay.

Regards,
Andreas

P.S. my apartment has funitures, internet access and a working kitchen 
now :)

[1] http://www.linuxhotel.de/

Dag Wieers schrieb:
> Hi,
> 
> The FrOSCon organisers have informed me that this year we can have our 
> own developers room. So I want to see if this is something we want to do 
> or not.
> 
>     http://www.froscon.org/
> 
> I think it could be useful if there are enough people involved with it. 
> But on the other hand, I also want to make sure we have people at the 
> booth as well.
> 
> I do think we need to come together on a regular basis with as many as 
> possible to discuss and advance CentOS, but I am not sure if an event 
> like this is the perfect opportunity :-/ (Given the fact that I hardly 
> am able to do anything at FOSDEM)
> 
> Apart from that I am going to submit my CentOS/Enterprise Linux 
> presentation and I would encourage anyone to submit a CentOS related 
> presentation.
> 

-- 
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