So, we had archcon 2010 in Toronto, Canada. http://www.archlinux.ca/archcon2010/ It went smooth, very good atmosphere, but pretty small attendance due to it being held in the middle of nowhere (Canada) ;-)
So, where shall we hold the next ArchCon? And who is interested in (helping) organising it? I would suggest to do it in Europe, because there is a much higher concentration of Arch devs and users here. (I think) And I know Dusty wants to visit Europe :)
Some ideas: * Maybe we can do it together with Froscon. (like opensqlcamp does their sql conference at froscon) * I know there are some local schools and businesses in Belgium (Antwerp and Ghent) willing to provide rooms for free for tech/open source conferences. Probably similar opportunities exist in other countries. * ..?
Dieter
On 08/16/2010 07:16 AM, Dieter Plaetinck wrote:
So, we had archcon 2010 in Toronto, Canada. http://www.archlinux.ca/archcon2010/ It went smooth, very good atmosphere, but pretty small attendance due to it being held in the middle of nowhere (Canada) ;-)
So, where shall we hold the next ArchCon? And who is interested in (helping) organising it? I would suggest to do it in Europe, because there is a much higher concentration of Arch devs and users here. (I think) And I know Dusty wants to visit Europe :)
Some ideas:
- Maybe we can do it together with Froscon. (like opensqlcamp does their sql conference at froscon)
It's a good idea to align it with another conference, and Europe does seem to make sense. Having it in Europe wouldn't keep me from attending!
- P
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:16:02 +0200, Dieter Plaetinck dieter@plaetinck.be wrote:
Some ideas:
- Maybe we can do it together with Froscon. (like opensqlcamp does their sql conference at froscon)
- I know there are some local schools and businesses in Belgium (Antwerp and Ghent) willing to provide rooms for free for tech/open source conferences. Probably similar opportunities exist in other countries.
- ..?
We had this idea for some time now. I think we would benefit from attaching our con at e.g. FrOSCon. This should save us money, we need less to organize and I am sure we'll see a lot more visitors. (people might not want to travel a long way if it's just for quite small con about a single distro.)
I guess the only thing holding us up till now is that organizing this would be a lot of work and responsibility. :-)
Pierre
On 16 August 2010 07:10, Pierre Schmitz pierre@archlinux.de wrote:
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:16:02 +0200, Dieter Plaetinck dieter@plaetinck.be wrote:
Some ideas:
- Maybe we can do it together with Froscon. (like opensqlcamp does
their sql conference at froscon)
- I know there are some local schools and businesses in Belgium (Antwerp
and Ghent) willing to provide rooms for free for tech/open source conferences. Probably similar opportunities exist in other countries.
- ..?
We had this idea for some time now. I think we would benefit from attaching our con at e.g. FrOSCon. This should save us money, we need less to organize and I am sure we'll see a lot more visitors. (people might not want to travel a long way if it's just for quite small con about a single distro.)
I guess the only thing holding us up till now is that organizing this would be a lot of work and responsibility. :-)
This has always been the hold up, but Ricardo and I have proven it's doable. ;-) ArchCon2010 was a great deal of fun, but also a great deal of work; it left me feeling pretty drained, but it was worth it. The amount of work isn't actually so great if you do two things:
a) get enough people to commit to helping with organizing and split up the work. Ricardo and I did ArchCon2010 pretty much on our own, although most attendees pitched in on the actual day of the conference. I think that with three or four people sharing the load, it wouldn't be too much work for any one of them. b) Leave a lot of time. If you want to do it in July next year, start planning now (Go Dieter!). c) Post a blog with some arbitrary dates, a call for talks, etc. Pick arbitrary dates for when to have talks submitted by, a list of presentors chosen, when attendees must be registered by, schedule up by, a location confirmed, etc. Publish these and try to stick to the schedule.
I'm willing to help out by hosting the blog, getting schwag (badge holders, t-shirts and bags) together, and dealing with incoming and outgoing money. Somebody else has to be responsible for booking a location, booking catering, discovering nearby possible accommodations, ensuring the place is near pubs (note: important!), and the wireless will be supported. And a third person should be responsible for receiving and choosing presenters, setting up the schedule, and setting up other scheduled activities (I dropped the ball on a world-wide bug squashing this year). A fourth person to get audio/video recording set up would probably also be useful.
Personally, I like the idea of having the conference on it's own, as we did this year. It legitimizes it a bit, and gives us full control. It was smallish this year, but it was fun and worth it. think year two would be more popular, especially with so many more Archers in Europe. Also, from some of the complaints about FrOSCon organizing this year, are you sure you want to work with them? This decision comes down to who is willing to organize the local stuff, more than anything.
Dusty
imho catering is overkill. having one or several fast food stands/sandwish bars/... around should do. maybe just a fridge with some drinks but even that is optional if there are vending machines nearby.
also, as you said, having pubs around is a must, and working wifi is very useful. But if you pick the location cleverly (or decide to go with a bigger conf), all of the above becomes a lot easier.
About the froscon idea: I think it pulls away some attention from Arch if there are too many other things to do, and it's less "cousy" but you get a lot of advantages (logistics taken care of, maybe some interested people stopping by). I don't know what you're referring to with the froscon organising complaints though. Maybe Roman's issues with the visa, but that's a problem with the german embassy, not froscon (afaik).
What makes an Archcon an archcon, and not "arch devs present at conference $foo" is mostly Arch talks. lots of Arch talks, but I think that won't be an issue. If every dev I'v met so far at froscon/fosdem gives 1 presentation, you can easily fill 2 days :)
Anyway, since the froscon this year is next weekend, this may be a perfect time for some of our devs to discuss further and maybe get together with the froscon crew. we would definitely need a much bigger devroom then the one we have now, but that should be mostly it. Unfortunately I won't make it to froscon this year :(
Dieter
On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 23:52, Dieter Plaetinck dieter@plaetinck.be wrote:
About the froscon idea: I think it pulls away some attention from Arch if there are too many other things to do, and it's less "cousy" but you get a lot of advantages (logistics taken care of, maybe some interested people stopping by).
True. However at FrOSCon and FOSDEM there were dev rooms specifically for talks about one project (e.g. PHP room, KDE room), so with a dedicated Arch room for talks this can be just fine (and we get extra visitors from the main conference :-P).
What makes an Archcon an archcon, and not "arch devs present at conference $foo" is mostly Arch talks. lots of Arch talks, but I think that won't be an issue. If every dev I'v met so far at froscon/fosdem gives 1 presentation, you can easily fill 2 days :)
Very true.
I don't know what you're referring to with the froscon organising complaints though. Maybe Roman's issues with the visa, but that's a problem with the german embassy, not froscon (afaik).
actually it's froscon's team slowness that was the main problem
On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:56:19 +0300 Roman Kyrylych roman.kyrylych@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 23:52, Dieter Plaetinck dieter@plaetinck.be wrote:
About the froscon idea: I think it pulls away some attention from Arch if there are too many other things to do, and it's less "cousy" but you get a lot of advantages (logistics taken care of, maybe some interested people stopping by).
True. However at FrOSCon and FOSDEM there were dev rooms specifically for talks about one project (e.g. PHP room, KDE room), so with a dedicated Arch room for talks this can be just fine (and we get extra visitors from the main conference :-P).
Actually this has changed. At fosdem, distro's used to have their own rooms. This year and in 2011 there's the "distro miniconf" (for which they are accepting talk proposals btw : http://fosdem.org/2011/distrominiconf ) I'm pretty sure they won't accept distro-specific devrooms (maybe debian being an acception because they are huge, but definitely not something small like Arch)
So we can't do an Archcon2011 at fosdem, and doing talks at fosdem + an archcon2011 in Europe seems like something we don't have the manpower for.
I got in touch with Froscon to ask what's possible, and if so if they can give more info about logistics and practical things. Roman, do you think doing this with the froscon guys is a bad idea, or is your experience with them not extrapolatable (:P) to a bigger cooperation?
What makes an Archcon an archcon, and not "arch devs present at conference $foo" is mostly Arch talks. lots of Arch talks, but I think that won't be an issue. If every dev I'v met so far at froscon/fosdem gives 1 presentation, you can easily fill 2 days :)
Very true.
Okay, * who wants to do a presentation? Some ideas: thomas about mkinitcpio, pierre about dbscripts, ...? * who wants to help out organising a conference in Europe/Germany? I'm personally willing to do some organisation like emailing people, updating a blog, putting together a schedule. but not so much the practical stuff.
Dieter
On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:10:20 +0200 Dieter Plaetinck dieter@plaetinck.be wrote:
Okay,
- who wants to do a presentation? Some ideas: thomas about mkinitcpio, pierre about dbscripts, ...?
We'd (Arch Hurd) definitely want to do a presentation; could perhaps hook up a box running Arch Hurd to a projector to give a demonstration, talk about our achievements over the last year and a bit, and of course a bit about the Hurd itself.
Am 26.08.2010 18:10, schrieb Dieter Plaetinck:
I got in touch with Froscon to ask what's possible, and if so if they can give more info about logistics and practical things.
I can tell you right now that if FrOSCon 2011 is on the third weekend of August again (August 20./21., which is likely), then I won't be able to come.
2010/8/16 Dieter Plaetinck dieter@plaetinck.be:
So, where shall we hold the next ArchCon? And who is interested in (helping) organising it? I would suggest to do it in Europe, because there is a much higher concentration of Arch devs and users here. (I think) And I know Dusty wants to visit Europe :)
Some ideas:
- Maybe we can do it together with Froscon. (like opensqlcamp does
their sql conference at froscon)
- I know there are some local schools and businesses in Belgium (Antwerp
and Ghent) willing to provide rooms for free for tech/open source conferences. Probably similar opportunities exist in other countries.
- ..?
Well... Froscon may be the most appropriate one, as far as the audience goes. Anyway, it occurred to me that next year there is the Chaos Communication Camp in Finowfurt, near Berlin, August 10th-14th[1]. Three years ago it was an incredible and unique event, even though more related to hacking in general than to linux and free software.
It could still be and interesting thing, I don't know. Maybe, if dates match a bit, we could do both, one as ArchCon and the other as an informal meeting. I'll surely be at CCC, providing the camp with Italian Grappa[2] like last time ;-)
Corrado
[1] http://events.ccc.de/2010/08/10/chaos-communication-camp-2011/ [2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/jekil/1071329442/
Am Montag 16 August 2010, 18:12:23 schrieb bardo:
Well... Froscon may be the most appropriate one, as far as the audience goes. Anyway, it occurred to me that next year there is the Chaos Communication Camp in Finowfurt, near Berlin, August 10th-14th[1].
It would be great, to have ArchCon here in Europe, either at FrosCon or CCC or elsewhere! I would definitely attend and help out if it was somewhere in or near Germany and during semester break.
akurei
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