I'm not sure if you meant this or not Ruth, but as it was addressed to me I should clarify: I did speak up here, but I am not taking a role in organizing anything as I did in previous years. In other words, I'm not committing to anything on behalf of the project and I'm not trying to recruit speakers and I'm not volunteering to speak or do training either.
Quite frankly in the past it has required a lot of time and money and liability with no real benefit. I hope someone profited from those past efforts, perhaps the for-profit organizers and maybe some attendees as well. About that, I don't know. ApacheCon was a mess in '08 because people were paying a lot to attend (both the training and the conference) and yet none of the money (not a penny) went to any of the presenters or trainers. In other words, the presenters and trainers were paying to be there and so were the attendees. This culminated in some fascinating personal attacks from people who attended and who were not satisfied that what they got was worth what they paid for it. Just in case anyone is wondering ApacheCon is not the only one that ended up this way. In another conference I did some pre-conference training and made almost nothing doing it because the conference organizers mixed the funds for the training with the funds for the conference, and so basically I offered training and most of the proceeds went to subsidize the conference. My guess is that this happens a lot with conferences. So, taking that on just so other people can make money? Well, I'd like to say that I learned my lesson and that's why I'm not interested (that would incorrectly make me look experienced and intelligent and somehow remotely good at business dealings), but the fact of the matter is that even if I wanted to I don't have the weeks of time and thousands of dollars to even participate in a bare minimum way. If someone else does, I'm sure many people will benefit from their contributions and they should certainly step up and go for it. Anyway, sorry if any bitterness bled through in this text. I think it's really just human nature that expectations of EVERYONE involved with such things have expectations dramatically inconsistent with reality. -David On Apr 2, 2010, at 11:06 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote: > Hi David: > > I would be very interested in hosting sessions similar to last November's > ApacheCon in Oakland. I'm prepared to commit to at least (3) 50 minute > sessions. If someone wants to organize something out side of ApacheCon, then, > depending on the venue, I may be able to commit to participating in that. My > session(s) will be end-user focused. In fact, I'm considering submitting a > proposal for a session on end-user use of the framework independent of any > applications. > > I'm not sure what is meant by the rest of this thread, but regardless of the > participation from project committers, I plan to submit at least one > proposal. > > Regards, > Ruth > > David E Jones wrote: >> In the last thread about this it sounded like people were more interested in >> doing a separate conference that would be less expensive to attend. >> >> Either way, I haven't heard anything about anyone pushing for any sort of >> conference. Has anyone else heard anything, or is anyone else interested in >> pushing this along? >> >> -David >> >> >> On Apr 2, 2010, at 6:56 AM, Erwan de FERRIERES wrote: >> >> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> so I'm coming back on this subject, but as it is said here >>> (https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/apachecon_na_2010_business_community), >>> the conference call is over at the end of the month. >>> >>> so, are we making an OFBiz symposium ? Or an OFBiz camp ? >>> >>> Cheers, >>> >>> -- >>> Erwan de FERRIERES >>> www.nereide.biz >>> >> >> >>
