On Wed, 2009-03-11 at 08:31 -0500, fred trotter wrote: > Now for the main point of my message. Is it appropriate for me to > make this an invitation-only event, like FOO camp? I could call it > Friends > of Fred or FOF (ok thats a terrible idea). The point is, it would help > me > keep the conference size down and ensure that everyone there was > really > important and/or doing really interesting work. Frankly I do not like > the > idea, it feels bad to make anything FOSS closed like that, but > otherwise, > conference planning might be impossible. > > Let me know what you think!!
Hi Fred, Thanks for taking on this chore. Conference planning and organization is a pain no matter what you do (as far as I have experienced). FOF -REALLY! bad idea. :-) We need to be reaching out beyond the current FOSS healthcare community. That is why I have started to present at full FOSS events like the upcoming International Forum for Free Software http://fisl.softwarelivre.org/10/www/ Ranting and raving at the current group of people is like "preaching to the choir" or worse, "slashing at windmills". We need to acknowledge and address the shortcomings of current FOSS offerings and work with a larger community to address those issues. People around the world are recognizing the benefits in open source software but they also want real interoperability. Some places are greenfields and others have legacy issues to deal with. The true open source consultant will recognize those on a case by case basis; instead of charging in with ONE solution. That is very much like the proprietary guys do and it really doesn't resonate with buyers. I wish you the best with DOHCS and I really wish I could be there. But, it is a long way from the sunny beaches of Brazil and alas I found no funding. :-) Cheers, Tim [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
