RE: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

I attended Nicks sessions in Budapest - they were *excellent*. Using them as a 
model for Austin is to be recommended.

Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation

-Original Message-
From: Hadrian Zbarcea [mailto:hzbar...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 3:23 PM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

Awesome Nick. Is there a recording or something for it?
Hadrian

On 02/04/2015 06:10 PM, Nick Burch wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
>> For example, I would love to have some kind of an event at the 
>> ApacheCON that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn 
>> about various ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind 
>> of lighting talks/reading group where each participant is randomly 
>> given an ASF project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or 
>> something.
>
> Or you could go crazy, aim for sharing information on an even greater 
> number of projects, pick ~40, give them all to one person, and get 
> them to do a 40 minute talk with a minute on each one!
>
> I actually did two such talks in Budapest, one for content related
> projects:
> http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/2236d3a762fd00df45922ca084ec326
> a
> and one for big data related ones:
> http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/30981664d3aba98f8a84a16136602ce
> b
>
> They're a non-trivial amount of work to put together, and you probably 
> won't fill a room, but they almost always get great feedback from 
> those who attend. One memorable comment was someone from a project I 
> covered saying I'd done a better elevator pitch for their project than 
> they'd ever managed :)
>
> So, based on those experiences, I'd very much encourage people to 
> propose and give many-project overview talks like those, and even 
> better come up with ideas like this to help spread the load of 
> delivering them. They do work, they are popular, and we need more!
>
> Nick

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Hadrian Zbarcea]

Awesome Nick. Is there a recording or something for it?
Hadrian

On 02/04/2015 06:10 PM, Nick Burch wrote:

On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
For example, I would love to have some kind of an event at the 
ApacheCON that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn 
about various ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind 
of lighting talks/reading group where each participant is randomly 
given an ASF project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or 
something.


Or you could go crazy, aim for sharing information on an even greater 
number of projects, pick ~40, give them all to one person, and get 
them to do a 40 minute talk with a minute on each one!


I actually did two such talks in Budapest, one for content related 
projects:

http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/2236d3a762fd00df45922ca084ec326a
and one for big data related ones:
http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/30981664d3aba98f8a84a16136602ceb

They're a non-trivial amount of work to put together, and you probably 
won't fill a room, but they almost always get great feedback from 
those who attend. One memorable comment was someone from a project I 
covered saying I'd done a better elevator pitch for their project than 
they'd ever managed :)


So, based on those experiences, I'd very much encourage people to 
propose and give many-project overview talks like those, and even 
better come up with ideas like this to help spread the load of 
delivering them. They do work, they are popular, and we need more!


Nick

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Nick Burch]

On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
For example, I would love to have some kind of an event at the ApacheCON 
that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn about various 
ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind of lighting 
talks/reading group where each participant is randomly given an ASF 
project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or something.


Or you could go crazy, aim for sharing information on an even greater 
number of projects, pick ~40, give them all to one person, and get them to 
do a 40 minute talk with a minute on each one!


I actually did two such talks in Budapest, one for content related 
projects:

http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/2236d3a762fd00df45922ca084ec326a
and one for big data related ones:
http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/30981664d3aba98f8a84a16136602ceb

They're a non-trivial amount of work to put together, and you probably 
won't fill a room, but they almost always get great feedback from those 
who attend. One memorable comment was someone from a project I covered 
saying I'd done a better elevator pitch for their project than they'd ever 
managed :)


So, based on those experiences, I'd very much encourage people to propose 
and give many-project overview talks like those, and even better come up 
with ideas like this to help spread the load of delivering them. They do 
work, they are popular, and we need more!


Nick

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

I don't think we need to worry about LF interests conflicting with our own. We 
went through all that during the negotiation of the contract. It's all in there 
and we have a means to prevent it spiraling out of control. We do not need to, 
and we should not, micro-manage LF. They need more freedom not less (and we 
should encourage them to take it). ConCom didn’t work because it inserted 
itself between the producer and the ASF. We got rid of ConCom because, despite 
the best efforts of a number of VPs, ConCom just would not get out of the way.

This thread is in danger of taking us back down that road. ApacheCon is an LF 
event that uses and ASF brand. We look after the brand, they look after the 
event.

Ross

-Original Message-
From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 10:29 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) < 
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> I never intended to say that we should not take responsibility for 
> content. I intended to say LF should take responsibility for defining 
> the theme of the conference they want to market and we *help* find 
> content to fit that theme.
>
> I do not agree that it's our fault if the producer does not sell tickets.
> It is precisely because a foundation with 150+ different projects 
> can't come up with a coherent vision for a conference that is 
> appealing to anyone. We contracted LF to come up with a strategy that would 
> solve this.
> They are, understandably, being cautious about changing things too quickly.
> This thread is asking  whether we ought to encourage them to move a 
> little faster.


Asking LF to move faster is a good idea, but I think that requires a 
brainstorming session between the apacheCon organizers from ASF and LF.  We 
need to at least define the limits of what apacheCon should and should not 
contain. Giving LF free hands could at least theoretically mean a apacheCon 
with only companies, I do not think anybody wants that, therefore we must set 
the limits.

From my talks with LF they do seem to have ticket selling ideas, but i never 
heard a them say they could/would define the themes, maybe because we currently 
do everything around content, from CFP, review to actual track scheduling.

I do agree that we cannot make with a coherent vision, that is clearly a LF 
responsibility, but do not forget their goal is to sell tickets whereas our 
goal (at least in my head) is also to make sure apecheCON represent ASF, our 
ideals, strengths and visions.


rgds
jan i

>
> Ross
>
>
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Sebastien Goasguen [mailto:run...@gmail.com ]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 9:42 AM
> To: dev@community.apache.org 
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
>
> On Feb 4, 2015, at 12:05 PM, "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" < 
> ross.gard...@microsoft.com > wrote:
>
> > Sally the volunteer can do what she wants
> >
> > Sally the contractor has no responsibility for ApacheCon
> >
> > We are *not* responsible (by contract) for the content. We are
> responsible for *helping* with content.
> >
>
> I understand the difference, but I think it is a very fine line.
>
> Certainly we as a community should feel responsible for the content ( 
> since some of us review and create the program ) and should make sure 
> the content reflects the values of the ASF and the great work that the 
> ASF project do.
>
> So maybe contractually we are *not* responsible for the content, but I 
> sure hope that mentally/ethically we are. Hoping that a conference 
> producer will just create a conference for us and then blame that 
> producer for bad attendance and wrong content would be wrong.
>
> If we don't sell tickets, if the program is not appealing or folks 
> don't see the value in coming to apache con, that's our problem, not the 
> producer.
>
> my 2cts.
>
>
> > Yes I believe LF should tell us what they want so they have a 
> > coherent
> strategy for the event and can sell tickets.
> >
> > I realize this is in conflict with what some people want (a 
> > community
> event) but we have other vehicles for such events.
> >
> > Sent from my Windows Phone
> > 
> > From: jan i<mailto:j...@apache.org >
> > Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 8:59 AM
> > To: dev@community.apache.org  dev@community.apache.org >
> > Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> >
> > On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Rich Bowen]

On 02/04/2015 01:04 PM, Pierre Smits wrote:

Rich,

There is no need to pick on OFBiz. I have organized the speakers for ACEU
2012, ACEU 2014 and together with Sharan interesting talks for ACNA 2015
are lined up. Each were/are full tracks. Again for ACNA2015 I experienced
unwillingness upfron at some parties because of skewed cost/benefit ratios.
Nevertheless, like for ACEU 2014 we have more talks for ACNA 2015 than
space in a track. We even have input for a panel/Q&A session, that we are
looking into.

If you (or your assisting organisation) want sponsors for such tracks, I
suggest you/the ASF run to the names you know and start asking.



I didn't intend to offend. I picked OFBIZ *because* you've done such a 
great job in the last dozen conferences, providing content and sponsors.



Sorry if that was unclear.


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Roman Shaposhnik]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 5:58 AM, Rich Bowen  wrote:
> On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
>>
>> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
>> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>>
>> It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
>> ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
>> intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process
>> for
>> the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
>> communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
>> get everybody on board regarding helping out.
>>
>> Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
>> we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
>> with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
>> networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle?
>> And
>> how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
>> and Projects?
>
>
> The conference exists to build Apache community, intra- and inter-project.
> Other goals have historically orbited that, as Nick describes - fundraising
> (in the early years), marketing of the ASF, user education (still an
> important goal). But primarily, in my mind, it exists as a way to build
> community.

That's how I've always looked at it. In a way, you can look at it as yet
another service we provide to our communities. Just like we provide
SVN, git or JIRA. IOW, this is a chance for even the smallest communities
to have something like a summit for its members.

Given how many projects we host, there's also a non-trivial residual benefit
for inter-project collaboration to be sparked. I think this is an area where we
can do better. For example, I would love to have some kind of an event
at the ApacheCON that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn
about various ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind of
lighting talks/reading group where each participant is randomly given an
ASF project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or something.

Thanks,
Roman.

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[jan i]

On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> I never intended to say that we should not take responsibility for
> content. I intended to say LF should take responsibility for defining the
> theme of the conference they want to market and we *help* find content to
> fit that theme.
>
> I do not agree that it's our fault if the producer does not sell tickets.
> It is precisely because a foundation with 150+ different projects can't
> come up with a coherent vision for a conference that is appealing to
> anyone. We contracted LF to come up with a strategy that would solve this.
> They are, understandably, being cautious about changing things too quickly.
> This thread is asking  whether we ought to encourage them to move a little
> faster.


Asking LF to move faster is a good idea, but I think that requires a
brainstorming session between the apacheCon organizers from ASF and LF.  We
need to at least define the limits of what apacheCon should and should not
contain. Giving LF free hands could at least theoretically mean a apacheCon
with only companies, I do not think anybody wants that, therefore we must
set the limits.

>From my talks with LF they do seem to have ticket selling ideas, but i
never heard a them say they could/would define the themes, maybe because we
currently do everything around content, from CFP, review to actual track
scheduling.

I do agree that we cannot make with a coherent vision, that is clearly a LF
responsibility, but do not forget their goal is to sell tickets whereas our
goal (at least in my head) is also to make sure apecheCON represent ASF,
our ideals, strengths and visions.


rgds
jan i

>
> Ross
>
>
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Sebastien Goasguen [mailto:run...@gmail.com ]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 9:42 AM
> To: dev@community.apache.org 
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
>
> On Feb 4, 2015, at 12:05 PM, "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" <
> ross.gard...@microsoft.com > wrote:
>
> > Sally the volunteer can do what she wants
> >
> > Sally the contractor has no responsibility for ApacheCon
> >
> > We are *not* responsible (by contract) for the content. We are
> responsible for *helping* with content.
> >
>
> I understand the difference, but I think it is a very fine line.
>
> Certainly we as a community should feel responsible for the content (
> since some of us review and create the program ) and should make sure the
> content reflects the values of the ASF and the great work that the ASF
> project do.
>
> So maybe contractually we are *not* responsible for the content, but I
> sure hope that mentally/ethically we are. Hoping that a conference producer
> will just create a conference for us and then blame that producer for bad
> attendance and wrong content would be wrong.
>
> If we don't sell tickets, if the program is not appealing or folks don't
> see the value in coming to apache con, that's our problem, not the producer.
>
> my 2cts.
>
>
> > Yes I believe LF should tell us what they want so they have a coherent
> strategy for the event and can sell tickets.
> >
> > I realize this is in conflict with what some people want (a community
> event) but we have other vehicles for such events.
> >
> > Sent from my Windows Phone
> > 
> > From: jan i<mailto:j...@apache.org >
> > Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 8:59 AM
> > To: dev@community.apache.org  dev@community.apache.org >
> > Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> >
> > On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
> >>
> >>> Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is
> >>> an LF event.
> >>>
> >>> We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to
> >>> take on responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where
> >>> we were with ConCom.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Thanks, Ross, for bringing this point front and center again. It's
> >> easy to get sucked into the strategizing conversation, and I need to
> >> keep my focus where it needs to be.
> >
> > So let me see if I understand your statements correct, we the ASF are
> > responsible for content, including choosing which content...and
> > making a company track is not to be considered content?
> >
> > Or are you suggesting that LF tells which tracks they want and we
> > limit content to the actual presentations.
> >
> > LF can surely help build such a track, but only if we tell we want
> > that kind of content.
> >
> > rgds
> > jan i
> >
> >>
> >> --Rich
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com  - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ -
> >> @apachecon
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
>
>

-- 
Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

RE: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

Pierre, Rich is not picking on anyone. He used a relative example, nothing more.

As for Rich and others in the ASF running to the names they know what do you 
think he and others have been doing to get the talks in that we got? If Rich 
(and others) didn't work so hard there would be no talks and *that* is the 
point.

Rich - thank you.

Ross

-Original Message-
From: Pierre Smits [mailto:pierre.sm...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 10:04 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

Rich,

There is no need to pick on OFBiz. I have organized the speakers for ACEU 2012, 
ACEU 2014 and together with Sharan interesting talks for ACNA 2015 are lined 
up. Each were/are full tracks. Again for ACNA2015 I experienced unwillingness 
upfron at some parties because of skewed cost/benefit ratios.
Nevertheless, like for ACEU 2014 we have more talks for ACNA 2015 than space in 
a track. We even have input for a panel/Q&A session, that we are looking into.

If you (or your assisting organisation) want sponsors for such tracks, I 
suggest you/the ASF run to the names you know and start asking.

Best regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Rich Bowen  wrote:

>
>
> On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
>
>> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the 
>> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>>
>
>
> For what it's worth, we have made a concerted effort for ACNA15 to ask 
> project communities to step up to make ApacheCon what they think it 
> should be. If a project wants a track (even now) and can provide the 
> content for it, we'll schedule it.
>
> If OFBiz, for example, wants to provide us with a track that has more 
> the focus that you think we should have at ApacheCon, make it happen, 
> and we'll schedule it. (I pick on OFBiz, at least in part, because 
> they made a real effort to do this exact thing in EU.) If that brings 
> sponsors along with it, all the better.
>
> The open CFP phase is over, but if someone brings me a track (n * 6 
> talks, for an n day track), we'll make it happen. Within reason - in 
> agreement with Joe's comments else-thread, I'm not keen on running 
> corporate advertisements at ApacheCon. But if there are companies that 
> are deeply involved in an ASF project (as is the case at OFBiz), then, 
> yeah, I'd love to see their content showcased.
>
> So, yes, we can only schedule content that is submitted, but we've 
> made an effort this event to go out and get those submissions from 
> specific communities. At future events, we'd like to see more 
> communities step up to do this hard work.
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ - 
> @apachecon
>

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Pierre Smits]

Rich,

There is no need to pick on OFBiz. I have organized the speakers for ACEU
2012, ACEU 2014 and together with Sharan interesting talks for ACNA 2015
are lined up. Each were/are full tracks. Again for ACNA2015 I experienced
unwillingness upfron at some parties because of skewed cost/benefit ratios.
Nevertheless, like for ACEU 2014 we have more talks for ACNA 2015 than
space in a track. We even have input for a panel/Q&A session, that we are
looking into.

If you (or your assisting organisation) want sponsors for such tracks, I
suggest you/the ASF run to the names you know and start asking.

Best regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM *
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Rich Bowen  wrote:

>
>
> On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
>
>> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
>> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>>
>
>
> For what it's worth, we have made a concerted effort for ACNA15 to ask
> project communities to step up to make ApacheCon what they think it should
> be. If a project wants a track (even now) and can provide the content for
> it, we'll schedule it.
>
> If OFBiz, for example, wants to provide us with a track that has more the
> focus that you think we should have at ApacheCon, make it happen, and we'll
> schedule it. (I pick on OFBiz, at least in part, because they made a real
> effort to do this exact thing in EU.) If that brings sponsors along with
> it, all the better.
>
> The open CFP phase is over, but if someone brings me a track (n * 6 talks,
> for an n day track), we'll make it happen. Within reason - in agreement
> with Joe's comments else-thread, I'm not keen on running corporate
> advertisements at ApacheCon. But if there are companies that are deeply
> involved in an ASF project (as is the case at OFBiz), then, yeah, I'd love
> to see their content showcased.
>
> So, yes, we can only schedule content that is submitted, but we've made an
> effort this event to go out and get those submissions from specific
> communities. At future events, we'd like to see more communities step up to
> do this hard work.
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

I never intended to say that we should not take responsibility for content. I 
intended to say LF should take responsibility for defining the theme of the 
conference they want to market and we *help* find content to fit that theme.

I do not agree that it's our fault if the producer does not sell tickets. It is 
precisely because a foundation with 150+ different projects can't come up with 
a coherent vision for a conference that is appealing to anyone. We contracted 
LF to come up with a strategy that would solve this. They are, understandably, 
being cautious about changing things too quickly. This thread is asking  
whether we ought to encourage them to move a little faster.

Ross


Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation

-Original Message-
From: Sebastien Goasguen [mailto:run...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 9:42 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed


On Feb 4, 2015, at 12:05 PM, "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" 
 wrote:

> Sally the volunteer can do what she wants
> 
> Sally the contractor has no responsibility for ApacheCon
> 
> We are *not* responsible (by contract) for the content. We are responsible 
> for *helping* with content.
> 

I understand the difference, but I think it is a very fine line.

Certainly we as a community should feel responsible for the content ( since 
some of us review and create the program ) and should make sure the content 
reflects the values of the ASF and the great work that the ASF project do.

So maybe contractually we are *not* responsible for the content, but I sure 
hope that mentally/ethically we are. Hoping that a conference producer will 
just create a conference for us and then blame that producer for bad attendance 
and wrong content would be wrong.

If we don't sell tickets, if the program is not appealing or folks don't see 
the value in coming to apache con, that's our problem, not the producer.

my 2cts.


> Yes I believe LF should tell us what they want so they have a coherent 
> strategy for the event and can sell tickets.
> 
> I realize this is in conflict with what some people want (a community event) 
> but we have other vehicles for such events.
> 
> Sent from my Windows Phone
> 
> From: jan i<mailto:j...@apache.org>
> Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 8:59 AM
> To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> 
> On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
>> 
>>> Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is 
>>> an LF event.
>>> 
>>> We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to 
>>> take on responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where 
>>> we were with ConCom.
>>> 
>> 
>> Thanks, Ross, for bringing this point front and center again. It's 
>> easy to get sucked into the strategizing conversation, and I need to 
>> keep my focus where it needs to be.
> 
> So let me see if I understand your statements correct, we the ASF are 
> responsible for content, including choosing which content...and 
> making a company track is not to be considered content?
> 
> Or are you suggesting that LF tells which tracks they want and we 
> limit content to the actual presentations.
> 
> LF can surely help build such a track, but only if we tell we want 
> that kind of content.
> 
> rgds
> jan i
> 
>> 
>> --Rich
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ - 
>> @apachecon
>> 
> 
> 
> --
> Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Sebastien Goasguen]

On Feb 4, 2015, at 12:05 PM, "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" 
 wrote:

> Sally the volunteer can do what she wants
> 
> Sally the contractor has no responsibility for ApacheCon
> 
> We are *not* responsible (by contract) for the content. We are responsible 
> for *helping* with content.
> 

I understand the difference, but I think it is a very fine line.

Certainly we as a community should feel responsible for the content ( since 
some of us review and create the program ) and should make sure the content 
reflects the values of the ASF and the great work that the ASF project do.

So maybe contractually we are *not* responsible for the content, but I sure 
hope that mentally/ethically we are. Hoping that a conference producer will 
just create a conference for us and then blame that producer for bad attendance 
and wrong content would be wrong.

If we don't sell tickets, if the program is not appealing or folks don't see 
the value in coming to apache con, that's our problem, not the producer.

my 2cts.


> Yes I believe LF should tell us what they want so they have a coherent 
> strategy for the event and can sell tickets.
> 
> I realize this is in conflict with what some people want (a community event) 
> but we have other vehicles for such events.
> 
> Sent from my Windows Phone
> 
> From: jan i<mailto:j...@apache.org>
> Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 8:59 AM
> To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> 
> On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
>> 
>>> Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is an
>>> LF event.
>>> 
>>> We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to take
>>> on responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where we were
>>> with ConCom.
>>> 
>> 
>> Thanks, Ross, for bringing this point front and center again. It's easy to
>> get sucked into the strategizing conversation, and I need to keep my focus
>> where it needs to be.
> 
> So let me see if I understand your statements correct, we the ASF are
> responsible for content, including choosing which content...and making
> a company track is not to be considered content?
> 
> Or are you suggesting that LF tells which tracks they want and we limit
> content to the actual presentations.
> 
> LF can surely help build such a track, but only if we tell we want that
> kind of content.
> 
> rgds
> jan i
> 
>> 
>> --Rich
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
>> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>> 
> 
> 
> --
> Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

Sally the volunteer can do what she wants

Sally the contractor has no responsibility for ApacheCon

We are *not* responsible (by contract) for the content. We are responsible for 
*helping* with content.

Yes I believe LF should tell us what they want so they have a coherent strategy 
for the event and can sell tickets.

I realize this is in conflict with what some people want (a community event) 
but we have other vehicles for such events.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: jan i<mailto:j...@apache.org>
Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 8:59 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:

>
>
> On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
>
>> Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is an
>> LF event.
>>
>> We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to take
>> on responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where we were
>> with ConCom.
>>
>
> Thanks, Ross, for bringing this point front and center again. It's easy to
> get sucked into the strategizing conversation, and I need to keep my focus
> where it needs to be.

So let me see if I understand your statements correct, we the ASF are
responsible for content, including choosing which content...and making
a company track is not to be considered content?

Or are you suggesting that LF tells which tracks they want and we limit
content to the actual presentations.

LF can surely help build such a track, but only if we tell we want that
kind of content.

rgds
jan i

>
> --Rich
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>


--
Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[jan i]

On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:

>
>
> On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:
>
>> Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is an
>> LF event.
>>
>> We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to take
>> on responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where we were
>> with ConCom.
>>
>
> Thanks, Ross, for bringing this point front and center again. It's easy to
> get sucked into the strategizing conversation, and I need to keep my focus
> where it needs to be.

So let me see if I understand your statements correct, we the ASF are
responsible for content, including choosing which content...and making
a company track is not to be considered content?

Or are you suggesting that LF tells which tracks they want and we limit
content to the actual presentations.

LF can surely help build such a track, but only if we tell we want that
kind of content.

rgds
jan i

>
> --Rich
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>


-- 
Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Rich Bowen]

On 02/04/2015 11:21 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) wrote:

Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is an LF 
event.

We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to take on 
responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where we were with 
ConCom.


Thanks, Ross, for bringing this point front and center again. It's easy 
to get sucked into the strategizing conversation, and I need to keep my 
focus where it needs to be.


--Rich


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

We should not explore anything. It's an LF responsibility.

(I know I said this about 5 times in quick succession, sorry. I just want to 
make sure we don't start becoming ConCom. ApacheCon has been outsourced to LF)

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: Pierre Smits<mailto:pierre.sm...@gmail.com>
Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 7:21 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

That might be an idea to explore

But remember, you need to investigate the potential before you can allocate
square meters. And auctioning only works when demand is higher than supply.
There are always capacity limits.

Best regards

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:07 PM, Niclas Hedhman  wrote:

> Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we reject
> these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present
> whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those
> slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them
> with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on.
> Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are we
> not?
>
> Cheers
> Niclas
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:27 PM, jan i  wrote:
>
> > On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:
> > >
> > >> We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the
> > general
> > >> opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
> > >> that
> > >> a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
> > >> company like.
> > >>
> > >> When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks
> (or
> > >> the talks scattered around)
> > >> - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
> > >> - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects
> > >>
> > >> I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am
> very
> > >> trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to
> > get
> > >> AC to grow again.
> > >>
> > >
> > > For several years, we had a strong business track, where the
> implications
> > > of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, community,
> > > whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up and make it
> > > happen.
> > >
> > > If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with
> > > content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her
> > > contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed
> > > resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that
> is
> > > very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the
> > community
> > > as a whole.
> >
> >
> > Once we get ACNA scheduled I will talk with Sally and also come  with
> ideas
> > for early (before/during CFP) press releases for ACEU.
> >
> > I am very convinced that a business track, will sell more tickets and
> maybe
> > also attract some new sponsors.
> >
> > rgds
> > jan i
> >
> > >
> > > But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements
> > >> from
> > >> us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if
> > we
> > >> (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to
> > talk,
> > >> tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.
> > >>
> > >
> > > +1
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and
> keep
> > >> telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be
> the
> > >> truth, but maybe not the whole truth).
> > >>
> > >
> > > Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to
> just
> > > ourselves.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> > > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
> http://www.qi4j.org - New Energy for Java
>

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

If LF want to do it they can. It's their conference. I totally agree that we 
should not be a part of it.

We discussed this when negotiation the contract. Buying sessions is not on the 
cards.

However, my point is not about sales pitches or bought slots. Mine is about 
taking it too far. People have their time paid for by companies. Companies have 
valuable experience that should be shared. A knee jerk "it mentioned a product 
therefore its a pitch" evaluation is counter productive.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: Joe Brockmeier<mailto:j...@zonker.net>
Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 7:17 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015, at 09:07 AM, Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we
> reject
> these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present
> whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those
> slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them
> with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on.
> Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are
> we not?

Not sure that allowing businesses to buy slots to run "advertising"
presentations is a good practice for ApacheCon, the attendees, or the
businesses that might purchase the slots.

We don't want to program "commercials" not because we're anti-business,
but because most attendees show little to no interest in attending a
commercial. So if we sell a track of product pitches, we risk annoying
the ApacheCon attendees *and* disappointing the vendors who will
inevitably be surprised when their presentations are not well received.

It is possible to do a useful, well-received talk that also promotes
your company/project - it just requires some additional thought and
preparation to make sure you are presenting what the audience is
interested in rather than just what your marketing department thinks
they should think/say about the company/product/project.

Best,

jzb
--
Joe Brockmeier
j...@zonker.net
Twitter: @jzb
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

It should be an LF call not an ASF one.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: Niclas Hedhman<mailto:nic...@hedhman.org>
Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 7:08 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we reject
these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present
whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those
slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them
with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on.
Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are we
not?

Cheers
Niclas

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:27 PM, jan i  wrote:

> On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:
> >
> >> We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the
> general
> >> opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
> >> that
> >> a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
> >> company like.
> >>
> >> When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or
> >> the talks scattered around)
> >> - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
> >> - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects
> >>
> >> I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very
> >> trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to
> get
> >> AC to grow again.
> >>
> >
> > For several years, we had a strong business track, where the implications
> > of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, community,
> > whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up and make it
> > happen.
> >
> > If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with
> > content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her
> > contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed
> > resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that is
> > very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the
> community
> > as a whole.
>
>
> Once we get ACNA scheduled I will talk with Sally and also come  with ideas
> for early (before/during CFP) press releases for ACEU.
>
> I am very convinced that a business track, will sell more tickets and maybe
> also attract some new sponsors.
>
> rgds
> jan i
>
> >
> > But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.
> >
> >
> >
> >> LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements
> >> from
> >> us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if
> we
> >> (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to
> talk,
> >> tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.
> >>
> >
> > +1
> >
> >
> >
> >> If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep
> >> telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the
> >> truth, but maybe not the whole truth).
> >>
> >
> > Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to just
> > ourselves.
> >
> > --
> > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
> >
>
>
> --
> Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
>



--
Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
http://www.qi4j.org - New Energy for Java

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

Sally is not part of the ACNA process. Nobody in the ASF is. This is an LF 
event.

We can (and should) make recommendations to LF but we are are not to take on 
responsibility for these things. That takes us back to where we were with 
ConCom.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: jan i<mailto:j...@apache.org>
Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 6:27 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:

>
>
> On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:
>
>> We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
>> opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
>> that
>> a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
>> company like.
>>
>> When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or
>> the talks scattered around)
>> - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
>> - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects
>>
>> I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very
>> trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to get
>> AC to grow again.
>>
>
> For several years, we had a strong business track, where the implications
> of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, community,
> whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up and make it
> happen.
>
> If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with
> content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her
> contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed
> resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that is
> very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the community
> as a whole.


Once we get ACNA scheduled I will talk with Sally and also come  with ideas
for early (before/during CFP) press releases for ACEU.

I am very convinced that a business track, will sell more tickets and maybe
also attract some new sponsors.

rgds
jan i

>
> But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.
>
>
>
>> LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements
>> from
>> us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if we
>> (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to talk,
>> tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.
>>
>
> +1
>
>
>
>> If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep
>> telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the
>> truth, but maybe not the whole truth).
>>
>
> Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to just
> ourselves.
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>


--
Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

RE: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

The ASF has failed to produce a coherent ApacheCon strategy for years. That's 
why we killed ConCom and outsourced everything. It's not our role to define 
strategy. It's the producers.

The producer is relying o. Us to produce all content so what they are getting 
is the usual 2-3 talks for each of our 150+ projects. We end up with a 
conference with no coherence and potentially no compelling reason to attend.

We end up rejecting valuable talks because they describe how a particular 
product benefits from the ASF, so no case-studies, just deep technical talks 
that are only interesting to developers of that specific project. We end up 
with no content of general interest.

Of course I'm over stating it, its not quite that bad. However, it wont change 
until the producer is ready to build that missing strategy. I do understand why 
they are nit changing too much too quickly, but as someone who made this 
requirement explicit during the negotiation stage I had hoped they'd have at 
least given ApacheCon a vision by now. One I could communicate to speakers so 
that I could create a coherent track that would convince the bosses to approve 
travel.

Lets not go down the path of us telling LF what event they should put on. We 
killed ConCom because it failed to do that and restricted the producer as a 
result.

If someone here has a vision for a specific Apache conference the. Go ahead and 
do the work. ApacheCon is not the vehicle for a volunteer run event.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: Pierre Smits<mailto:pierre.sm...@gmail.com>
Sent: ‎2/‎4/‎2015 12:45 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?

It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process for
the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
get everybody on board regarding helping out.

Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle? And
how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
and Projects?

As soon as it is known what it is, we can investigate and define the target
audiences and set up a plan to communicate with (our public information can
be found in 20.700 pages found
https://www.google.nl/search?sitesearch=apache.org&q=apachecon and the page
listed first is related to the conference of 1998) , setup a plan to get
the attracting talks in. And I presume, that will help increase the success
of the event, the projects and the ASF.

Now, I also surmise that we don't know the size of the potential audience.
We talk about 500+ members, 5000+ committers. But we are forgetting the
number of the other contributors (subscribers to dev@) participating in our
projects and the followers of our products (subscribers to user@). These
are also numbers we can use when promoting the event. Extrapolating the
ratio of members vs committers we could say 50.000+ contributors and
500.000 followers. Communicating those numbers add to the importance of the
event for sponsors, presenters and attendees.

Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more contributors
to the projects.

I must admit that I don't know the exact figures per event held (e.g. EU
2014, US 2013, EU and US 2012) and what has been learned and gained from
each.

Best regards,





Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:52 PM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> There is nothing stopping LF from promoting the CFP.
>
> Ross
>
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Phil Steitz [mailto:phil.ste...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:38 PM
> To: dev@community.apache.org
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
> On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
> > On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:
> >
> >> Agr

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Rich Bowen]

On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:

We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?



For what it's worth, we have made a concerted effort for ACNA15 to ask 
project communities to step up to make ApacheCon what they think it 
should be. If a project wants a track (even now) and can provide the 
content for it, we'll schedule it.


If OFBiz, for example, wants to provide us with a track that has more 
the focus that you think we should have at ApacheCon, make it happen, 
and we'll schedule it. (I pick on OFBiz, at least in part, because they 
made a real effort to do this exact thing in EU.) If that brings 
sponsors along with it, all the better.


The open CFP phase is over, but if someone brings me a track (n * 6 
talks, for an n day track), we'll make it happen. Within reason - in 
agreement with Joe's comments else-thread, I'm not keen on running 
corporate advertisements at ApacheCon. But if there are companies that 
are deeply involved in an ASF project (as is the case at OFBiz), then, 
yeah, I'd love to see their content showcased.


So, yes, we can only schedule content that is submitted, but we've made 
an effort this event to go out and get those submissions from specific 
communities. At future events, we'd like to see more communities step up 
to do this hard work.


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Pierre Smits]

That might be an idea to explore

But remember, you need to investigate the potential before you can allocate
square meters. And auctioning only works when demand is higher than supply.
There are always capacity limits.

Best regards

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM *
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:07 PM, Niclas Hedhman  wrote:

> Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we reject
> these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present
> whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those
> slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them
> with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on.
> Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are we
> not?
>
> Cheers
> Niclas
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:27 PM, jan i  wrote:
>
> > On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:
> > >
> > >> We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the
> > general
> > >> opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
> > >> that
> > >> a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
> > >> company like.
> > >>
> > >> When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks
> (or
> > >> the talks scattered around)
> > >> - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
> > >> - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects
> > >>
> > >> I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am
> very
> > >> trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to
> > get
> > >> AC to grow again.
> > >>
> > >
> > > For several years, we had a strong business track, where the
> implications
> > > of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, community,
> > > whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up and make it
> > > happen.
> > >
> > > If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with
> > > content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her
> > > contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed
> > > resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that
> is
> > > very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the
> > community
> > > as a whole.
> >
> >
> > Once we get ACNA scheduled I will talk with Sally and also come  with
> ideas
> > for early (before/during CFP) press releases for ACEU.
> >
> > I am very convinced that a business track, will sell more tickets and
> maybe
> > also attract some new sponsors.
> >
> > rgds
> > jan i
> >
> > >
> > > But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements
> > >> from
> > >> us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if
> > we
> > >> (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to
> > talk,
> > >> tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.
> > >>
> > >
> > > +1
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and
> keep
> > >> telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be
> the
> > >> truth, but maybe not the whole truth).
> > >>
> > >
> > > Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to
> just
> > > ourselves.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> > > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
> http://www.qi4j.org - New Energy for Java
>

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Joe Brockmeier]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015, at 09:07 AM, Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we
> reject
> these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present
> whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those
> slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them
> with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on.
> Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are
> we not?

Not sure that allowing businesses to buy slots to run "advertising"
presentations is a good practice for ApacheCon, the attendees, or the
businesses that might purchase the slots.

We don't want to program "commercials" not because we're anti-business,
but because most attendees show little to no interest in attending a
commercial. So if we sell a track of product pitches, we risk annoying
the ApacheCon attendees *and* disappointing the vendors who will
inevitably be surprised when their presentations are not well received. 

It is possible to do a useful, well-received talk that also promotes
your company/project - it just requires some additional thought and
preparation to make sure you are presenting what the audience is
interested in rather than just what your marketing department thinks
they should think/say about the company/product/project.

Best,

jzb
-- 
Joe Brockmeier
j...@zonker.net
Twitter: @jzb
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[C. Craig Ross]

You should be all set!

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Pei Chen  wrote:

> Hi Craig Ross,
> I would be curious to read the CFP for ApacheCon 2015 and will be willing
> to help with reviews if the group would allow me to...
> Would you be able to add 'peistation' to the CFP review system?
> --Pei
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 3:18 AM, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>
>> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
>> system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how many
>> tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108 talks, just
>> for reference. So we should be good.
>>
>> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like to
>> review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross <
>> c...@linuxfoundation.org> and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
>> and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
>> list.
>>
>> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
>> notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us. Thanks
>> in advance.
>>
>> --
>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
>> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>>
>
>


-- 
C. Craig Ross
Creative Services & Developer Programs Manager
The Linux Foundation
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Niclas Hedhman]

Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we reject
these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present
whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those
slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them
with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on.
Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are we
not?

Cheers
Niclas

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:27 PM, jan i  wrote:

> On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:
> >
> >> We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the
> general
> >> opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
> >> that
> >> a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
> >> company like.
> >>
> >> When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or
> >> the talks scattered around)
> >> - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
> >> - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects
> >>
> >> I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very
> >> trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to
> get
> >> AC to grow again.
> >>
> >
> > For several years, we had a strong business track, where the implications
> > of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, community,
> > whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up and make it
> > happen.
> >
> > If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with
> > content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her
> > contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed
> > resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that is
> > very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the
> community
> > as a whole.
>
>
> Once we get ACNA scheduled I will talk with Sally and also come  with ideas
> for early (before/during CFP) press releases for ACEU.
>
> I am very convinced that a business track, will sell more tickets and maybe
> also attract some new sponsors.
>
> rgds
> jan i
>
> >
> > But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.
> >
> >
> >
> >> LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements
> >> from
> >> us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if
> we
> >> (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to
> talk,
> >> tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.
> >>
> >
> > +1
> >
> >
> >
> >> If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep
> >> telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the
> >> truth, but maybe not the whole truth).
> >>
> >
> > Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to just
> > ourselves.
> >
> > --
> > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
> >
>
>
> --
> Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
>



-- 
Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
http://www.qi4j.org - New Energy for Java

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Pierre Smits]

I guess, a couple of thousand attendees would make a lot of parties happy.

Best regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM *
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Niclas Hedhman  wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Pierre Smits 
> wrote:
>
> > Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
> > precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
> > projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
> > the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more
> contributors
> > to the projects.
>
> Sorry for nitpicking (although I welcome you raising the question), but
> ApacheCon doesn't need to "be cost neutral". "Cost is what you Pay, Value
> is what you Get.", so as long as we "Get" more than we "Pay", it is a Win
> for the Foundation. Now, what "Get" includes can be hard to define in
> dollar terms (unlike the "Pay" part).
>
> My view of ApacheCon goals;
>
>   - Community Face Time!!! I have only attended two conferences (distance
> plays a huge factor for me), but those are unforgettable days. People are
> much different in real life, and we get along remarkably well.
>
>   - Hackathon - talk project, new ideas, hack on bugs (bugathon), discuss
> collaborations across projects, seek advice from some project expert, and
> all that good jazz. Don't know a community? Just sit down and strike up a
> conversation... Build lasting relationships, sign PGP keys.
>
>   - Educate "Management". On licensing, on adoption "Use --> Modify -->
> Contribute", on Non-profit Org status and tax breaks, on sponsorship
> programs and so on. Corporations can contribute more resources, IF they are
> aware of the value it brings.
>
>   -  Industry Use-cases. People like to hear about someone else did
> something, and what were the results. "We changed from 200 MySQL servers to
> Cassandra. Here is what we like, and here are what we had problems with."
> kind of presentations always inspires others in similar situations.
>
>   -  Apache Content to Developers. All the classic project presentations.
> IMHO, this shouldn't be more than 50% of all activities.
>
>   - Innovation. When smart people come together (with beer) innovation
> happens (The crux is to remember the great stuff next morning.). Seriously
> though, it should be possible to 'inspire' innovation some way, by creating
> a marketplace and/or a nursery of (crazy) Ideas, and give those who "click"
> on a given idea, the necessary space to run with it. Not entirely sure
> about the mechanics, just a vague concept in the back of my head at the
> moment.
>
>   - Marketing. Apache needs marketing, and ApacheCon is a reason to contact
> every technology firm within the catchment area. For some of us, we may use
> this as an opportunity to meet potential customers or strengthen ties with
> existing ones.
>
>
> Personally, I think ApacheCon should be moving towards a brighter future.
> Apache is home of ~200 projects, many of which are exciting and fresh. This
> should interest the public, and with a decent location and good marketing,
> it should be impossible to drive record numbers to the Event. A couple of
> thousand should be a reasonable goal, and if JavaZone in Norway can do that
> on an all-volunteer basis, Apache should not set the goals too low.
>
> Hope to see you at ApacheCon "soon"
>
> Cheers
> Niclas
>

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Niclas Hedhman]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Pierre Smits  wrote:

> Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
> precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
> projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
> the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more contributors
> to the projects.

Sorry for nitpicking (although I welcome you raising the question), but
ApacheCon doesn't need to "be cost neutral". "Cost is what you Pay, Value
is what you Get.", so as long as we "Get" more than we "Pay", it is a Win
for the Foundation. Now, what "Get" includes can be hard to define in
dollar terms (unlike the "Pay" part).

My view of ApacheCon goals;

  - Community Face Time!!! I have only attended two conferences (distance
plays a huge factor for me), but those are unforgettable days. People are
much different in real life, and we get along remarkably well.

  - Hackathon - talk project, new ideas, hack on bugs (bugathon), discuss
collaborations across projects, seek advice from some project expert, and
all that good jazz. Don't know a community? Just sit down and strike up a
conversation... Build lasting relationships, sign PGP keys.

  - Educate "Management". On licensing, on adoption "Use --> Modify -->
Contribute", on Non-profit Org status and tax breaks, on sponsorship
programs and so on. Corporations can contribute more resources, IF they are
aware of the value it brings.

  -  Industry Use-cases. People like to hear about someone else did
something, and what were the results. "We changed from 200 MySQL servers to
Cassandra. Here is what we like, and here are what we had problems with."
kind of presentations always inspires others in similar situations.

  -  Apache Content to Developers. All the classic project presentations.
IMHO, this shouldn't be more than 50% of all activities.

  - Innovation. When smart people come together (with beer) innovation
happens (The crux is to remember the great stuff next morning.). Seriously
though, it should be possible to 'inspire' innovation some way, by creating
a marketplace and/or a nursery of (crazy) Ideas, and give those who "click"
on a given idea, the necessary space to run with it. Not entirely sure
about the mechanics, just a vague concept in the back of my head at the
moment.

  - Marketing. Apache needs marketing, and ApacheCon is a reason to contact
every technology firm within the catchment area. For some of us, we may use
this as an opportunity to meet potential customers or strengthen ties with
existing ones.


Personally, I think ApacheCon should be moving towards a brighter future.
Apache is home of ~200 projects, many of which are exciting and fresh. This
should interest the public, and with a decent location and good marketing,
it should be impossible to drive record numbers to the Event. A couple of
thousand should be a reasonable goal, and if JavaZone in Norway can do that
on an all-volunteer basis, Apache should not set the goals too low.

Hope to see you at ApacheCon "soon"

Cheers
Niclas

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[jan i]

On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Rich Bowen  wrote:

>
>
> On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:
>
>> We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
>> opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
>> that
>> a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
>> company like.
>>
>> When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or
>> the talks scattered around)
>> - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
>> - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects
>>
>> I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very
>> trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to get
>> AC to grow again.
>>
>
> For several years, we had a strong business track, where the implications
> of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, community,
> whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up and make it
> happen.
>
> If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with
> content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her
> contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed
> resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that is
> very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the community
> as a whole.


Once we get ACNA scheduled I will talk with Sally and also come  with ideas
for early (before/during CFP) press releases for ACEU.

I am very convinced that a business track, will sell more tickets and maybe
also attract some new sponsors.

rgds
jan i

>
> But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.
>
>
>
>> LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements
>> from
>> us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if we
>> (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to talk,
>> tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.
>>
>
> +1
>
>
>
>> If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep
>> telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the
>> truth, but maybe not the whole truth).
>>
>
> Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to just
> ourselves.
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>


-- 
Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Rich Bowen]

On 02/03/2015 04:11 AM, jan i wrote:

We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact that
a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
company like.

When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or
the talks scattered around)
- User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
- Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects

I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very
trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to get
AC to grow again.


For several years, we had a strong business track, where the 
implications of The Apache Way to business (legal, marketing, planning, 
community, whatever) were discussed. This just took someone to step up 
and make it happen.


If someone comes to me tomorrow with a business track, complete with 
content, we'll schedule it. Sally used to handle this, and with her 
contacts was able to provide really strong content. There was indeed 
resistance to this, because it's "not about Apache projects", but that 
is very open to interpretation, and, in the end, it strengthened the 
community as a whole.


But, we can't schedule talks that aren't submitted.




LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements from
us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if we
(e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to talk,
tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.


+1




If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep
telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the
truth, but maybe not the whole truth).


Yep. If we keep talking to just ourselves, we'll ... keep talking to 
just ourselves.


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Rich Bowen]

On 02/03/2015 03:37 PM, Phil Steitz wrote:

Right.  One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP
close date, so there is more time between content selected and the
event itself.


It's really important that if there are concrete suggestions like this 
(thanks, Phil) that we make sure that they are focused on ApacheCon 
Europe 2015, rather than ACNA, which is already 'en train'. That is, we 
need to be sure that this isn't merely a post mortem, but that it makes 
a difference to the upcoming event.


We have dates and a venue for AC EU, but haven't announced them yet 
because we don't want to distract and confuse the ACNA message.


More on ACEU in the coming days - trying really hard to focus on just 
the one event.


Also, sorry for not keeping up with this thread. FOSDEM is always a 
whirlwind.


--Rich

p.s. If you want to review talks, ping me. If you want to chat about 
ApacheCon, get on #apachecon on Freenode. Thanks so much for everyone 
that has stepped up to help.


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Rich Bowen]

On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:

We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?

It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process for
the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
get everybody on board regarding helping out.

Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle? And
how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
and Projects?


The conference exists to build Apache community, intra- and 
inter-project. Other goals have historically orbited that, as Nick 
describes - fundraising (in the early years), marketing of the ASF, user 
education (still an important goal). But primarily, in my mind, it 
exists as a way to build community.


Or, perhaps, to give a different response ... If the membership has a 
different answer to this question, they should articulate it, and, more 
importantly, step up to make it happen.


Over the years, for many, many reasons, some intentional and some the 
byproduct of history, Apache conferences outside of ApacheCon have 
enjoyed increasing success, and have eclipsed ApacheCon. We (the board, 
the membership, various people that I have discussed this with) believe 
that ApacheCon still has a role as a place where the disparate Apache 
communities meet and build strong bonds between projects.


Of course not everyone agrees with this, and I'm sure that there people 
who feel that ApacheCon's day is over and that we should retire it. I 
know that folks think this, and I suspect that some are reluctant to say 
it out loud for fear of hurting my feelings (and those of the other 
people who have invested thousands of hours and more than 15 years in 
this event). Frankly, if people think that, I'd rather they speak up and 
make their case.


As to costs - yes, the conference costs. It costs me (and other people, 
notably Jan) hours and days of my life. And it costs LF time and 
financial investment to produce. These are investments that I (and 
others) make because we believe that it strengthens the Foundation.


I welcome this conversation. It's important that we have it every few 
years. I welcome even more people who will step up with answers, and 
energy and time to make those answers into a reality. Pierre, you have 
done this for Ofbiz, providing content and community excitement. What we 
need is more communities to do this, both inward facing and outward 
facing, as well as telling us (the ComDev list) what changes we need to 
make to the event to make it more effective.


A point of history: There used to be a ConCom (Conference Committee), 
and it was eventually disbanded for the simple reason that we had become 
incredibly difficult for vendors to work with - the micromanagement that 
Nick refers to. It turned into a single point of contact - me - to work 
with LF. This doesn't mean that I don't need/want help. I desperately 
need help. I am not an event expert, despite doing this for 15 years. 
I'd like to see an events committee (ie, more than just ApacheCon) that 
would figure out our overarching event strategy, from ApacheCon to how 
we work with events like Hadoop Summit, to how we manage our presence at 
events like OSCON and FOSDEM. (See new thread, later today, about 
FOSDEM.) But what we don't want to see, and what the Board will shut 
down, is the kind of ConCom that we had several years ago, with the 
endless debates that paralyzed forward motion and pissed off numerous 
fine producers. (Note here that I was on concom almost from day one, and 
was part of that problem - not pointing at anyone else here.)


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Nick Burch]

On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Pierre Smits wrote:

We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?


I'm not going to answer your email directly, but instead I'm going to try 
to offer some background and some history, which hopefully will help a 
wider/newer audience to do so, fingers crossed...



In the past, we have tried giving large amounts of direction to producers 
(some might say micro-managing), along with supporting large parts of the 
conference organising. The general consensus, looking back on those 
events, is that the volunteer effort to conference success ratio wasn't 
working. Producers struggled with it too.


In the past, we have tried putting on a large event ourselves, outside of 
traditional city-centre conference hotels, with assistance from a producer 
but us in charge. By some measures, we pulled it off an had a great 
success! But almost everyone involved said after that it was a success 
that should never be repeated... (Some varient of that might work, but 
such a model hasn't been come up with so far)


We have some community members where if you say "come to our small 
conference and speak and attend, tents are provided outside", they will 
turn up! http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertburrelldonkin/5150859365/ has 
photos of the tents from when we did that :) However, that won't work for 
all of our community, and is unlikely to work for many of the people we're 
looking to bring into our projects and their communities. We've asked 
them, producers have asked them, and many of these folks want a nice-ish 
hotel somewhere they can easily get to.


Some sponsors are happy to fund a hundred ASFers in a field or a youth 
hostel. Some sponsors are willing to fund conference spaces if we come 
to/near them, but that number might not be that large. Some sponsors have 
indicated willing to cover travel+food+lodging for certain key people so 
their staff can meet+learn from them, but no model to tap that has thus 
far been proposed+accepted. Some sponsors are willing to contribute to the 
cost of getting people the ASF thinks are important to our events, which 
is what funds TAC. Many sponsors frequently pony up for the "traditional" 
sponsorship of booths, giveaways, lunches etc at "traditional" city centre 
conference hotel events.


Some want ApacheCon as an excuse to meet up with old friends. Some want 
ApacheCon to learn about new projects to use or get involved in. Some want 
ApacheCon to allow the foundation to explain itself to new projects + 
newish committers/community members, to help the foundation grow + replace 
those who leave. Some want to learn about the very latest cutting edge 
things from the people who wrote the code yesterday, and want to be using 
it in their solutions tomorrow. Some have heard a bit about a project or 
two, and want to learn more. Some want to use the event to draw in new 
users and contributor who've already heard of the project, some need the 
conference to to draw in those with a problem yet to hear of the project. 
Some want it to rival big events (FOSCON or Hadoop Universe type things), 
others want the USP to be a pure Apache focus. Some change their mind. 
Some of these things are mutually exclusive, some may require "creativity" 
to combine!


In many ways, the ASF is a terrible client for a conference producer... In 
some ways, we are wonderful!



I hope that helps those without the ConCom battle scars with some 
background. I've tried to keep it neutral, as best as I can, but it's not 
perfect. With any luck it's good enough to assist the thread


Nick

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Jim Jagielski]

Agreed. IMO, the wider the net for the CFP, the more selection
of top-notch proposals we get, which means more great presentations
which drive larger audiences and number of attendees.

In other words, promotion of the CFP is critical for success of
a conference. Yes, I saw LF do almost no promotion of it. All
if it was done by the ASF and Rich and Sally.

> On Feb 3, 2015, at 3:52 PM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) 
>  wrote:
> 
> There is nothing stopping LF from promoting the CFP.
> 
> Ross
> 
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Phil Steitz [mailto:phil.ste...@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:38 PM
> To: dev@community.apache.org
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> 
> On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
>> On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:
>> 
>>> Agreed!
>>> 
>>> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe, 
>>> I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the 
>>> sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job 
>>> promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to 
>>> drive speakers.
>>> 
>> Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we 
>> need to divide issues here.
>> 
>> Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so 
>> finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
>> 
>> Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not 
>> very rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February, 
>> when the schedule is in place (work which just started today).
> 
> Right.  One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP close date, 
> so there is more time between content selected and the event itself.
> 
> Phil
>> 
>> All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to 
>> motivate our projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks, 
>> but also getting people to come).
>> 
>> just my opinion
>> rgds
>> jan i.
>> 
>> 
>>>> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
>>> ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>>> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>>> 
>>>> From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
>>>> Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
>>>> To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
>>>> Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the 
>>>> CFP system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be 
>>>> decided how many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be 
>>>> (roughly) 108 talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
>>>> 
>>>> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd 
>>>> like to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross 
>>>>  and ask to be added to the CFP review 
>>>> system, and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being 
>>>> added to the list.
>>>> 
>>>> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled 
>>>> and notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
>>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ - 
>>>> @apachecon
>>> 
> 

Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)

[Pierre Smits]

We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?

It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process for
the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
get everybody on board regarding helping out.

Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle? And
how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
and Projects?

As soon as it is known what it is, we can investigate and define the target
audiences and set up a plan to communicate with (our public information can
be found in 20.700 pages found
https://www.google.nl/search?sitesearch=apache.org&q=apachecon and the page
listed first is related to the conference of 1998) , setup a plan to get
the attracting talks in. And I presume, that will help increase the success
of the event, the projects and the ASF.

Now, I also surmise that we don't know the size of the potential audience.
We talk about 500+ members, 5000+ committers. But we are forgetting the
number of the other contributors (subscribers to dev@) participating in our
projects and the followers of our products (subscribers to user@). These
are also numbers we can use when promoting the event. Extrapolating the
ratio of members vs committers we could say 50.000+ contributors and
500.000 followers. Communicating those numbers add to the importance of the
event for sponsors, presenters and attendees.

Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more contributors
to the projects.

I must admit that I don't know the exact figures per event held (e.g. EU
2014, US 2013, EU and US 2012) and what has been learned and gained from
each.

Best regards,





Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:52 PM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> There is nothing stopping LF from promoting the CFP.
>
> Ross
>
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Phil Steitz [mailto:phil.ste...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:38 PM
> To: dev@community.apache.org
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
> On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
> > On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:
> >
> >> Agreed!
> >>
> >> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe,
> >> I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the
> >> sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job
> >> promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to
> >> drive speakers.
> >>
> > Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we
> > need to divide issues here.
> >
> > Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so
> > finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
> >
> > Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not
> > very rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February,
> > when the schedule is in place (work which just started today).
>
> Right.  One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP close
> date, so there is more time between content selected and the event itself.
>
> Phil
> >
> > All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to
> > motivate our projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks,
> > but also getting people to come).
> >
> > just my opinion
> > rgds
> > jan i.
> >
> >
> >>> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
> >> ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> >>> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my Windows Phone
> >>> 
> >>> From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
> >&g

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

There is nothing stopping LF from promoting the CFP.

Ross

Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation

-Original Message-
From: Phil Steitz [mailto:phil.ste...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:38 PM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
> On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:
>
>> Agreed!
>>
>> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe, 
>> I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the 
>> sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job 
>> promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to 
>> drive speakers.
>>
> Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we 
> need to divide issues here.
>
> Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so 
> finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
>
> Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not 
> very rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February, 
> when the schedule is in place (work which just started today).

Right.  One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP close date, so 
there is more time between content selected and the event itself.

Phil
>
> All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to 
> motivate our projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks, 
> but also getting people to come).
>
> just my opinion
> rgds
> jan i.
>
>
>>> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
>> ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
>>>
>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>> ____________
>>> From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
>>> Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
>>> To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
>>> Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>>>
>>> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the 
>>> CFP system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be 
>>> decided how many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be 
>>> (roughly) 108 talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
>>>
>>> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd 
>>> like to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross 
>>>  and ask to be added to the CFP review 
>>> system, and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being 
>>> added to the list.
>>>
>>> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled 
>>> and notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ - 
>>> @apachecon
>>

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Phil Steitz]

On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
> On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:
>
>> Agreed!
>>
>> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some
>> time to breathe, I'd like to know just how helpful LF
>> was this time around. From the sidelines, it seems that
>> they really didn't do an aggressive job promoting the
>> event and being a pro-active producer in trying to
>> drive speakers.
>>
> Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we need to
> divide issues here.
>
> Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so
> finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
>
> Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not very
> rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February, when the
> schedule is in place (work which just started today).

Right.  One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP
close date, so there is more time between content selected and the
event itself.

Phil
>
> All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to motivate our
> projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks, but also getting
> people to come).
>
> just my opinion
> rgds
> jan i.
>
>
>>> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
>> ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
>>>
>>> Sent from my Windows Phone
>>> ________
>>> From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
>>> Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
>>> To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
>>> Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>>>
>>> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
>>> system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how
>>> many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108
>>> talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
>>>
>>> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like
>>> to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross
>>>  and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
>>> and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
>>> list.
>>>
>>> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
>>> notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
>>> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>>

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Pei Chen]

Hi Craig Ross,
I would be curious to read the CFP for ApacheCon 2015 and will be willing
to help with reviews if the group would allow me to...
Would you be able to add 'peistation' to the CFP review system?
--Pei

On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 3:18 AM, Rich Bowen  wrote:

> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
> system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how many
> tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108 talks, just
> for reference. So we should be good.
>
> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like to
> review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross <
> c...@linuxfoundation.org> and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
> and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
> list.
>
> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
> notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us. Thanks
> in advance.
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Rob Vesse]

On 03/02/2015 01:11, "jan i"  wrote:

>We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
>opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact
>that
>a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
>company like.

Having been a reviewer for both last years events I would say that the
issue was not that there were talks that were too company like but that
there were some talks that looked to be pure product pitches which as I
understood it was not the style of content desired.

Talks from an enterprise/company perspective e.g. use cases,
implementation and deployment experiences, integration efforts, how to
adopt Apache Foo, how Apache Bar can save you money etc. are great and
exactly the kind of content we want to attract a wider non-Apache audience
and are most certainly welcome but relatively few of these actually get
submitted.  This is partly because the CFP is primarily marketed within
the ASF where people have an understanding that they participate as
individuals and not as companies so people tend to submit talks about the
ASF and its projects.

However talks that are just product pitches i.e. here's our commercial
product we built with all this open source and now want to sell you are
the types of talks that shift ApacheCon from being a technical conference
to being a business/marketing conference which kinda jars with the goals
of the ASF.

So however it gets marketed in future we need to strike the right balance
such that we don't turn it into just another marketing conference while
finding ways to attract a broader audience

Rob

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

Dennis is right. We have to be realistic about providing value to our speakers 
I'd e want to go beyond highly specific Apache Project sessions. For example,  
one of my own sessions, a lab, has drawn a comment about potentially being a 
sales pitch.

This is ridiculous.

It's a lab in which people will build VMs for easy consumption of open source 
projects using platform independent DevOps tools. The abstract mentions Azure 
because Microsoft will pay my expenses and we make it run somewhere. I'm hardly 
going to demo it on a competing platform am I? Although the abstract invites 
folks to join us and push the VMs to other platforms.

Oh, and the service offered to host these things, if a project wants to do so, 
is free of any charge, as is the Azure account needed to make use of the 
service. For those who want to go elsewhere the VM is Linux based and the 
resulting solution will also build VMs for other clouds and hypervisors. I even 
mention this in the abstract.

Add to that  my reputation here and what the foundation will do to me if I do a 
sales pitch. If I'm not immune to such accusations then a newcomer certainly 
isn't.

Ironically, the presentation session on the same topic has been marked accept 
by the same reviewer. It doesn't mention Azure specifically. It's not necessary 
to do so since I'll be demoing rather than helping people actually do the work, 
so it shouldn't affect folks. If id not mentioned Azure and I stead focused on 
cross-platform alone I bet the comment would not have been made.

I hope reviewers will focus on the value of the content to the breadth of 
attendees. I believe my session is valuable to every project in the ASF and 
beyond.  If we want to grow the conference we need to grow ourselves first.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: Dennis E. Hamilton<mailto:dennis.hamil...@acm.org>
Sent: ‎2/‎3/‎2015 8:44 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

-- replying below to --
From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 01:12
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On Monday, February 2, 2015, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

[ ... ]
> Ross: "Hey, you know you are doing cool stuff, you should consider
> submitting a talk at ApacheCon"
>
> A.N.Other: "Isn't that just for Apache people though"
>
> Ross: "Traditionally, yes. But we are trying to make it much broader than
> that. Apache is about producing open source software, so anything open
> source related is a potential fit. Anything that uses ASF software, like
> your work, is a really good fit"
[ ... ]


We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact that
a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
company like.


   Are there ways to have talks that are not ASF-project centric yet do not
   become company-centric instead?  What about lessons learned, important
   practices, and maybe results of studies, whether from analysts or
   academic sources?
 If the only mention of a company in terms of its brand and products
   is confined to the logo on the slide pages, and affiliation of the
   author, might that work?
 Here are examples of situations that would get me into the room:
   Someone from Google describing their fire-drill system and an actual
   situation of a fail-over somewhere on the planet and all that happens
   to restore services.  (I loved a past report when a fail-over happened
   while fire-drilling was underway.)  Someone handling a serious DOS attack
   and how a defense-in-depth technique caught a penetration that was
   under-cover of that attack (making one up that might not make actual
   sense).  A study of how many-eyes does or does not show up on an open-
   source project and what the factors seem to be would be one too.



[ ... ]

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

 -- replying below to --
From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 01:12
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On Monday, February 2, 2015, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

[ ... ]
> Ross: "Hey, you know you are doing cool stuff, you should consider
> submitting a talk at ApacheCon"
>
> A.N.Other: "Isn't that just for Apache people though"
>
> Ross: "Traditionally, yes. But we are trying to make it much broader than
> that. Apache is about producing open source software, so anything open
> source related is a potential fit. Anything that uses ASF software, like
> your work, is a really good fit"
[ ... ]


We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact that
a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
company like.


   Are there ways to have talks that are not ASF-project centric yet do not
   become company-centric instead?  What about lessons learned, important
   practices, and maybe results of studies, whether from analysts or
   academic sources?
 If the only mention of a company in terms of its brand and products
   is confined to the logo on the slide pages, and affiliation of the
   author, might that work?
 Here are examples of situations that would get me into the room:
   Someone from Google describing their fire-drill system and an actual
   situation of a fail-over somewhere on the planet and all that happens
   to restore services.  (I loved a past report when a fail-over happened
   while fire-drilling was underway.)  Someone handling a serious DOS attack
   and how a defense-in-depth technique caught a penetration that was 
   under-cover of that attack (making one up that might not make actual
   sense).  A study of how many-eyes does or does not show up on an open-
   source project and what the factors seem to be would be one too.



[ ... ]

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[jan i]

On Monday, February 2, 2015, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> Content is our responsibility but given I undertook to convince people
> outside the usual ASF crowd to submit talks I can assure you that a lack of
> promotion for the event was the biggest hurdle. To paraphrase the typical
> conversation I had (with at least two dozen people):
>
> Ross: "Hey, you know you are doing cool stuff, you should consider
> submitting a talk at ApacheCon"
>
> A.N.Other: "Isn't that just for Apache people though"
>
> Ross: "Traditionally, yes. But we are trying to make it much broader than
> that. Apache is about producing open source software, so anything open
> source related is a potential fit. Anything that uses ASF software, like
> your work, is a really good fit"
>
> A.N.Other: "I see. But from what I see there are only Apache folks in
> attendance. They might be interested in hearing about our work, but I don't
> think it will bring value to me. I'll fix any issues in the ASF stuff that
> I need to, but I have little interest in talking to the Apache community as
> a whole. It won't bring me any direct benefit over and above fixing the
> issues that affect me."
>
> It's a chicken and egg problem. If we don't market the event as being
> something more than an ASF event it's hard to make it something more than
> an ASF event.
>
> I understand LF are still in the "don't tinker" mode while they learn the
> lay of the land, but I (and others) were very explicit when we gave them
> the contract. We want LF to make the event a success. I tried very hard to
> build a coherent track this year. I'd say only around 20% of the people I
> approached submitted a talk. End result, yet another ApacheCon with a
> scattergun approach to content.
>
> That being said, I think I'm going to be able to build a reasonably
> coherent track with what I've seen so far. So we are doing our bit with
> respect to content. It would be so much easier if LF helped us get speakers
> from outside the ASF.
>
> Food for thought, Rich and I have discussed this a number of times. LF
> promotion is only a part of it. We need ASF people to think outside the ASF
> box.


We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general
opinion is  non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact that
a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too
company like.

When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or
the talks scattered around)
- User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects
- Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects

I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very
trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to get
AC to grow again.

LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements from
us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if we
(e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to talk,
tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful.

If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep
telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the
truth, but maybe not the whole truth).

rgds
jan i



> Ross
>
> -Original Message-
> From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org ]
> Sent: Monday, February 2, 2015 10:47 AM
> To: dev@community.apache.org 
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
> On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski >
> wrote:
>
> > Agreed!
> >
> > Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe,
> > I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the
> > sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job
> > promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to drive
> > speakers.
> >
>
> Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we need to
> divide issues here.
>
> Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so
> finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
>
> Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not very
> rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February, when the
> schedule is in place (work which just started today).
>
> All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to motivate
> our projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks, but also
> getting people to come).
>
> just my opinion
> rgds
> jan i.
>
>
> > > On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) &

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Pierre Smits]

Sharan and I will go over the talks in the OFBiz track the coming few days,
and will get back to everybody with the result.

Best regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM *
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 9:18 AM, Rich Bowen  wrote:

> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
> system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how many
> tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108 talks, just
> for reference. So we should be good.
>
> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like to
> review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross <
> c...@linuxfoundation.org> and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
> and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
> list.
>
> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
> notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us. Thanks
> in advance.
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

Content is our responsibility but given I undertook to convince people outside 
the usual ASF crowd to submit talks I can assure you that a lack of promotion 
for the event was the biggest hurdle. To paraphrase the typical conversation I 
had (with at least two dozen people):

Ross: "Hey, you know you are doing cool stuff, you should consider submitting a 
talk at ApacheCon"

A.N.Other: "Isn't that just for Apache people though"

Ross: "Traditionally, yes. But we are trying to make it much broader than that. 
Apache is about producing open source software, so anything open source related 
is a potential fit. Anything that uses ASF software, like your work, is a 
really good fit"

A.N.Other: "I see. But from what I see there are only Apache folks in 
attendance. They might be interested in hearing about our work, but I don't 
think it will bring value to me. I'll fix any issues in the ASF stuff that I 
need to, but I have little interest in talking to the Apache community as a 
whole. It won't bring me any direct benefit over and above fixing the issues 
that affect me."

It's a chicken and egg problem. If we don't market the event as being something 
more than an ASF event it's hard to make it something more than an ASF event.

I understand LF are still in the "don't tinker" mode while they learn the lay 
of the land, but I (and others) were very explicit when we gave them the 
contract. We want LF to make the event a success. I tried very hard to build a 
coherent track this year. I'd say only around 20% of the people I approached 
submitted a talk. End result, yet another ApacheCon with a scattergun approach 
to content.

That being said, I think I'm going to be able to build a reasonably coherent 
track with what I've seen so far. So we are doing our bit with respect to 
content. It would be so much easier if LF helped us get speakers from outside 
the ASF. 

Food for thought, Rich and I have discussed this a number of times. LF 
promotion is only a part of it. We need ASF people to think outside the ASF box.

Ross

-Original Message-
From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org] 
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2015 10:47 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:

> Agreed!
>
> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe, 
> I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the 
> sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job 
> promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to drive 
> speakers.
>

Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we need to 
divide issues here.

Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so finding 
and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.

Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not very 
rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February, when the schedule 
is in place (work which just started today).

All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to motivate our 
projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks, but also getting 
people to come).

just my opinion
rgds
jan i.


> > On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
> ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > Great job Rich, and those who helped.
> >
> > Sent from my Windows Phone
> > ________
> > From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
> > Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
> > To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
> > Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> >
> > Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the 
> > CFP system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be 
> > decided how many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be 
> > (roughly) 108 talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
> >
> > If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd 
> > like to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross 
> >  and ask to be added to the CFP review 
> > system, and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being 
> > added to the list.
> >
> > We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled 
> > and notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > --
> > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ - 
> > @apachecon
>
>

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[jan i]

On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski  wrote:

> Agreed!
>
> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some
> time to breathe, I'd like to know just how helpful LF
> was this time around. From the sidelines, it seems that
> they really didn't do an aggressive job promoting the
> event and being a pro-active producer in trying to
> drive speakers.
>

Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we need to
divide issues here.

Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so
finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.

Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not very
rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February, when the
schedule is in place (work which just started today).

All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to motivate our
projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks, but also getting
people to come).

just my opinion
rgds
jan i.


> > On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
> ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> >
> > Great job Rich, and those who helped.
> >
> > Sent from my Windows Phone
> > 
> > From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
> > Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
> > To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
> > Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> >
> > Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
> > system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how
> > many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108
> > talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
> >
> > If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like
> > to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross
> >  and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
> > and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
> > list.
> >
> > We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
> > notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > --
> > Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> > http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>
>

Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Jim Jagielski]

Agreed!

Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some
time to breathe, I'd like to know just how helpful LF
was this time around. From the sidelines, it seems that
they really didn't do an aggressive job promoting the
event and being a pro-active producer in trying to
drive speakers.

> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) 
>  wrote:
> 
> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
> 
> Sent from my Windows Phone
> 
> From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
> Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
> To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
> Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> 
> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
> system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how
> many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108
> talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
> 
> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like
> to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross
>  and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
> and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
> list.
> 
> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
> notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

RE: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)]

Great job Rich, and those who helped.

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com>
Sent: ‎2/‎2/‎2015 12:19 AM
To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org>
Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed

Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP
system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how
many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108
talks, just for reference. So we should be good.

If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like
to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross
 and ask to be added to the CFP review system,
and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the
list.

We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and
notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
Thanks in advance.

--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon

ApacheCon NA CFP closed

[Rich Bowen]

Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the CFP 
system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be decided how 
many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be (roughly) 108 
talks, just for reference. So we should be good.


If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd like 
to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross 
 and ask to be added to the CFP review system, 
and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being added to the 
list.


We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled and 
notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us. 
Thanks in advance.


--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon