> This being said, it seems a little bit unfair to state that the US is > less interested than Europe or Asia in open standards. I was under the > impression that HTML and XML are quite successful here! that was probably a inconsiderate statement of mine - I apologize. > But with the notable exception of Vancouver, SVG Open was/is organized > on the campus of some nice Universities (Tokyo, Enschede, > Victoria,...). In the US, you will need to go after Companies to > organize such a thing. You asked individual developers, and this won't > do. I have nothing against more commercialization. I think it is necessary and there is more demand towards that direction. But I would not like the commercialization aspect to be overwhelming. And the conference should be affordable also to students and OS programmers (be it through rebates, scolarships or both). If there is more commercialization of the conference we have to ensure that the quality of the conference remains high. Otherwise we run into the risk that conference attendees can only talk to (sometimes technically incompetent) sales people and can't reach the developers and content creators. That said, I would welcome more commercial support in the conference, but in a controlled way. But you have to discuss these issues mainly with Kurt Cagle who also runs a separate forum for the conference preparation. If university people organize the SVG.Open conference you also have to take into account that these people (I include myself into that group) are probably not that experienced in marketing and would probably need a hand from you guys from the marketing world. On the other hand, using university facilities for cheap (or free in some cases) was/is also invaluable and I doubt if the first SVG.Open conferences would have made it without the help of universities. > Besides, SVG on the desktop is still (at best) a few years away from > being successful. SVG Mobile is the big thing here so unless we are > ready to shift the focus from SVG desktop to SVG Mobile, it will be > difficult to capture the attention of the US. Well, if you look at the proceedings and contributions of the past SVG.Open conferences SVG mobile was always very well represented. SVG mobile always had own tracks and a high percentage of the presentations covered that topic. I agree that one could discuss putting the mobile aspect into the conference title/subtitle or more prominently marketing that aspect. Personally, I would very regret if the SVG people, community and the W3C would only go after the mobile market and neglect the desktop. I think both desktop and mobile can benefit from each other and I would not separate the two in future SVG.Open conferences. SVG has much to offer on the desktop even if its market share is not yet too big. All the best, Andreas
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get Bzzzy! (real tools to help you find a job). Welcome to the Sweet Life. http://us.click.yahoo.com/A77XvD/vlQLAA/TtwFAA/1U_rlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ----- To unsubscribe send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit my membership" ---- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/