Richard, I have to make something clear first, I have _nothing_ against Denver, and I will do my best effort to have the money and the time to go to the SOTM2011 there. I love going to the states (three times, with zero bad experiences yet) and I was not being sarcastic about my good experience with the guys from the DHS.
So I am not a "detractor" of any particular city but of the idea of doing the event far away from most of the people that we know are interested in going to it. I agree with you about OSI+OSMF amazing efforts that influences so many people, including myself. As much as I also agree with you in the general idea of moving the SOTM around (a.k.a taking it out of Europe for the first time), the fact is (and this is not a matter of perspective) that most of the contributors, core developers, authors, etc. are still in Germany, the UK and other countries of Western Europe, and that taking the event to Colorado could have an effect on the number of attendees similar to the effect of doing the FOSS4G in Australia and South Africa[1], or maybe worst, at least assuming that it will not be held in the days right before or after the OSGeo conference in Denver (a coordinated schedule may compensate the decline caused by the distance from Europe). I do realize that there may be a positive effect in terms of showing the project to new people that may eventually become the new contributors, core developers, authors, etc. I am just in a ~1000Km. bus trip to attend the national Linux Encounter to do my OSM talk (I did it this Friday morning), so I guess I am one of the guys on the "not so complaining" side of the table ;) As far as I know and the article [2] in the State of the Map blog explains, 5 of the beneficiaries of the scholarship had their visas denied by the Spanish embassies in their countries; 1 by the German embassy; and 1 by the French embassy. So I correct myself in the matter that this was a particularly Spaniard discriminatory act, this was a European one. Anyway, I keep my bet on the DHS, they are quite reliable in this kind of things. Best Regards, Julio Costa [1] http://wiki.osgeo.osuosl.org/wiki/FOSS4G#Local_Organizing_Committee [2] http://stateofthemap.org/sotm-scholarship-program/ On 22 October 2010 18:02, Richard Weait <rich...@weait.com> wrote: > On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Julio Costa Zambelli > <julio.co...@openstreetmap.cl> wrote: >> Henk, >> >> I do not want to argue since this just a personal opinion from someone >> that has gone just to one SOTM and only thanks to the OSI Scholarship, >> but: > > OSI is great. I'm glad that folks from so many places have been able > to attend. > >> [ ... ] but we are talking about the _global_ State Of >> The Map > > It should move around then? As I understand it the Drupal project > alternates between events in Europe and North America. I don't know > how the percentage of contributors is divided in the Drupal community. > > But the fact is that any and every location will have detractors. > There will always be a set of those who can't or won't make the trip. > I've heard conference attendees complain about a 45 minute trip across > town to attend, while they were sitting at a table with people who > flew-in across the country. Perspective plays a part here. ;-) > >> Can we expect the Department of Homeland Security to be any less >> "obstructive" with the scholarship beneficiaries than the agencies in >> Europe? I do not want to make an stereotype of the officers of this >> agency, since they have treated me so well every time I have gone to >> the states, but to be honest if the Spaniards denied 7 visas, I will >> bet money that this guys will deny the same or more. > > It was my impression that some potential attendees were denied travel > by their own country, rather than entry visas to Spain. If so, the > destination country may not matter in those cases. > > Julio, I hope that you will be able to attend in Denver. I hope that > I will be able to attend as well. :-) I think it is a beautiful part > of the world. > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk > _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk