Hello Cassandra Community, I know this is a hot topic so let me TL;DR for those of you looking for the short answer. Will there be a Cassandra Summit in 2017? DataStax will not be holding a Cassandra Summit in 2017, but instead multiple DataStax Summits in 2018.
More details. Last year was pretty chaotic for the Cassandra community and where DataStax fit with the project. I don’t need to re-cap all the drama. You can go look at the dev and user lists around this time last year if you want to re-live it. It’s safe to say 2016 is a year I wouldn’t want to do again for a lot of reasons. Those of us at the Cassandra Summit 2016 knew it was the end of something, now the question is what’s next and what will it be? Having a place for people together and talk about what we as a community do is really important. Those of you that know me, know how much I live that. When we started talking summit inside DataStax, we realized it would be a hot button issue. When I started talking to people in the community, it was even more of a hot button issue. Having DataStax run the Cassandra Summit was going to cause a lot of heartache and would further divide the community with questions and accusations. It’s just much easier to hold a DataStax Summit so we are just out there plainly and move forward. What DataStax will be doing different. We will be moving back to a more regional format instead of the big bang single event in San Jose starting in 2018. Fun fact. Almost 80% of attendees of Cassandra Summit were from the Bay Area. That means we have developers and operators from a lot of other places being excluded which isn’t cool. We will also be inviting talks from the Cassandra Community. You don’t have to be a DataStax customer or partner to get on the speaking list. If there is some new group or company that launches a Cassandra Summit, DataStax will happily be a sponsor. There are some for-profit, professional conference companies like the Linux Foundation out there that just may and if so, I’ll see you there. After being involved in making the Cassandra Summit happen for years, I can say it’s no small effort. There it is. Fire away with your questions, comments. All I ask is keep it respectful because this is a community of amazing people. You have changed the world over these years and I know it won’t stop. You know I got a hug for you wherever we just happen to meet. Patrick
