Re: [caudium-devel] Re: Conference

["H. William Welliver III" <hww3 AT riverweb.com>]

Just my 2 cents:

I'm not necessarily convinced that more time equates to more getting done. 
My observation was that if you had a 7 day conference, folks would show up 
for a few days and that you'd end up having "quorum" for only a brief 
period. The reality is that having 5 days versus 3 days isn't going to 
mean the difference between a release or not.

while I agree that the focus of our meetings has tended not to cater to 
end users, i think that's more a result of the audience.

one could also make the argument that we might not be drawing a larger 
crowd for any of the following reasons (not necessarily inclusive):

- lack of advance notice on dates and locations
- length of time: most folks have jobs that prevent them from taking a
    whole week just for something like this
- perception of a too-highly technical crowd

My preference would be for more "meetings" of shorter duration. That way, 
there are more likely to be "hits" for people's schedules. I understand 
that getting a large proportion of the core development team is a goal, 
but that's more a matter of coordination than anything.

It's less the case for people like me, but folks in europe are blessed 
with inexpensive air travel that makes things like twice yearly, in-person 
meetings of a day or two possible for a large number of our audience.

Also, I'm not opposed to making the trip to Sweden. I've never been, and I 
hear it's lovely :)

Bill

> the last two conferences were more like 5 days. and i'd like to spend
> more time actually working on code and a 7.8 release.
> like an extended international version of that last meeting over
> kladdkaka.
>
> that's not for everyone of course, but it's not like we are drawing a
> crowd, so we might as well do things to move pike forward instead of
> trying to attract a lot of pike users.
> (not that i am against attracting pike users, only suggesting that the
> conference might not necesarily be the venue for it)