Update - FUDCon Tempe: Keepin' on plowin'

[Robyn Bergeron]

Just wanted to give a quick update on the FUDCon Tempe bid progress.

First: Ryan Rix and I went to Tempe last Friday afternoon (May 7) and
met with Adam McCullough, who is the current president of the ASULUG,
and Zachary Giles, who was the president for the past several years
before graduating.  We discussed some of our options over lunch, and
then walked around campus and checked out the two options we have
available for FUDCon hosting.

I did a blog post with some pictures that I took, for those interested
in reading / viewing:
http://wordshack.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/fudcon-tempe-scouting-for-pwnie-stables/

And a more comprehensive (redundant to blog pictures, but with more
pictures to see) set of photos is available here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7849458@N03/sets/72157624018364404/

The first option is located at the Brickyard on Mill, which is located
on the main drag in Tempe - and is also the home to many computer
science classes.  It is a few minutes walk from the proposed hotel
(Tempe Mission Palms).  It is a very nice, relatively new two-story
building, with tons of classrooms, most equipped with one-two
projectors, and 2 classrooms also have video streaming capabilities.
Most of the rooms are oriented with multiple rows of long tables.
Adam and Zachary are currently trying to get in touch with the faculty
member who is responsible for that particular building (apparently, it
recently changed hands - they have his name, but not a response yet,
which may be due to the fact that it is graduation week at ASU).  The
building has a large lobby area as well, where things like donuts /
coffee can be eaten, there are bar-type tables in the room; it also
has stairs as well as an elevator, restrooms, etc. Reportedly, other,
very large software companies (Microsoft) also come to campus in
coordination with the faculty to do presentations, learning sessions,
etc. - so this wouldn't be an unheard-of thing for them to host.  More
importantly, it would likely be free.  We would likely have to work
around some classes on the days when school is in session - but the
classrooms, like on most college campuses, are not all simultaneously
used.

The second option is the ASU Memorial Union. This is a nearly
brand-new facility (it had a large fire a few years back, so
everything has been rebuilt / redone) with fast-food and regular-style
restaurants on the first floor, and an abundance of conference space
on the second floor.  All of it very, very, nice.  This is the option,
as detailed on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Bid_for_Tempe_2011,
that would have to be paid - but, with ASULUG as a registered campus
organization, would be low cost for us to use.  The downside is that,
despite being on campus, it is a long walk from the hotel -
approximately 20 minutes.  (Ryan and I did the walk, at an extremely
leisurely, slow-as-we-could-go pace, which wasn't hard since... it was
105ish outside while we were doing it.) I don't know how most people
would feel about this - but it's not something driveable, since it's
in the middle of basically walkways and such on campus, and on-campus
parking near there is somewhat limited to people who have special
passes for special parking lots. However, we could find out what the
availability is, if we decide that exercise isn't going to be bad for
anyone, and in the event that the Brickyard (option #1) is just not
possible.

Obviously, given its proximity to the hotel, as well as the abundance
of CSE students who will be around, the Brickyard is the preferred
option - not to mention the likely cost of Free or Cleaning Fee-type
thing.  I'm hoping to hear back from Adam and Zach, who are both
awesome, in the coming days.

A bit about the local community:  ASULUG recently did an overhaul /
cleanup of its mailing list where they required everyone to
re-sign-up.  They had 163 re-subscribe; they also noted that
installfests usually bring 40-50 people, and that regular ASU LUG
meetings generally have 20-30 attendees.  Both Adam and Zach stated
that they both believed a large number of those people would be
interested in attending at least part of FUDCon.  Phoenix, from what I
understand (not living there) also has a sizeable LUG community; there
are also nearby technical colleges (DeVry and University of Advancing
Technology) with students who would likely participate (both of these
schools regularly host PLUG meetings).

Internet access is something else that is currently being looked into.
 ASU students, of course, have campus-wide wireless access; guests,
however, are limited to http and https only.  So the option was
discussed of running wireless access points off of some of the ASU
student's student IDs, which obviously isn't preferable.  At this
point, the likely solutions are (a) to work with campus infrastructure
to get more comprehensive (and fast) access, or (b) to bring in our
own.  Zach, having graduated from ASU recently, runs a business where
he can set that type of situation up - details / costs not yet
discussed - but the option is available, either from him, or another
local provider (and we'd likely still ahve to coordinate with ASU on
this). Obviously, internet access is crucial here, so that's being
worked on.

As a note of interest (mchua, I'm looking at you - and we discussed
this a bit on IRC the other day) - apparently, there is not much of a
focus on FOSS at ASU.  As in, most of the professors don't talk about
it, it's not heavily utilized in courses, etc.  So - I think it could
certainly be a good place to actually have a bit of an information
session for the professors themselves.  Particularly since ASULUG
seems to have pretty active participation - lots of students who are
self-motivated to learn about Linux, but maybe aren't getting the
level of education in that area that they'd be happy to devour.

Anyway: bottom line - we're still trying to make contact with new
faculty person, Adam and Zach said that we could probably consider
having someone (Paul, most likely) send a more official-sounding mail
to this person in the event we don't hear back relatively soon. As I
said - it's graduation week, so there's probably quite a bit of chaos
at the moment. But I think the college would be interested in hosting
us - after all, if they're hosting MS informational sessions, surely
they'd be interested in offering their students some diversity,
opportunity to network, learn new things, etc.  Internet access is
also being worked on. Ryan and I will be continuing to work on this
bid, of course, so feel free to check out the wiki page over the next
few weeks to view our progress.

-robyn