A proposal for your thoughts, as we plan future FUDCons...

[Robyn Bergeron]

On 04/11/2011 07:28 AM, Chris Tyler wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-04-11 at 07:04 -0700, Robyn Bergeron wrote:
>> I'd like to get feedback on a possible thought around FUDCon.  I've
>> spoken with some folks about it in passing but I think it might be
>> worthwhile to bring up as an idea for pondering.
>>
>> The idea is fairly simple: Trying out the idea of having a US-based
>> "worldwide" FUDCon for a year. I think we had a great deal of success,
>> and quite a bit of added productivity, in bringing in a handful of
>> contributors from other regions for the Tempe FUDCon just a few months
>> ago.  I believe that adding larger numbers of contributors from other
>> regions might help to scale that productivity and "getting things done"
>> in a great way.
>>
>> I'd suggest that this would work in the following way: Rather than have
>> the NA FUDCon in Q4 of Red Hat's 2012 fiscal year (December 2011 -
>> February 2012), we allocate Q4 budget, plus the majority of next year's
>> budget for ALL FUDCons, towards a FUDCon in sometime between March and
>> July of next year (2012). We still use the regional money for the
>> 2012-2013 fiscal year by region, ie: 20k for bringing in folks from
>> Europe, etc. I think we could bring in a BOATLOAD (or airplane-load, I
>> suppose) of regional folks for that money.
>>
>> And then shift back to having regular regional FUDCons the following
>> year, and then possibly back to another worldwide fudcon the year
>> following that, depending on success/fail.
>>
>> (This might also have the benefit of having fudcon in the US in a season
>> that, quite frankly, doesn't suck for travel with snow.)
>>
>> Thoughts, comments, flames? I think it's worthwhile to at least consider
>> the idea. I realize that we already have had the deadline pass for
>> submitting bids for a FUDCon in NA late this year/early next year,
>> though I suppose it's not entirely set in stone.  Pros/cons welcome!
>>
>> -Robyn
> Sounds like an interesting possibility.
>
> If you do this, I'd like to suggest that the worldwide FUDCons be
> specified as NA-based rather than US-based, because there are some in
> the community (Alan Cox comes to mind, and other too) who flat-out
> refuse to travel to the US because they are not confident that they are
> welcome due to their work with cryptography and/or US-patent-encumbered
> and/or DMCA-related technologies (or simple visa issues) - no one wants
> to risk being the next Dmitry Sklyarov, for example.
>
> Occasionally hosting the worldwide FUDCon outside of the US would permit
> these people to attend, and I think that FUDCon Toronto proved that it's
> not necessarily more expensive to "go north".
Yes, I think you and Seth are both right about the prospects of Canada, 
and I'm just living in my "US IS THE ONLY THING IN NORTH AMERICA" 
universe at this wee hour of the morning in my neck of the woods.  :) I 
didn't mean to be exclusionary. :D

-Robyn
> -Chris
>
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