Call for bids?
Paul Frields
stickster at gmail.com
Mon Feb 8 13:44:44 UTC 2010
On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 7:26 PM, David Nalley <david at gnsa.us> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Paul W. Frields <stickster at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In about a month, Red Hat will be operating in its FY 2011. So I
>> think it would behoove us to open up the bid process for the FUDCon
>> for North America immediately. Are there any blockers to doing that
>> right now?
>
> The blockers would be $budget_giving_entity announcing a general
> amount budgeted. Of course we have a known general amount that we can
> use in the absence of the above.
Yes, we should be able to assume a round number of $20K as in previous
events for argument's sake, so this is a "soft" blocker.
I realized that the bid process document doesn't make it clear that we
should already have dates for the event. It won't be easy for bidders
to get travel and lodging costs figured out unless they know when
travel is taking place.
So first, I recommend that we add some documentation directly to the
FUDCon organization page that describes how and when event timing is
decided:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon_organization_process
Now, having said that... We know the NA FUDCon will take place in Q4,
December - February. The key factors are:
* Holidays. The last half of December and the beginning of January are
out because most most North America will be celebrating the season.
Also note that holiday vacations may make planning more of a challenge
leading up to a January event.
* School sessions. The beginning of December tends to be harder to
schedule free space at most universities and colleges because classes
or final exams are in session. We were fortunate that Seneca @York had
space available in Toronto during the first weekend in December, but
that may not be the case in most places.
* Attendance. Similarly, students have a harder time attending an
early December FUDCon because of classes and exams. For example, Ricky
Zhou couldn't attend this year for this exact reason. While we don't
want a schedule to hang on just a very small group of people, student
attendance at any event can be a big gain for the event, exposing
potential new contributors to the Fedora community.
* Development cycle. If we wait until too late in the Fedora release
cycle to have a FUDCon, there may not be sufficient time before the
release to work on the initiatives set up at the event. However, if
the FUDCon concentrates on initiatives *following* the next release
this may be less of a problem. In other words, this NA FUDCon is held
before the release of Fedora 14, and perhaps could concentrate on what
will happen *after* that release.
Balancing these conflicting pressures is always difficult. In Toronto
we opted for an early December event, but it was not without
tradeoffs. This coming year, December 3-6, January 7-10, or January
14-17 look like they will best meet our needs.
Thoughts from the group? How should we decide what dates to use?
Paul
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