Comments on: OpenSource World? NOT!

By: i, quaid › OpenSource World as predicted

i, quaid › OpenSource World as predicted — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:47:42 +0000

[...] I have barely missed this event since I had my mind cracked open in 2001. But I stood firmly by my boycott of the event. If they were going to act ashamed of and stupid about the open source projects and community [...]

By: quaid

quaid — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:34:19 +0000

Almost worth getting a custom shirt made for the event – “Discuss open source with a real community contributor.” Yes, going to an event to talk honest open source with people is in fact a great contribution.

By: PB

PB — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:26:15 +0000

So there is a much smaller and less famous conference in the southeast who has repeatedly failed to invite the community, and instead focuses on the business aspect. Last year the majority of people were in business dress, yet they continue to call themselves an open source conference. This year I have invited every community person I know, and at least 20 of us will be rolling in and hopefully more. I set the dress code as ‘must wear a F/LOSSy tshirt.’ We may not be the intended audience but we will at least make our presence known.

By: Jeff Osier-Mixon

Jeff Osier-Mixon — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:28:36 +0000

It sounds like improvements are being made, and that’s a good thing. However, it can’t be a coincidence that some of the major prior attendees (like Access) are dropping out completely. I’m sure the economy is playing its part as well, but I think a lot of companies have paid big money to be a part of LW for years and never gotten a single qualified lead. I have heard this from more than one company, including some who were previously major sponsors.

I don’t think it is a relevance issue, but could be a positioning issue. Anyone looking to make a career out of open-source needs to understand the business end, which is what OSW addresses. It would certainly improve things to get open-source projects a free (if small) booth or area, and to invite them to give presentations on how they manage to stay in business.

Note that these are just my thoughts, as a longtime LW alum who always kind of felt like it was a big marketing extravaganza. It would be nice to learn there how to market open source to the public, rather than feeling like I was the target of the marketing.

By: Don Marti

Don Marti — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:27:15 +0000

Karsten, we’re also in Moscone West this year, with a smaller show floor and the conference sessions more convenient to everything else.

No more long escalator and Howard St. tunnel between the conference rooms and the exhibit hall — it’ll all be in one building, finally.

So a lot of the previously exhibits-only attendees will be able to go to the sessions, and will be in the “hallway track” outside the session rooms.

By: David Nalley

David Nalley — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:29:38 +0000

By: quaid

quaid — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:48:38 +0000

Thanks for the additional information, that makes more sense than what I had been finding/figuring out.
My main concern is still what it has always been – the segregation of open source community activities from the businesses and customers who benefit downstream.
I felt this the last few years with the .ORG Ghetto^H^H^H^H^H^HPavillion. It felt as if the dirty community people were being separated and hidden from the clean, expensive, paid-for booths.
While I can see how your new format is a potentially fair compromise between IDG’s perceived business needs and a desire to give communities no-cost space, I can’t help but notice that:

Communities who don’t pay-to-play are not present on the show floor, where the majority of the “qualified” Linux attendees will be
Open source communities in rooms are much harder to find than when they are in a booth and right out front. This is especially true at the Moscone, where the meeting rooms are separated by floors or entire city blocks from the expo space that remains the bigger draw.
The separate community days means the community folks can continue to preach to the choir who show up there, but not have a chance to get their message in front of future participants and contributors

However, I’ll admit to being a bit drop-jawed at the no-cost access to everything. It is still selective and requires people to be pro-active about getting access, but perhaps it will have the effect of drawing more sales leads than an open door policy would. But it is rather generous and attractive!
I cannot speak for O’Reilly and I would be foolish to speak for Red Hat, but I will draw some comparisons.
First, Red Hat provides major funding for open source projects. I don’t see how they should be obligated to give free space at the Red Hat Summit, but they in fact have. The last 2008 Red Hat Summit in Boston had a full-fledged Fedora Users and Developers Conferences (FUDCon) alongside. FUDCons are no-cost to everyone, even those showing an interest in Fedora for the first time, and the FUDCon pass included access to the “Open Source” track at the Red Hat Summit.
Red Hat funds FUDCon for the Fedora community, and they are held all over the world. The next FUDCon is happening concurrently with LinuxTag in Berlin, and all no-cost FUDCon attendees who sign up in time receive a free pass to LinuxTag. Between all that and the years of upstream contributions, I’m going to figure Red Hat’s event planning people have every right to decide what they are going to charge for without it making Red Hat look stingy toward its lifeblood.
IDG has presumably made money off LinuxWorld over the years (or I would guess they would have given it up long ago), and providing no-cost front-and-center visibility for open source projects was a fair way to give some resources back to the communities that make LinuxWorld, and now OpenSource world, possible. I can see the same spirit of generosity in this new arrangement, but it continues to the same inexplicable practice of segregating and hiding the upstream communities from the downstream products and customers.
As for OSCON, last year was my first time attending, and one thing that struck me was the way the projects and commercial vendors were all jumbled together. I felt as if our Fedora booth was a first-class citizen. But I’ve no clue if we paid anything for that space, if it was anywhere near $1950 if we did, and how all that compares as apples to oranges with OpenSource World.
In the end, I’m mostly disappointed and bitter because I perceive a loss for myself. I’ve been going to LinuxWorld since I left a dot-bomb NT sysadmin job to go work at VA Linux back in 2000. I was there the following year when a big group of us had been laid off from VA and were looking for being acquired as a group; I remember us looking for contacts at the Red Hat booth. Year after that I was still at Red Hat and got the saving grace that moved my career in the right direction, again the same week as LinuxWorld. Finally, after that I was able to come to LinuxWorld as a contributor for the Fedora Project. This story arc might not work under this new scheme, and certainly what I got out of the show in years past is no longer a part of this new expo.

By: Don Marti

Don Marti — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:57:31 +0000

There are some other
changes to OpenSource World from LinuxWorld.

1. No free of charge dot-org booths on the show floor, but there will be meeting room space available for groups, in Moscone, during the event.

2. OSW is opening up for one-day miniconferences on Aug. 11, the day before the show. (Anyone from Fedora want to do one?)

3. Free of charge admission for qualified attendees (mail me if the web site puts you down as “not qualified” — if you do bona fide work with Linux or open source, you should be) for the *whole event*, conference tracks and all, not just the “exhibits only” pass as in past years.

Anyone from O’Reilly OSCON or Red Hat Summit want to match OSW on the free admission offer?