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- YES
- YES, but only to certain people/groups (rbowen - free to committers and those they personally invite ) ( sgala - we've always paid t-shirts, beer has been subsidized or should be paid individually too also )
- NO, but it should be cheap (costs for beer and t-shirts) (niclas - I don't mind paying a bit. Euro20 for free flow of beer for two days would be great!)
- NO, I don't care what it costs
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Moving the hackathon off-site is not only inconvenient, but limits the mixing of hackathon attendees and training attendees. It also adds complexity to running and promoting the event. A separate hackathon might also been seen as competing with, rather than working with, the main conference, siphoning away registration. We want a successful hackathon, but not at the expense of the main conference.
(niclas - Instead of moving the Hackathon out of the main event, move both to a cheaper location. There are both universities as well as companies capable of housing the event at little or no cost to us. Even consider to co-locate ApacheCon with another (potentially commercial one) conference(s), where they provide the space, organization, cost and so on, we just bring our formats, our people and fun.)
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Open up Hackathon Registration
Traditionally, the hackathon has been reserved for Apache committers and members and special guests. This was due in part to the necessity of limiting the number of attendees given the space available. Rather than limit the audience, the hackathon should be open to any interested person.
(niclas - We preach an open development. Live up to it!)
Counter Argument
Costs for space are going to rise with the number of attendees. If we open it to everyone, we might need to have registration ahead of time to get an idea of space requirements. Traditionally, people have just showed up, and neglected to register.
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Dedicate half a day, or a full day, to a specific project or group of closely related projects. Allow at least some of this time to be planned and organized by the project PMC (with assistance from conference planners). This could allow project mini-conferences, with coordinated talks, panels, demos, etc.
(niclas - yes. Every PMC should be allowed its own track, either half or full day, provided that they get at least N number of registered attendees, for instance 3 months before the conference. Failing that, the track is pulled. This pushes promotion of the conference to the PMCs which I feel is not involved enough.)
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Un-Conference the Conference
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Similarly, we could emphasize more Fast-Feather like talks over 50-minute sessions. (see How to include more projects?)
(niclas - we should aim at expanding the audience and not detract existing one. By increasing FF, BOFs, project tracks, and other new concepts, are not necessarily mutually exclusive with current presentation and training formats.)
Counter Argument
We have been, for quite some time, very focused on end-user and administrator training. By not having a published schedule, we'll immediately lose half of our attendees. This is a clear difference between existing committers who already know about our projects, and new users who want to learn the overviews.
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Rather than run a single event during one week, run several coordinated events thoughout a week. For example, two days could be a hackathon at a cheaper location, one day could be an un-conference (or several project-focused un-conferences), and the last two days are a more expensive user/business conference at a nice hotel. Each day or event would be targeted at a specific audience (developers, specific project community, enterprise users, etc.).
(niclas - I think this is a bad idea.)
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Question the Speaker reimbursements
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As an addition, the PRC (ex Travel Assistance Committee) could offer some compensation for the speakers who wouldn't be able to make it because they would have to pay the costs from their own pocket.
(niclas - I only know of the Oredev conference which my company organizes. It pays expenses for many speakers, but not our own in-house ones, and speakers that promotes company products. I think it makes sense to allow a bit more product pitches, and other commercial perks, to both make the sponsorship more valuable as well as improving the financials.)
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Location
US ApacheCon is in a different city every year. AC EU will have been in Amsterdam three years running (after next year). Amsterdam is a great city and all, but variety is the spice of life, as they say. Let's look at providing fresh venues that provide the right balance between attending the conference and taking in the culture and fun that good locations have to offer.
(niclas - Agree. Amsterdam is great, but there are many great cities in Europe.)
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Leave Things Alone
ApacheCon works. Why are we trying to change it?
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