ApacheConUs2009Program

Help us make ApacheCon US 2009 the best, most innovative open source conference ever. All Apache projects are invited to create their ideal community event to be co-located as part of ApacheCon this November. Proposals will be reviewed and approved by FIXME. To submit a proposal, see the directions below. This page also contains other planning notes for ApacheCon US 2009. Keep these in mind as you prepare your community event.

What's Happening At ApacheCon US 2009?

The following events are currently planned. As the organizers review community proposals, these events could be modified; however, for the most part, planners can consider these events fixed.

• Two days of training courses (as usual)
• A two day business/community track (standard session format)
• An evening Apache "birthday bash"
• A two day BarCamp (see below)
• Open community "Get Togethers" scheduled for the evenings (see below)
  

Birthday Bash

We want to hold a huge party on Tuesday night to kick off the event. There will be cake! And beer! And even music!

BarCamp Apache

We'd like to fold the current Hackathon event into a open, two day BarCamp running Monday and Tuesday at the start of the conference. Those that just want to hack are welcome and will be given space. The BarCamp will extend into the evening to allow those with day jobs to be able to participate. We expect there will be an approximate 2-hour break between the day and evening sessions.

Communities are encouraged and welcome to participate in the BarCamp, but be aware that this is a completely open unconference. If a project community wants more dedicated time, then please either plan a Get Together or a conference community event.

Get Togethers

Carrying the tradition of successful Get Togethers from ApacheCon Europe, we will open each night of the conference for public community Get Togethers. These should be focused on a specific community / technology and must be self-organized. There is no budget for these events, so if you need something more than just space, that must be arranged by the community. Get Togethers will be noted in the main conference program and on the website.

If you don't need a full Get Together, we're still hoping to have space for BoFs (BirdsOfaFeather). However, BoFs will not be part of the formal conference program and space may not be available for reservation until the event is underway.

What about the CFPs

We still have them! The concom team received many excellent proposals. These have been reviewed and organized into potential conference tracks. However, we're holding these in reserve. Once we review the community events, we'll go back and fill in any remaining time with these sessions. If a PMC would like to see what's already been submitted, contact your concom representative.

Pricing and Logistics

Pricing for the event is still not certain. Our hope is to accommodate the following:

• All evening events are free to the public (party, evening BarCamp, GetTogethers)
• The two day BarCamp and Hackathon will be free to the public
• The training courses will continue to have a per-course fee. No discounts.
• The day-time content on Wed-Fri will require a registration fee.
  

We want to keep the main registration fee as low as possible. The following proposals are under consideration:

• Speaker travel reimbursement may be dropped completely with only case-by-case exceptions being made, perhaps in coordination with the Travel Assistance Committee.
• Speakers invited for a traditional 50-minute session (ie- business track, etc.) will still have ??? hotel nights covered.
• For every one hour of featured community event content, a single speaker will have ??? hotel nights covered. See below.
• There is no budget to cover speaker/participant costs for the BarCamp and Get Togethers.
• Committer and member discounts may be eliminated if it means significant drop in overall registration fees. This point is very uncertain yet.
  

For each hour of a featured community event, we hope to provide ??? hotel nights for a single speaker/participant. This effectively corresponds to the support given a traditional 50-minute session speaker. However, since community events are not limited to the 50-minute session format, some flexibility is provided.

For example, a community event may include a 1 hour panel with 3 project committers. In this case, only 1 speaker's hotel nights will be covered. It will be up to community event organizers to identify which committers get this support. A full day community event equates to 6 speaker slots.

Featured Community Events

Seeing the great success of previous events like the OFBiz User Symposium and the Hadoop Camp at ApacheCon US 2009, we hope to run project/technology specific community events in November. The exact definition (and even the name) of these events is still fuzzy, but some features include:

• Not the same as a unconference like BarCamp. Could incorporate some unconference features, but is likely not just an unconference.
• Could focus on a single ASF project or a collection of related projects.
• Could possibly be designed as one or more very focused conference tracks.
• Does not necessarily need to include 50-minute slide-powered presentations.
• Should be focused enough that the event could be marketed on its own.
• Should be attractive enough that people will be willing to pay a registration fee to offset our costs.
• May feature specific sponsors
  

Planning Your Event

You can use this wiki or one of your own to put together your community event proposal. We encourage you to reach out to your user community for ideas and participation. To get started, create or link to a new page below: