Status report for the Apache Conference Planning Project (April 2008)
General News
------------
* J. Aaron Farr will be the lead of the Web site team of the
conference committee which is responsible for maintaining
all Web pages related to the conference committee.
* The conference committee has decided to stop any efforts regarding
an Apache-related event in Peru for 2008.
* SCP and the conference committee are in the process of discussing
location and hotel options for ApacheCon Europe 2009. The conference
may be held in Amsterdam again, but no final decision has been made
yet.
Conference Overview
-------------------
* ApacheCon Europe 2008
Location and date: Amsterdam, April 7-11, 2008
Lead: Noirin Shirley
Co-Lead: Lars Eilebrecht
Planning list: planners-2008-eu@apachecon.com
Producer: Stone Circle Productions, Inc.
* ApacheCon US 2008
Location and date: New Orleans, November 3-7, 2008
Lead: Shane Curcuru
Co-Lead: Noel J. Bergman
Planning list: planners-2008-us@apachecon.com
Producer: Stone Circle Productions, Inc.
* OSSummit Asia 2008 (joint-conference with Eclipse Foundation)
Location and date: (location and date to be defined)
Leaders: J Aaron Farr, Justin Erenkrantz, Noirin Shirley
Planning list: planners-2008-asia@apachecon.com
Producer/Owner: OSSummit LLC
ApacheCon Europe 2008 News
--------------------------
* The Hackathon was attended by about 60 committers and guests
(10 registered for a single day only).
* A post-conference press release will be published a few weeks
after the conference.
<<< --- confidential - please remove from published minutes --- >>>
* Information about Hackathon registration issue:
People registering at the ASF-sponsored rate paid a slightly
higher rate than intended. The ASF was supposed to pay 70 Euro
+ VAT per person per day, but the VAT part was actually kept
on the fee the Hackathon attendees paid. So everyone paid 13.30 Euro
(per day) in addition to what the intended fee was supposed to be.
Because of the VAT issue and the USD exchange rate the late/onsite
rate became 200 USD (actually 212 but Charel rounded down to 200).
When concom found out about the issue the rate was fixed. Only
one committer registered for the 200 USD rate and SCP is offering
extra paid money. However, refunding the additional VAT portion
to everyone is not really an option as SCP would have to face high
credit card chargeback fees.
<<< --- confidential --- >>>
ApacheCon US 2008 News
----------------------
* The Call for Papers for ApacheCon US is closed (received more
than 200 proposals), and the planning meeting was held the
weekend after ApacheCon Europe 2008 in Amsterdam. Speakers
will be notified by the end of May.
* The US 2008 Web site is planned to be published by the end of
May.
* The conference committee is discussing changes to the
overall structure of the conference and hackathon. One
decision has been to experiment with BarCamp/Unconference
sessions in addition to regular ApacheCon sessions.
The current plan is to have single-day BarCamp on the
Tuesday during the conference, and to combine it with the
Hackathon in terms of registration.
OSSummit Asia 2008 News
-----------------------
We have a number of speakers who still have tickets to Hong Kong that
need to be used. (Most speakers had their tickets fully reimbursed by
the producer. Some speakers voluntarily held on to their tickets.)
We will try to determine which speakers are in this situation and then
try to either schedule them to go to smaller events to raise
awareness or for a 1-2 day OS Summit conference in Asia later this
year.
We had tentatively set a date of December 2008 for OS Summit Asia in
Shanghai, but, after the recent EclipseCon, the Eclipse Foundation
representatives have decided that this date won't work for them due to
a pending release and an Eclipse board meeting in December. The ASF
is currently contemplating whether to still hold a small event in
December with only local Eclipse representatives.
After discussions with the producer in Amsterdam last week, we have
agreed that our focus should be on building the conference up from the
grassroots. Therefore, we will focus on raising our visibility at
smaller events. We have also decided to substantially scale back the
conference to 1-2 days at most from a longer 5 day ApacheCon-style
event to better fit the regional expectation for these events.
There is a COPU event in Guangzhou in May that J. Aaron and Greg are
planning on attending. Justin and Erik Abele (among others) have
volunteered to also help out OS Summit by attending other regional
events when we decide the promotional/awareness investment is worth
it.
