Dear OpenOffice.org Community, I would like to officially propose Barcelona as the place to hold the OpenOffice.org Conference 2007.
Barcelona is one of the most dynamic and stylish cities in the world. It is always on the biting cutting edge of architecture, food, fashion, style, music and night life. The people, with their exuberance, their creative spirit, and their persistent egalitarianism, are an example of coexistence and integration of cultures. Barcelona today is a city prepared to receive thousands of visitors everyday. It is very well connected, and there is accommodation available to host the whole OpenOffice.org Community and many more. For instance, in addiction, flying to Barcelona from most European countries is very cheap when you book in advance with the appropriate low-cost companies. The Catalan Native Lang Project is one of the historic projects inside the OpenOffice.org Community. Although small and humble, it's been here since the very beginning of the OpenOffice.org project, much before the existence of the Native Lang Community. We worked together with Sun in 2000 to translate OpenOffice.org 1.0 into the Catalan language and since then we have continued our work on a volunteer basis for seven years. It is true that we are small team, but we have distributed more than 2 million copies of OpenOffice.org in Catalan for a population of approximately 10 million speakers around the world. Altogether, the Catalan, Spanish, Basque and Galician communities will work hard to make Barcelona the best place to hold an OpenOffice.org Conference. We hope to hear as many languages as possible here, especially the voices of all those small teams of translators that are the true treasure of the OpenOffice.org Community. Yours sincerely, Jesús Corrius Catalan Native Lang Project Leader - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Key Question. Why is your location and the date you propose the best for OOoCon 2007? * Airports (Barcelona, Reus, Girona) with easy access to international flights and with regular low cost flights. * Nice Mediterranean weather and excellent food * Strong localization community (based fully on voluntary work) * Interest from the local government in free software * More than 100 local companies working on free software services and products * Lots of cultural activities: museums, modernist buildings. * Terrific night life Location (country, city, conference center/university) Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain). At the University of Barcelona in the city center. Proposed Date(s) 3rd week of September 2007 19/20/21 of September 2007 could be a good date. The attendants could spend the following weekend visiting the city. Team Lead (main contact person) Jesús Corrius (Catalan Native Lang Project Leader / L10N), jesus at softcatala.org Team Members (all members should be willing and able to commit at least 3 hours per day to planning the conference during the last two weeks before OOoCon 2007) * Jesús Corrius, jesus at softcatala.org * Ignasi Labastida, University of Barcelona * Jordi Mas, jmas at softcatala.org * Ismael Fanlo * Josep Gallart, josepgallart gmail.com * Tania De la Paz * Toni Hermoso, tonirher at softcatala.org * David Poblador, david at nirvanis.org * Alberto Barrionuevo, abarrio at EstandaresAbiertos.org (for ODF promotion stuff -active in FFII, ODF Alliance and OpenDocument Fellowship-) * Quim Perez i Noguer, noguer at gmail.com * Quim Perelló i Miro, quim at gracianet.cat Softcatalà (about 10 people, more if needed), Core team of the CA project (about 5 people), staff of the University of Barcelona. Local events taking place in parallel (or right before/after) * 11th of September is the National Day of Catalonia * 19th - 22nd September: Drupalcon Barcelona 2007 Special visa or entry requirements, e.g. vaccinations We recommend that you ensure you remain legal while resident in Spain and do not try to enter the country without the required paperwork. There is a large population of illegal immigrants and this is a politically sensitive issue so there are efforts being made to prevent entry and to find and deport people living illegally in the country. Citizens of the European Union are not required to get a visa for Spain since they already have the right to residency. Non-EU citizens visiting Spain need a visa (visado) in order to enter and visit Spain, unless there exists a special agreement between Spain and your home country; these countries are those of North & South America in addition to: Andorra, Australia, Brunei, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Gibraltar, Grenada, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia and Switzerland. If you are one of these nationalities, you can enter Spain without a visa and stay for up to 90 days in any 6-month period. Visas are managed by the Spanish Ministerio de Asuntos Extranjeros (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) through its consulates and embassies around the world. You apply for and obtain a visa through the Spanish consulate nearest to your residence before you travel. Honorary consuls generally cannot issue visas but may provide application forms. Since visas are never issued in Spain, you must apply for them before you leave your country of residency. Do not attempt to enter Spain without a visa if you need one. There is no emergency procedure, you can't bribe the police, your embassy in Spain can't help and you will probably be refused entry. Generally, you should apply for your visa about 8-12 weeks before the date of your arrival in Spain. You must first have a valid passport with at least three months until expiry in order to apply, so be sure to allow adequate time to obtain or renew both the passport and get the visa application processed. Don?t leave this to the last minute or you put your travel plans at risk. No vaccinations. Large local OpenOffice.org deployments (for user keynotes and success stories) * LinkAt. Catalan government GNU/Linux distribution for education. * GnuLinEx is an initiative of the regional government of Extremadura, Spain. It is already used in all schools in Extremadura, as well as intended for official institutions based on 2006 motion of ODF adoption. It is actively promoted for business, society and home use as well. * Guadalinex is an initiative of the regional government of Andalusia, biggest in Spain. It is already used in a big share of schools in Andalusia, as well as intended for official institutions. It is promoted for society at public info-centers (Guadalinfo) at all villages in Andalusia. * Lliurex. Valencian government GNU/Linux distribution for education * Molinux. Castillan-La Mancha, Spain, government GNU/Linux distribution for education and public health. Already running in all public first level health centers. Names of local OpenOffice.org developers (for developer sessions) * OPS Consulting * Jesús Corrius, Softcatalà (Catalan L10N) * Iñaki Larrañaga (Basque L10N) * Ruben Da Silva (Galician L10N) Names of local OpenOffice.org vendors/partners (potential sponsors) * T-Systems * Novell Barcelona * Generalitat de Catalunya * Universitat Oberta de Catalunya * Rinho Sistemas * OPENTIA * EstándaresAbiertos.org (open standards promotion project). * Ajuntament de Barcelona * Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade Travel costs (e.g. flight costs from the following cities: London, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Sydney, New York, Hamburg, Dublin, San Francisco, South Africa, Tokyo) London 280 euros Paris 200 euros Beijing 770 euros Sydney 900 euros New York 510 euros Hamburg 230 euros Dublin 230 euros San Francisco 880 Euros South Africa 700 euros Tokyo 920 euros Accommodation costs (youth hostel, hotel) 4 stars hotels ABBA SANTS Numància, 32 08029 Barcelona Phone: +34 936003100 http://www.abbahotels.com AC DIPLOMATIC Pau Claris, 122 08009 Barcelona Phone: +34 932723810 http://www.ac-hotels.com 3 stars hotels Holel ATLANTIS Pelai, 20 08001 Barcelona http://www.hotelatlantis-bcn.com Hotel CONTINENTAL BARCELONA La Rambla, 138 08002 Barcelona Phone:+34 933012570 http://www.hotelcontinental.com 2 stars hotels Hotel CATALUÑA Santa Anna, 24 08002 Barcelona Phone: +34 933019150 Hotel CONDAL Boqueria, 23 08002 Barcelona Telèfon: +34 933181882 Average meal costs 10 euros at lunch time, 15 euros at dinner time (these are the average prices of the city center) Other useful links * OpenOffice.org Catalan translation team * Official website of the city of Barcelona * University of Barcelona More up to date information and original proposal here: http://www.softcatala.org/wiki/OOoCon Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions Thanks and regards, -- Jesús Corrius http://www.corrius.org/bloc/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Podeu consultar els arxius d'aquesta llista o canviar la vostra subscripció a http://www.softcatala.org/llistes/ ----------------------------------------------------------------
