Charles-H.Schulz wrote:
+1. We could also add as a perequisite: at least one computer with OOo
on it.
Let's reduce that to "strongly prefer". No one doubts that having at
least one computer with OOo on it is very important, but it might not be
possible some times.
Besides that, yes, I agree.
At some point the question would also boil down to this one: how much
money can we spend on the whole.
Then, I would classify events in the following way:
I. the OpenOffice.org events : OOoCON OOoRegicon, official events made
by NL projects
II. the FLOSS events: Linux World, Linux Expo, Solutions Linux, local
events, etc.
III. the other events: the NEA is a good example, but there are others
of course.
Another way to divide events is based on their out-reach value. One of
our goals is to get people who are not using OOo to start using OOo.
This means going to conferences that are not about OOo or even FLOSS
because those are the people who haven't heard of OOo yet.
I'll elaborate on this point in a moment.
On these three types of events, we should apply the subsidiarity
principle (EU commission is taking control of my brain). The
subsidiarity principle means that an event that can be supported (ie.e
funded) locally, by the corresponding NL projects for instance, has to
be funded locally. If it can't, the request has to be sent either to the
Marketing project either to Team OpenOffice.org (this point needs some
work) who will then see if it can send money or not, and why. In short,
subsidiarity means that what can be done and funded locally has to be
done and funded locally.
I like the subsidiary idea, yes. It fits well into how open source is.
If I think of what the open source model is, the first words that come
to my mind are "de-centralized", "grass-roots", and "bazaar". It seems
to me that grass roots model like what Charles is proposing would
naturally tend to work well in an open source project.
So here I'll say +1.
Second point, related to the aforementioned policy. Who is in "charge"
locally of funding or supporting the event. NL project leads or, when
there's no NL projects, MarCons. If there isn't any MarCon available,
call either Jacqueline or John and they'll get parachuted over the
warzone :-) ...
In general, that sounds good.
Of course there will be exceptions. The NEA conference is an example. It
was announced ahead of time on the marketing list, but neither the leads
nor the MacCons were interested in. So it was funded by the volunteers
going in themselves.
Third point. You saw the three different kinds of events I described
above. Let's put some priority on them, and let's add some flexibility
to these priorities.
category I: highest priority. Maximum efforts should be put there.
Except for OOoCON, the subsidiarity policy applies.
category II: average priority, depending on the context: are we having a
major release? is there something important we should tell the world
about? subsidiarity applies there too.
category III: education events are important, but we should make sure
that we wouldn't make a mistake in going there (sometimes computing is
just not the topic), and there are tons of other events. If you pick one
that you feel could help boost OOo's popularity, go for it. Subsidiarity
also applies here.
If you wish I can design a .sxc matrix about this...
I think I would say that categories I and III are highest priority, for
different reasons:
* I is important for "in-reach". So the community members meet.
* III is important for "out-reach". So people who have never heard of
OOo, hear about it.
In general, I'd say that II scores relatively low in both "in-reach" and
"out-reach" (people in FLOSS conferences already know about OOo) so
should probably be our lowest priority.
Another thing, you said that some times computing isn't the topic. But
remember that for "out-reach" computing doesn't have to be the topic.
Some examples from education:
* If you are a language teacher, you'd be interested in OOo because it'd
help your students write their homework without spending money.
* If you are an art teacher, you'd be interested in OOo Draw.
So, if the conference isn't about computers, you modify your message so
that it appeals to the audience.
Cheers,
Daniel.
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