On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 12:43 AM, Vaidik Kapoor <kapoor.vai...@gmail.com> wrote: > Minutes of the meeting are now available at > http://www.lug-iitd.org/Freed.in_2011/2012#Minutes_of_the_Meeting [...]
Thank you for doing that, and sorry for the delay in responding. It has been a rather hectic week. In the future, I would also request that we freeze meeting dates several days in advance to give people a chance to arrange schedules. Please also excuse the tl;dr. I am disturbed at some things that are noted in the minutes. I wish that I could have been at the meeting. Here are some notes on what is worrying me: * I think that the most important point that the people wanting to do this need to address is why do they want to take over Freed.in. Please do not see this as a dog-in-the-manger attitude: I would be most happy to see a new lease of life for Freed.in, but would question whether people have thought through the matter: - IMHO, the time is ripe for a new event in India that can take over what FOSS.in was doing in the last few years. However, such a developer-oriented event has been far from the focus of Freed.in, though Freedel was indeed close to this. IMHO, people should consider whether they want to revive Freedel rather than Freed.in.Or, start a new conference, hmm, let us call it maybe noname-conf? - My (again, very personal) opinion is that the FOSS developer community in India is not yet strong enough to support such an event, without adequate planning from the side of the organisers. This does not mean that such an event is not worth doing, but that it needs more of an organisational effort. * I am also surprised at the fact that people seem to be ready to jump into a major event without any lead-up. IMHO, a good plan would have been to start with smaller, more-focused events, which let the organisers gauge interest in such a developer-oriented event, and gain experience in organising events. Why does it seem that this was not even discussed? * One point, re an item in the minutes: "Satyakam suggested that the reasons to have an event like Freed.in are different than the reasons that we are going to tell the prospective sponsors as sponsors are looking for benefits. Reasons like FOSS advocacy, etc. are not what they'll be interested in. " I find this attitude unbelievable for people purportedly interested in freedom and openness, and I would also hope that the above was not the actual attitude. However, if true, I for one am going to be vehemently against such an event. Not to mince words, the above is basically lying to sponsors to get money, and at least IMHO, it would be better if Freed.in died rather than it morph into such an event. * I would also take issue with various reminiscences about Freed.in, as noted in the minutes, but that is not important right now, and I will approach the right people with a clue-bat in this regard. Regards, Gora _______________________________________________ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd