[EuroPython] EP 2004 decision rather quickly?

[Magnus Lyckå]

At 10:33 2003-07-04 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>Please don't drop the ball.

I agree that Denis and Tom shouldn't "drop the ball", but
I think we should be open to alternatives. I would be very
happy if they would reformulate their "decision" to arrange
EPC 2004 to an "offer" to arrange EPC 2004 and let us look
at this together with alternatives for maybe two weeks or so.

I think it would be awful if there was some kind of split among
the people who work for Europython. I felt very welcome in
Charleroi, and I really enjoyed what Denis, Tom and the others
had made, so it's painful to write these emails, it really is,
but in a year from now, I hope we will all be happy that we
didn't make a premature decision now.

Sometimes email feel like a really poor way of communication. If
we had been sitting face to face, I don't think it would be clear
to all all involved that this is nothing personal, but that we
think differently about how to decide things like that, and I
think it's reasonable that we do that, and that it's important
that we can solve this in an open and constructive way.

There was obviously an offer from Göteborg to arrange 2004, and
I think it will lead to some bad feelings that might shadow next
years event if this option isn't even discussed. There are pros
and cons with every alternative. Maybe Göteborg is to far away
for too many people? Maybe there are other disadvantages? Perhaps
it is better to wait for 2005? I think the least we can do is to
have a look at a proposal, instead of rushing to a decision.

I agree that this shouldn't take too long. I share Denis' worries
that preparations for next year could get late again.

As I said before, this might be a cultural thing. In different
places, we have different ways of arriving at conclusions and
we find different methods more or less acceptable. With a mixed
group like this, I guess we have to work that out somehow. I think
it has to take some time. For the future it might be good if we
could decide on some kind of decision making process, so that we
don't have to argue about points of order.

The Göteborg alternative was proposed in april, and Marc-Andre the
one who suggested that we should let that issue rest until we came
to Charleroi. It was discussed there, but not a lot, which is under-
standable, since everybody was busy with the current events. I heard
Laura and Jacob state clearly that they were prepared to do it though.
They were certainly more clear about their ambition than Denis was then.

>Would be nice if the candidates for the next events would step
>forward.

Agreed. Even if Laura and Jacob have been verbal about this I'd
like to see a clear statement to the mailing list about it. If
nothing else, it's good to have the propsal in the mailing list
archives.

If there are other solid offers I'd like to see them as well of
course.

>>Gosh, I thought I had understood Francis Glasborough... :-(
>
>You did :-)

But he isn't running Europython, and I bet he didn't have half
the relevant experience of the Göteborg team when he started
doing the ACCU conference. It also seems he's doing this more
or less on his own. With the people in Göteborg, I think the
effort would survive even if (touch wood) someone would be hit
by a bus.


--
Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyckå), magnus@thinkware.se
Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se
I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language