Pycon disappointment

[Kay Schluehr]

On 16 Mrz., 21:52, Bruce Eckel <BruceTEc... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 16, 2:48 pm, Pete Forde <p... at unspace.ca> wrote:
>
> > My friends and I decided to stage a grassroots Ruby conference this
> > summer; it will have no paid sponsors for exactly this reason. We're
> > trying to change up the typical format as well: it's a single-track
> > event, no "keynotes", no schills for well-heeled interests. We're even
> > organizing activities for significant others traveling with conference
> > attendees so that everyone has a good time.
>
> > The response we've gotten to this approach has been curious; many
> > people totally get why these things are important, and the speaker
> > list reflects this. However, we've also had a lot of complaints that
> > our event is too expensive. In fact, they say that it should be free,
> > like a BarCamp. Just get a bunch of sponsors, and that will be the
> > ticket. We say bollocks to that.
>
> >http://rubyfringe.com/
>
> I've been running open spaces conferences for the past few years and I
> would suggest you do that instead of an "eyes-forward" conference.
> It's not only a lot easier, but it's also a lot more fun. For example,
> last week we did the Java Posse Roundup, which is all open-spaces.

Since the rubyfringe seems to make also a commitment against the Ruby
mainstream I'm not sure how Open Spaces can help? Self organization is
always an aid for those who are already strong, maintain popular
projects ( Rails, Django... anyone? ) and keep lots of attention. I
certainly wouldn't attend to an Open Space conference if I intended to
make my development and findings public.