Hi, On Tuesday 19 August 2008 18:41, Margarita Manterola wrote: > DebianDay was introduced in 2005. Ever since then, we've been > struggling to make it happen. This year, due to several factors, it > ended up being a lot of effort and having about 100 participants. Was it really that much effort? I guess you mean it was too much effort for 100 participants (which I'm not sure I would agree with..)? Actually I think we did too *little* effort for DebianDay, eg. the schedule was finalized very late, there were hardly any blog posts, there was no mail to debconf-announce nor d-d-a, etc. (also users in .ar read planet.debian.org and (english) mailinglists). (Saying that I think there was too little effort done should absolutly not put down the work you spend on it, Marga. I'm aware what you have done few hours before the doors opened.) We also hardly planned DebianDay in the orgateam meetings (which is related to the fact, that a suitable venue was found only very late - but I dont think this is the only reason, see below), but i think this is one of the reasons, if not the reason, why you were basically alone in preparing it. > So, the proposals for next year's DebianDay: > 1) Do *NOT* do it at the end of DebConf. This was a BIG mistake on > our side, we were too tired to do things properly, and it took away > one resting day for us. I'm not sure this holds as you wrote it. If the event is well planned, tiredness is not so much a factor. Also, I think DebianDay should be (mainly) organized by someone, who is not the main organizer of DebConf. And if there wouldnt have been a day break with clean up and travelling of 400km in between, the resting day argument doesnt hold as well. Then it's just as if DebConf would last a day longer. Which also applies if DebianDay is the first day of the conference and which also has its problems: on the first day, (usually) not everything is going smooth, so it might be a bad idea to use that day to present ourselves to outsiders. So maybe having DebianDay is the middle of the conference is the way to go.(?) > 2) Do *NOT* do it at a different venue. DebianDay was not recorded > because it was too much effort to setup everything again there. I agree with the conclusion, but I dont think its the only nor then main reason: you need to clean up twice, you need to set up twice (not only video stuff), you need to travel/move, you loose Debconf attendees who were at DebConf, you destroy the spirit (and need to rebuild it poorly within a day), etc. > 3) Before deciding anything, think if it's really worth it. We don' t > seem to be able to attract the "Decision Makers" that we state that > come to DebianDay. Only Debian users, and not many of them. Arg. "Only" users????? Without users, doing Debian work would be masturbation. And btw^w!, I dont think we can ever attract decission makers with a DebianDay. For once, those people have very full calendars, so it's rather unlikely they will show up anyway. If we'd provide a nice setting (think buffet, with nice music and so on), they would _maybe_ shuffle some free time in their calendar (to get the food, not to do listen, though). But coming to DebianDay to listen about Debian and how great free software is? A decision maker who wastes his time like this shouldnt be one. Really. They either go to a conference specialised for managers needs, read some article in some manager magazine (_if_ they are interested at all) or send some technican, aka a user, so that this someone can later inform her. If we really thought (I never thought that), that we can attract decision makers with DebianDay, I think its high time to get over it. So why do I think DebianDay is useful? Simply because of the users. Which in the long (or hopefully shorter) run hopefully become contributors. IMO thats all and IMO thats great. (And contributor IMO also starts very early, as soon as you help someone else, you're a contributor.) BTW, I also always disagreed with the notion that DebianDay is not for developers. I think DebianDay should be for users and developers together. And some talks _very_ well fit into this: > I think that it might be better to group together the DebConf talks > that do not require to be an active contributor, and declare that day > the "Open to community" day. Some possible examples from this year: > > * the Debian Videoteam -- Behind the Scenes > * Internationalization in Debian (actually, any of the keynotes) > * Predictable PRNG in the Vulnerable Debian OpenSSL Package > * LessWatts > * Virtualisation in Debian - Present and future > * Method diffusion in large volunteer projects > * Lightning Talks > * Sustainable Computing > * Peace, Love and Rockets Yup, nice. Regarding next year (and a bit about this year as well): I definitly think we should hold DebianDay in Caceres (and also think Mar del Plata could have been a good choice): the big conferences are in the capitals _anyway_, so there is probably less interest for DebianDay in a big city, where there are many events over the year anyway. I expect the DebianDay in Caceres to be quite successful: many many people in the whole region Extremadura have been using Debian (there aka Linex) for up to ten years and Badajoz and Merida are close by (and Portugal, Madrid and Sevilla are not that far) and people in the countryside are used to travel longer distances too. The comparison with OpenDay at LCA, which Anibal mentioned, IMO doesnt hold up (fully): LCA is a distro agnostic event and OpenDay has presentations from many distros and free software projects. So this is a much better place to go (for the average linux user) than a special interest event like DebianDay. Last and least, probably the holiday (DebianDay was a holiday in Buenas Aires) also contributed to less attendees: many students and professionals rather spend this day with their friends and families outside, than in a conference building... regards, Holger
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