On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:20:49 +0100, David Neary wrote:

So - speak up. What do ye think? Are we going to GUADEC? Should I continue exploring Lyon in case it doesn't work out? Are there other possibilities?

For those who do not have all the information about GUADEC 5 already, let's just mention that it will be held June 28-30, 2004 at Agder University College in Kristiansand (Southern part of Norway). You can find the GUADEC press release with more details and a map on: http://2004.guadec.org/

As far as I am concerned, FOSDEM would have been the best choice for me (less than 100 km drive ;-)), followed by Lyon (nice weather, still easy to reach by car) and GUADEC (more difficult to reach by car, but then there is the advantage of having GUADEC). The other options seemed less interesting for me. But that is only my point of view. Obviously, someone living in a different part of the world would have very different ideas about what place is easier to reach.

-Raphaël

David Neary wrote:

Hi all,

Following up from the mail last week discussing the date and location of GIMPCon, here's the state of play on the various possibilities discussed.

1) GUADEC: The GNOME crowd are delighted to have us, the guadec planning committee are very eager, and are now planning a graphics/multimedia stream for the conference. I am now on the guadec-planning mailing list, and if we go to guadec I'll be co-organising the graphics stream (I wonder why I asked for a volunteer to do this...).

So the situation as it is is that we should decide pretty quickly where we want to have the conference. Does having it at GUADEC pose any problems for anyone? Personally I think this is the best option available to us, even if it will pose us some fundraising problems.

I like the GUADEC idea technically. From a personal, selfish, un-gimp-like, I want to see the world point of view, London, Lyon, and Dublin have been on my list of places to see for quite some time. However, I think GAUDEC, especially since they are excited to have us and are sound willing to accomadate our needs, is better for us as a project.

I am not sure if there are going to be fund raising issues, per say. We are probably one of a relativly small set of projects going that don't have any regular funding, so I am willing to wager that the funding will be no more trouble for us that it is normally.

Also, as far as volunteers go, obviously I am not the best person to be planning anything happening in Europe (at the very least my sleep schedule couldn't handle it). However, if you have anything you would like or can be delagated to me, please ask.

For our part, it would be nice to see 2 or 3 papers presented by GIMP people, and the organisers have asked whether it would be possible to have GIMP demonstrations similar to the one that jimmac did last year. The papers could be quite in-depth and technical, given the nature of GUADEC, or could be more aimed towards users and have a tutorial feel to them.

I should really give a presentation on Gegl there. This would encourage me to get off my ass and write technal white papers discussing the huge about of planning I feel I have put into gegl. This would be good for me, too, as writing down ideas always provides a good oppurtunity to improve on them. Also writing down ideas provides a good chance for people to critizie those ideas, which would also be good.

So - speak up. What do ye think? Are we going to GUADEC? Should I continue exploring Lyon in case it doesn't work out? Are there other possibilities?

What are your feelings here? Do you think there is a chance GAUDEC won't work out?

-- Dan

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 03:20:49PM +0100, David Neary wrote:

Hi all,

Following up from the mail last week discussing the date and location of GIMPCon, here's the state of play on the various possibilities discussed.

I will only respond about the "Lyon" possibility:

snip.

2) Lyon: We have been in contact with the university, and are awaiting a response on what kind of facilities will be available, and what dates suit them. This is looking pretty promising too. The local LUG are prepared to help out and play host.

snip.

If the GIMPCon stand in Lyon, there will be at least some rooms, with Internet access (ssh, web, mail, at least), via a switch/hub. Any laptop with a dhcp config could then be connected.

The rent for the rooms and the lunch at 12:00 might be paid by some presentations made by one of us to the CPE's students. I still have to discuss this point though.

Regards,

DindinX

Hi,

David Odin writes:

The rent for the rooms and the lunch at 12:00 might be paid by some presentations made by one of us to the CPE's students.

That sounds more like breakfast to me ...

Sven

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 09:18:11PM +0100, Sven Neumann wrote:

Hi,

David Odin writes:

The rent for the rooms and the lunch at 12:00 might be paid by some presentations made by one of us to the CPE's students.

That sounds more like breakfast to me ...

It depends where you live. I personnaly take my breakfast at 7:30, a lunch at 12:00 and a diner at 20:00 :-).

Cheers,

DindinX

David Neary wrote:

Hi,

Daniel Rogers wrote:

I like the GUADEC idea technically. From a personal, selfish, un-gimp-like, I want to see the world point of view, London, Lyon, and Dublin have been on my list of places to see for quite some time. However, I think GAUDEC, especially since they are excited to have us and are sound willing to accomadate our needs, is better for us as a project.

London's easy to get to, Dublin's nothing special, and why on earth would you want to come to Lyon before (say) Prague, Paris, Amsterdam, or half a dozen other cities around Europe? :)

Who says those are not on my list? :-P

I am not sure if there are going to be fund raising issues, per say. We are probably one of a relativly small set of projects going that don't have any regular funding, so I am willing to wager that the funding will be no more trouble for us that it is normally.

Given that GNOME is a GNU project, and in past years the FSF has been our biggest contributor for conferences, I can foresee problems.

Ahh, but my point is that the FSF doesn't need to support these groups. They have their own corporate support. But this is moot. The only real choice is to start asking for support and seeing what happens.

Also, as far as volunteers go, obviously I am not the best person to be planning anything happening in Europe (at the very least my sleep schedule couldn't handle it). However, if you have anything you would like or can be delagated to me, please ask.

It would be really cool if you would be the money man - the man that we could have the checks made out to. And if you could muscle some of those Comdex contacts, and work US companies (particularly Hollywood, where we know teh GIMP is used a lot), that would be brilliant.

Sure sure sure. I already volunteered to be the money person so that is good. I checked with the lawyer today and it seems that she would be ready to give me all the information I need to fill the paperwork to start The Gimp Foundation out myself after Thanksgiving. If I ask her help in filling out the paperwork it could potentially take much longer, so I will likely fill it out myself. The Gimp Foundation should exist soon.

As far as sniffing around Hollywood goes that is really Robin Rowe's territory IMO. I had a conversation with him recently, trying to encourage our projects to work together, and because I didn't understand where he was comming from, and because it was email, I ended up sounding arrogant and condesending (it just became an argument, really). At this point, I simply don't want to step on his toes.

I am also deeply concerned about what several sections of the movie industry think about open source and the GIMP in particular. If it is anything like what Robin Rowe thinks we are, then I will likely just be laughed at for having the nerve to knock on their door. I am afriad that if I try and go to hollywood without a good technical incentive and a convincing argument as to why they should support the gimp, I will do more harm that good for our relations by reinforcing whatever negative opinion they have about us.

This is really all just speculation based on two or three points of reference I have into that industry. If I actually knew someone in Hollywood that supported the gimp (or anyone in Hollywood, really), an insider, as it were, there I would feel like I have a safe place to step into that arena.

I am waiting until we have color management, high bit depths, an awesome compositing engine, and a frame manager before really trying anything over there. This would give me convincing technical achievements with which to approach Hollywood. All but the last is being worked on, while the last is not technically challenging.

If anyone thinks I am being too cautious, please speak up.

I should really give a presentation on Gegl there. This would encourage me to get off my ass and write technal white papers discussing the huge about of planning I feel I have put into gegl. This would be good for me, too, as writing down ideas always provides a good oppurtunity to improve on them. Also writing down ideas provides a good chance for people to critizie those ideas, which would also be good.

That's great to hear too. The official call for papers hasn't gone out yet, but the format in previous years has been 30 minute talks and 60 minute talks, people would like to see published proceedings this year, so perhaps a 60 minute presentation might be an idea to get a bit of meat on things?

Hmm, better get started on that then. I think I could fill 60 minutes with details about our compositing engine, color management, and some exciting far-future ideas. How will I know when the call for papers starts?

What are your feelings here? Do you think there is a chance GAUDEC won't work out?

I think there is a chance that we might end up struggling to get everyone there financially. I also think there's a chance that some GIMP people might not like the connotation that GIMP is or might be a GNOME app. I also think that piggy-backing on a big developers conference is risky, in that the objective of the GimpCon would be to be 100% into the GIMP for a few days, and with GUADEC going on that might not be so easy.

This occured to me too, and my thought was, we should do both GUADEC and a GimpCon, but that sounds a little too much to try for this year. (hopefully next year. All we really need is a sugar daddy, which are oh-so-easy to come by).

In other words, I can see why some people might prefer a smaller cosier event. I think that the way our organisation is now, that's asking a lot of a couple of people to organise. The benefits of a big event are that there is less infrastructure to work on from our point of view. So there are pros and cons :) Personally, I like GUADEC.

Yes, absolutly, sharing the infrastructure seems like a very good reason to go with GUADEC. I like GUADEC too.

-- Dan

Daniel Rogers wrote:

(hopefully next year. All we really need is a sugar daddy, which are oh-so-easy to come by).

This is sarcasm, btw.

--
Dan

David Neary wrote:

That's great news! If we give thanks now, does that mean it'll be done soon? When's thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving was Thursday. I just got the message from my lawyer that the documents are almost complete. It takes a few weeks for the incorporation paperwork to get filed with the US government, then I need to file an IRS form to get non-profit status. It will happen very soon now.

I understand your point, but I think it's not valid. I don't see us as being in a turf war with CinePaint. If he has better contacts with the studios than we do, that's fine. But our target audience for funding is people who have used the software no charge, and have a vested interest in seeing it improve. The studios fit that bill to a tee.

Well, I didn't see it as a turf war so much as keeping personal space. You are right though, in that there is no harm is asking.

I would ask Calvin and Yosh for contacts here - they both worked with film companies for a while. Caroline Dahlof at R&H might be a good place to start, afterwards it would be nice to try to contact someone at Disney (following on from their recent evaluation of the GIMP and CinePaint) and ILM who use the GIMP lots.

Can anyone give me Caroline's email address? Is she still at R&H? does anyone know?

--
Dan