Hi all,

A while back (quite a while actually) I tried to start a discussion about where we might have next year's GimpCon. There were 2 main ideas - the first is to stage something more or less standalone - 20 odd people turn up somewhere and talk about the GIMP for 4 days. The second is to piggy-back on an existing event, taking advantage of the organisation and financing of the bigger event.

I asked for ideas of events, and offers to organise the location for the 20 odd people. I also asked for proposals for dates. Unfortunately, the response was less than I'd expected, which means I probably didn't ask properly :)

Today a few of us were talking about this on IRC, and a couple of concrete proposals came up. Well, more sandy-water proposals at the moment...

1) Lyon

Myself and David Odin live here, we're both active in the local LUG and might get some organisational help there, David works in a university and has cleared the "in principle" issue with his boss. We would have some rooms in a university, with access to the university network, and probably guest accounts on the university network. There has been no talk of money, so we don't know how much all this access might cost.

Plus: Facilities

Minus: Lyon isn't easy to get to, which means higher transport costs. Dates after the 25th of June are best.

2) GUADEC

The GNOME Users and Developers Conference is in the process of organising itself for the last week in June; this is about the time that I think it would be good to have a conference (around the time 2.2 comes out), before we break lots of stuff doing a gegl migration.

Plus: Everything will be organised. Lots of smart people around.

Minus: We're not a GNOME app, so we probably won't get travel expenses paid by the organisers (we can always ask, though - perhaps we can get a Graphics stream added, and have 4 or 5 people give presentations and get expenses that way). Again, Norway's not easy to get to. If we are having problems getting money, sponsorship might be tough (most people liable to sponsor us will also probably be sponsoring GUADEC)

3) London

Sven knows some people in London who might be prepared to put in the organisational effort.

Plus: London = cheap transport

Minus: We don't know what facilities will be available.

Other ideas (conferences we could hijack, or places where people would be able to organise stuff for us) are welcome, as well as comments on these.

Please note that I have not talked about money at all really... IMHO, we need a someone who will handle the money, and a group of someones who will look for sponsorship. The problem is that we often need somebody, who could be anybody, but everybody thinks somebody will do it, and in the end nobody ends up doing it :) So it would be nice to start naming our somebodies now.

Cheers, Dave.

Hi again,

David Neary wrote:

Today a few of us were talking about this on IRC, and a couple of concrete proposals came up. Well, more sandy-water proposals at the moment...

A 4th possibility to add to the mix...

4) Dublin, Ireland

I was chatting to some friends in Dublin, and their LUG has been offered conference facilities free of charge for a limited period. We're short on details at the moment, but in brief, there is a conference room for up to 20 people, a lecture theatre for up to 45 people. Not sure what the access times will be like (robably business hours), but it might be worth exploring.

Pros: Possibly free facilities, fairly cheap to get to, pubs

Cons: Weather, expensive city

Each of these possibilities needs to be fleshed out (possible dates, whether there's funding, facility costs, who's going to do the organising, etc) pretty quickly. And if there are others, the same types of things need doing for them too.

Could I have a volunteer to liaise with the GNOME foundation to see if they are open to the idea of subsuming the gimp developers conference? It would be nice to know if they think it's a good idea, and then perhaps whether we could get some money for expenses towards it from the bigger GUADEC pool...

I will flesh out the Lyon possibility, and keep in contact with the Dublin people to see exactly what's on offer in terms of facilities, and what types of dates we would be talking about.

It would be nice to add another couple of possibilities. Anyone have dates that they prefer? I *really* need feedback on this.

Cheers, Dave.

Hi Tino,

Tino Schwarze wrote:

5) Chemnitz, Germany

There will be "Chemnitzer Linux-Tag 2004" (Chemnitz Linux Day 2004) on 6th and 7th of March 2004.

March seems a little early to me - that means only 3 months to organise the event, including sponsorship. Plus, with 2.0 before Christmas, 2.2 won't be before June, and I would have liked to see GimpCon 04 celebrate its release.

Pros and cons:
- only 2 days (is this a k.o. criterion?)

Not at all... guadec is also only 2 days, but people could come before/stay after to do some work. In fact, with guadec being Monday and Tuesday, I think that's the GNOME plan.

Thanks Tino, it's an idea, it's on the list. For me the big down point is that it's very soon, though.

Cheers, Dave.