[EuroPython] Voting proposals

[Martijn Faassen]

Michael Hudson wrote:
> > That's true. I also hope that it will attract both a lot of new
> > people from Chalmers, the Göteborg region, and from Scandinavia
> > in general (if it happens there). Maybe we'll fill Runan!
> >
> > It would be great if we had, not only a time and a place, but also
> > speakers and a finished program earlier than this year.
> 
> Oh good grief, I hope so too.

Okay, let's go for that then.

> Well, I'm not sure that we want the programme *entirely* fixed in
> stone months & months in advance.

I agree there too. We should however formalize this period of grace
from the perspective of fairness and at least to make sure the
program is at least *semi* solid at some date. 

> > It's not easy to sell something before there is any content to
> > present.
> 
> We managed that this year :-) But yes.

Of course we have the content of the year before to help us there.
As long as it's clear there's continuity that will help people decide
too.

Note that Guido in an interview said there are so many conferences
he's invited to that he may have to dump some for the next year.
And it may be that the volunteer-organized conferences will have to compete
the most..

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2003/08/14/gvr_interview.html

an in particular this:

ORN: How many annual Python conferences are you aware of now? Can you still get to them all?

GvR: I think I'm going to have to start saying "no" to some. This year I've been to PyCon 2003 in Washington DC in March, then Python UK in Oxford, England the following month. EuroPython was in Charleroi, Belgium in June, and now we're at OSCON in Portland, Oregon, in July. That's four, and as far as I know all those four are planning to run again in 2004. I don't think that next year I'll be able to go to more than three of those.

ORN: What did you think of PyCon DC, Python UK and EuroPython in 2003? Were there any instructive differences?

GvR: They are all different, and the differences are very interesting. PyCon is the youngest, and the members of the organizing team were all people who hadn't done a Python conference before. You could tell that from some of the details. On the other hand, given that, I thought it was an excellent conference. I had a really good time, and I'm really glad that you're going to do it again next year.

Python UK was two days of tracks in a much larger conference, just like Python 11 has been a track here at OSCON. You get a much larger audience, and speakers have been paid to come, and can come in company time because it's a prestigious conference. So I think that the number of truly high-quality presentations at those two is somewhat higher from my perspective.

That said, I still think there were many excellent talks at PyCon and at EuroPython.

ORN: So there are two professional-style conferences, and two more community-oriented conferences?

GvR: Yes. PyCon definitely had a more grungy community atmosphere than EuroPython, because the EuroPython folks had done it before, and their price level is slightly higher.

ORN: Where will the next major Python conference be and when?

GvR: The next one that I'm aware of is PyCon 2004, and I hope it'll be in Washington DC in March next year, but you'd know more about that than I do.

Regards,

Martijn