Pycon disappointment

[Fuzzyman]

On Mar 16, 11:10 am, Bruce Eckel <lists.ec... at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip..]
> But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest
> and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air
> time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and
> we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and
> entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully
> commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks
> into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another
> way to deliver a captive audience to vendors.
> coming.

I have a conflict of interests - coming to PyCon from a sponsor
company and having given a lightning talk. But I *kind* of agree with
you. Most of the sponsor lightning talks were pretty dull. I *hope*
mine was one of the exceptions. (Resolver One demo.) ;-)

This isn't new though. Last year (my only other PyCon) all the
sponsors gave lightning talks. The difference is that there were more
sponsors this year I guess...

Personally I think 'sponsor keynotes' was a mistake. Not a huge
mistake, but nonetheless...

Michael Foord
Resolver Systems