How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?
Google was nice enough to host a large Ubuntu conference a couple of months ago, and given that they seem to love Wine just as much, I'm sure they'd be willing to lend us some space for Wineconf. More importantly, though, is that we'd get to shmooze with some Google folks, convince them to fund more Wine development (eg Summer of Code), and even present a new Wine/Google product in a pretty flashy fashion. Thanks, Scott Ritchie
On 2/6/07, Scott Ritchie <scott(a)open-vote.org> wrote:
Google was nice enough to host a large Ubuntu conference a couple of months ago, and given that they seem to love Wine just as much, I'm sure they'd be willing to lend us some space for Wineconf.
More importantly, though, is that we'd get to shmooze with some Google folks, convince them to fund more Wine development (eg Summer of Code), and even present a new Wine/Google product in a pretty flashy fashion.
I'd love to do that. I've heard, though, that a European location would maximize the number of core Wine developers who can attend... - Dan
Hello all, --- Dan Kegel <dank06(a)kegel.com> wrote:
On 2/6/07, Scott Ritchie <scott(a)open-vote.org> wrote:
Google was nice enough to host a large Ubuntu conference a couple of months ago, and given that they seem to love Wine just as much, I'm sure they'd be willing to lend us some space for Wineconf.
More importantly, though, is that we'd get to shmooze with some Google folks, convince them to fund more Wine development (eg Summer of Code), and even present a new Wine/Google product in a pretty flashy fashion.
I'd love to do that. I've heard, though, that a European location would maximize the number of core Wine developers who can attend... - Dan
I'm new around here, however what about Google Zuerich then? It is the largest European branch of Google, and has the additional benefit of being in the same city I live in.. Claudio ___________________________________ Vinci i biglietti per FIFA World Cup in Germania! yahoo.it/concorso_messenger
On 2/6/07, Dan Kegel <dank06(a)kegel.com> wrote:
I'd love to do that. I've heard, though, that a European location would maximize the number of core Wine developers who can attend... - Dan
Is it possible that we take a step back and look at our current options? There are obviously positives and negatives no matter where we decide to hold the conference. (1) Hold the conference in Amsterdam. + This location will be convenient to most European hackers. + CodeWeavers, the local university, WPF as sponsors. - At this time only a single organizer. - North American attendees have to trek over to Amsterdam. - We will most likely have to rent a conference hall. - Europe is somewhat expensive to North American travelers. - Video feeds would most likely be a huge undertaking. (2) Hold the conference in St. Paul + This location will be convenient to most North American hackers. + CodeWeavers, WPF as sponsors. + Somewhat large number of CW employees in St.Paul to help with organization. + Lodging and food are inexpensive in St. Paul - European attendees have to trek over to St. Paul - We will most likely have to rent a conference hall? - Video feeds would most likely be a huge undertaking. (3) Hold the conference in LA + This location will be convenient to most North American hackers. + CodeWeavers, Google, WPF as sponsors. + Somewhat large number of Dan's students to help with organization. + There is good video technologies at the google complex. + Conference hall provided by Google + It is possible to find inexpensive lodging and food in LA (?) What's the possibilities of Google making a monetary donation? - European attendees have to trek over to LA Comments? Tom
On 2/6/07, Tom Wickline <twickline(a)gmail.com> wrote:
- European attendees have to trek over to LA
I expect the cost of the travel for the European attendees to out-weigh the savings on food and lodging. I'd much rather see it held somewhere in the EU though maybe thats just because I like getting out of the US. If the European developers want to come over then as far as the technical side of the conference goes LA seems to work best but I'd still rather it be in Amsterdam or Berlin. One thing I always keep in mind is the wineconf turns in to something more in regards to the social experience when we meet. Not that I am trying to knock on LA or Californian culture in general, I just think, for me at least another EU conf will be much more enjoyable and the same presentations and discussions can happen no matter where we hold it. -- Steven Edwards "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo
On 2/6/07, Steven Edwards <winehacker(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 2/6/07, Tom Wickline <twickline(a)gmail.com> wrote:
- European attendees have to trek over to LA
I expect the cost of the travel for the European attendees to out-weigh the savings on food and lodging. I'd much rather see it held somewhere in the EU though maybe thats just because I like getting out of the US. If the European developers want to come over then as far as the technical side of the conference goes LA seems to work best
I think we should look at all aspects before we jump to a hurried decision on where the next conference should be held. Dan has made a very generous proposal and I think we should give it a full review. And as of now the technical side is very heavily favored on the side of LA. But you bring up a good point in that there is much more to a conference than just technical specifications, we need to also look at the social experience as well. To be honest the location isn't that important to me, the overall conference and experience is what is important in the end. Thus far the only person that Ive seen that outright opposes a US location is "Shachar" for political reasons. After a specified given time should we put the locations to a vote? Tom
Hello, On 2/7/07, Tom Wickline <twickline(a)gmail.com> wrote:
After a specified given time should we put the locations to a vote?
I agree Dans offer is very generous and I would still have fun visiting 'The Googleplex' and I also agree we should put it to a vote once we've narrowed down the list of locations. -- Steven Edwards "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo
On 2/6/07, Steven Edwards <winehacker(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I agree Dans offer is very generous and I would still have fun visiting 'The Googleplex' and I also agree we should put it to a vote once we've narrowed down the list of locations.
Note - I haven't gotten approval to use any Google offices yet; I was waiting to see if our mole in Zurich was willing to act as a host. A university might well still end up being our best option. (Also, the Google video facilities are excellent only for office-to-office conferencing; the videophones here don't let you feed video to the net in general. Our bandwidth is hard to beat, though, so uploading video to YouTube would not be a burden.) - Dan
Random thoughts: 1. There must be someone on the ground that's willing to organize the conference. Saying we want it in Amsterdam is nice, but we have to find someone there to organize. 2. We had some suggestions come out from the last WineConf: one was Slovakia (which sounded interesting) and the other was Hans Leidekker mentioning some space he might be able to find at the university he works at in Holland. I think an email to Hans might open a door. 3. Europe really lends itself well to hosting it. That's where the majority of developers seem to be and the travel is easy. I don't think the US will attract nearly as many people. 4. Live video feeds are tough. Trying to do the multi-site thing might be quite difficult. If we could throw some nice Tandberg or Polycom equipment at it, then maybe it would be worth it. It would be interesting to tackle this problem now and come up with a rock-solid solution that can be used year after year. Every year video comes up and every year we decide we can't do it because we failed so miserably at it the first time. 5. Unless WineConf is being held in third-world country around early November of next year, I don't think I'll be making it. At least I don't want to have to explain to my fiance why I'm skipping the honeymoon and going to a conference. Therefore this year I'll advocate video of some sort (streaming or recorded.) 6. After the CrossOver Mac product takes off, I think renting a cruise ship and hosting the conference would be a wise tax writeoff for CodeWeavers. -Brian
On 2/7/07, Brian Vincent <vinn(a)theshell.com> wrote:
Random thoughts:
1. There must be someone on the ground that's willing to organize the conference. Saying we want it in Amsterdam is nice, but we have to find someone there to organize.
2. We had some suggestions come out from the last WineConf: one was Slovakia (which sounded interesting) and the other was Hans Leidekker mentioning some space he might be able to find at the university he works at in Holland. I think an email to Hans might open a door.
http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wineconf/2006-December/000378.html
3. Europe really lends itself well to hosting it. That's where the majority of developers seem to be and the travel is easy. I don't think the US will attract nearly as many people.
With this logic you are suggesting all future conferences should be held in Europe? To be fair to the minority shouldn't the conference be held in the US every third or fourth year? I believe we should resolve this issue as well, and the sooner the better. Not the actual location but the continent on which it will be held on a given year. I recommend a three to one ratio, then at least we will have some idea on the location of future conferences. Then we can vote on the locations within a given continent and not have to squabble each and every year over continent and location. Tom
To be fair to the minority shouldn't the conference be held in the US every third or fourth year?
I believe we should resolve this issue as well, and the sooner the better. Not the actual location but the continent on which it will be held on a given year. I recommend a three to one ratio, then at least we will have some idea on the location of future conferences. Then we can vote on the locations within a given continent and not have to squabble each and every year over continent and location.
Well said. We have had 2 Wineconf's in the US and 2 in Europe; it's unfortunate that we didn't interleave them, but there you have it. The one in the US where Lindows paid people to travel was still not as well attended as the one in Europe, so I think a bias towards Europe is fair. Hitting my random number generator makes me feel that 3 to 1 is rational, which implies Europe this year, and then back to the US, where Dan and I (or maybe someone else!) can fight over who gets to host. I've copied in Hans and Martin, in the hope that they'll wake up and realize that people are taking their Wineconf hosting offers seriously, and encouraging them to make sure they're on this list. I was personally very excited about travelling to Bratislava. Then I priced out plane tickets, and my excitement vanished; it may be that travel costs to Slovakia create a barrier to holding it there. That may just be my ineptness in travelling there; US travel planning sites tend to be good at the 'common' routes. I do think Dan's idea to enable a satellite site is an intriguing one, and could be a way of breaking this multi continent problem. I think we're jumping the gun on that a bit, though; we should maybe give Dan a bit more time to figure out if it's feasible (I suspect, for starters, that we need a host in Zurich for it to be practical. Dan has someone he's trying to talk into it, I believe, but...) Cheers, Jeremy
I've copied in Hans and Martin, in the hope that they'll wake up and realize that people are taking their Wineconf hosting offers seriously, and encouraging them to make sure they're on this list.
Offer is still valid. There are two options: * Bratislava http://www.bratislava.sk/en/vismo5/galerie2.asp?u=700000&id_org=700000&id_ga... + Main city + A lot of pubs - Transportation; but not really a problem if we get hotel in downtown (quite pricy, around 100 EUR/night) * Senec, city close to Bratislava with direct train connection http://www.senec.sk/foto.php?gallery_id=18 + Smaller city, everything in walking distance +- A lot of fun during summer, lakes, beer, music, not sure whether people are interested in this kind of fun Sure I would like these two options in voting list. Regarding plane tickets price, from my experience it is significantly cheaper to buy tickets here than in US. Maybe I could by MN --> BA --> MN tickets here? I guess it would be possible. Should I explore it? Martin
would be possible. Should I explore it?
If you could just take a quick look, that would be great. I was seeing fares like $1700 (as compared to $800 ish for Zurich and Amsterdam). [This was for travel from MSP] Cheers, Jeremy
On 2/7/07, Jeremy White <jwhite(a)winehq.org> wrote:
I do think Dan's idea to enable a satellite site is an intriguing one, and could be a way of breaking this multi continent problem. I think we're jumping the gun on that a bit, though; we should maybe give Dan a bit more time to figure out if it's feasible (I suspect, for starters, that we need a host in Zurich for it to be practical. Dan has someone he's trying to talk into it, I believe, but...)
OK, I have a volunteer in the Zurich office, but I haven't checked to make sure the office is big enough, is available, etc. I'll do that next. - Dan
It's looking more and more like the Zurich google office is a possibility. I still have to get a couple ok's, though. - Dan
On Wed, 2007-02-07 at 11:22 -0800, Dan Kegel wrote:
It's looking more and more like the Zurich google office is a possibility. I still have to get a couple ok's, though. - Dan If we're going to toss around the idea of setting up live video conferencing and two locations, how about we use BOTH Google locations in Zurich and Mountain View?
I'm sure linking the two sites would go a lot smoother then. Plus, many of us would get to go to at least one of them :) Thanks, Scott Ritchie
On 2/9/07, Scott Ritchie <scott(a)open-vote.org> wrote:
If we're going to toss around the idea of setting up live video conferencing and two locations, how about we use BOTH Google locations in Zurich and Mountain View?
I'm sure linking the two sites would go a lot smoother then. Plus, many of us would get to go to at least one of them :)
I was thinking of Zurich and Santa Monica, since that's where I and most of my minions live... - Dan
Mike Hearn wrote:
OK, I have a volunteer in the Zurich office,
That'd be me, yes, it's true, I'm not actually dead :) Zurich is nice and central, and easy to get to for Americans (as far as I'm aware).
And how are things situated for lodging and nice walking around to pubs and such? Cheers, Jeremy
Lodging, I'm not sure. There are plenty of hotels around, probably hostels as well but I'd have to check. Pubs and so on, yes lots. It's not a big city, so very easy to get around on foot or by tram. Cars not required (even considered harmful). Only issue is that the pubs/bars can get pretty busy ... On 2/8/07, Jeremy White <jwhite(a)winehq.org> wrote:
Mike Hearn wrote:
OK, I have a volunteer in the Zurich office,
That'd be me, yes, it's true, I'm not actually dead :) Zurich is nice and central, and easy to get to for Americans (as far as I'm aware).
And how are things situated for lodging and nice walking around to pubs and such?
Cheers,
Jeremy
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Mike Hearn wrote:
Lodging, I'm not sure. There are plenty of hotels around, probably hostels as well but I'd have to check.
Hmm. A quick poke on this web site: http://www.hotel-zurich.net/ suggests that Zurich is a bit pricy for lodging (roughly 92 Euros / night; I looked for September). But it sures seems like a good fit in a lot of other ways... Cheers, Jeremy
Hi, On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 11:57:06AM -0600, Jeremy White wrote:
Mike Hearn wrote:
Lodging, I'm not sure. There are plenty of hotels around, probably hostels as well but I'd have to check.
Hmm. A quick poke on this web site: http://www.hotel-zurich.net/ suggests that Zurich is a bit pricy for lodging (roughly 92 Euros / night; I looked for September).
92 Euros? That's nothing... if you manage to hit the right parking lot somewhere in Zurich (some area which belongs to Hotel Senator) this will get "upgraded" to 492 Euros per night... But since these "slightly less than gentlemanish" tactics (boldly manipulating fully paid parking timers etc.) have had their fair share of open news publicity lately I'd guess that they've been quickly taken down and shot now. (and yes, this parking scandal has been exquisitely performed with nice inactivity/cooperation by local police *rolleyes*) More info at (WARNING: German ahead) http://www.20min.ch/news/dossier/abgeschleppt/story/12146736
But it sures seems like a good fit in a lot of other ways...
Yup, would be rather close for me as well, and my wife looooooves Switzerland. Andreas
--- Jeremy White <jwhite(a)winehq.org> wrote:
Mike Hearn wrote:
Lodging, I'm not sure. There are plenty of hotels around, probably hostels as well but I'd have to check.
Hmm. A quick poke on this web site: http://www.hotel-zurich.net/ suggests that Zurich is a bit pricy for lodging (roughly 92 Euros / night; I looked for September).
But it sures seems like a good fit in a lot of other ways...
Cheers,
Jeremy
The city center is really expensive (and they normally charge extra for breakfast and parking). You can save a lot by staying away from the center: the city is perfectly served by public transportation (trams and busses). I booked for two persons for 140 CHF, breakfast and parking included last year in Hotel Olympia (on the Badenerstrasse, near Albisriederplatz), which they tell me was a decent enough accomodation (don't know first hand). Cheers, Claudio ___________________________________ L'email della prossima generazione? Puoi averla con la nuova Yahoo! Mail: http://it.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
The city center is really expensive (and they normally charge extra for breakfast and parking).
Well, parking is basically irrelevant, it's not necessary here. Unfortunately the rest is true - Zurich is just a generally expensive place, no two ways about it .....
You can save a lot by staying away from the center: the city is perfectly served by public transportation (trams and busses).
Yeah the lakeside is the most expensive place
(sorry for answering late, I was fighting viruses in First Life) At Wineconf 06 I offered to help host Wineconf 07 in Amsterdam (or Utrecht if that would somehow be more convenient). I work at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ('Vrije Universiteit' means 'Free University', free as in freedom). It's located in a business district in the south-western part of Amsterdam, about 10 km away from Schiphol airport. There are no student dorms on campus, we'll have to rely on hotels and public transport to get to/from campus. The congress facilities are available on weekdays and Saturday but not on Sunday, judging from their website. Showstopper? As to video conferencing, there's an audiovisual service center that can do live webcasting. They'll provide a camera, a stream-encoder, and hook them up with the streaming server of our ISP. Cost may be prohibitive though, I shall ask them for prices. Hotel prices should be somewhere in the range of 50 to 100 euros. I heard someone say Amsterdam flights are relatively cheap if you're coming from the US. -Hans
On 2/6/07, Brian Vincent <vinn(a)theshell.com> wrote:
4. Live video feeds are tough. Trying to do the multi-site thing might be quite difficult. If we could throw some nice Tandberg or Polycom equipment at it, then maybe it would be worth it.
Google has nice Tandberg equipment. It's the first place I've ever seen videoconferencing work routinely and reliably. But we would still want to record the talks (with e.g. xvidcap) and upload them to youtube. - Dan
On Wednesday 07 February 2007 18:30, Dan Kegel wrote:
Google has nice Tandberg equipment. It's the first place I've ever seen videoconferencing work routinely and reliably. But we would still want to record the talks (with e.g. xvidcap) and upload them to youtube.
I've just started playing with "recordmydesktop", which also allows sound caputure. It's easy to use and kind of nice, but I've had some trouble with the sound being faster than the video, I didn't check the latest version yet, though. Cheers, Kai -- Kai Blin, <kai Dot blin At gmail Dot com> WorldForge developer http://www.worldforge.org/ Wine developer http://wiki.winehq.org/KaiBlin/ -- Will code for cotton. -- Kai Blin, <blin At gmx Dot net> WorldForge developer http://www.worldforge.org/ Wine developer http://wiki.winehq.org/KaiBlin/ -- Ninjas and Pirates agree: Cowboys suck!
participants (12)
-
Andreas Mohr -
Brian Vincent -
Claudio Fontana -
Dan Kegel -
Hans Leidekker -
Jeremy White -
Kai Blin -
martin pilka -
Mike Hearn -
Scott Ritchie -
Steven Edwards -
Tom Wickline