Hi Henri,

On 12/17/18 5:47 PM, Henri Verbeet wrote:

On Fri, 14 Dec 2018 at 01:34, Jeremy White <jwhite@codeweavers.com> wrote:

We punted on the question of where to have the next Wineconf. Two

candidates we considered were Japan and Toronto.

I've asked folks at Valve if they would be willing to present at the

next conference, and the answer was positive for Toronto, and less

enthusiastic for Japan. Ulrich has been patiently offering to host for

many years, and I think it would be good to rotate back to North America

on it's scheduled year.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, "we" above is "the Wine Project

Leadership committee", as opposed to "CodeWeavers", right?

It was not intended to be a 'We' as in CodeWeavers, but I meant it more as a 'We the gathered Wine community'.

We've never really had a formal process for deciding things like next conference location; it tends to be more of an ad hoc consensus. And while the committee holds the power to fund the event, it does not generally take a role in determining it's location. That is, it does not act like a board of directors would and make decisions like this. The committee really limits itself to funding decisions.

I would like it to be clear that this reply is as a member of the Wine

project, as opposed to a CodeWeavers contractor. At the same time,

since apparently Valve's willingness to attend in Canada, but not in

Japan was a consideration, I think it's only fair to point out that

CodeWeavers also has significant customers in Japan. Were they asked

as well?

No. But I think Valve's use of Wine is a particularly interesting story.

The other point is that I felt I got a similar reaction from a number of people when we did discuss Asia; that they would come to North America, but not Asia. My feeling is that there is a small group of people that are very passionate for the idea, and then a lot of indifferent people, and a small number that would not come if it was in Asia. Anyone saying they will not come to the conference tends to affect me, perhaps in a disproportionate way.

So I propose we have WineConf 2019 in Toronto, with a tentative plan to

try for Japan in 2020.

One question we also never addressed was what of time of year. It

seemed as though summer worked really well last year. Historically, the

'plan' was early fall; procrastination has forced us to late fall in

recent years. But I volunteered to conduct a quick survey, which is here:

https://goo.gl/forms/wnWeIRWkYqTmrUtI3

If we get a statistically compelling set of answers, we'll follow those

results. Otherwise, how about we let Ulrich pick.

That all make sense?

Pitchforks and torches go here.

Although I'm confident Ulrich would make a great host, I don't think

anyone would be terribly surprised to learn I'd be a little

disappointed if WineConf 2019 wouldn't be in Asia.

Just to speak to my thinking a bit further. My feeling was that if we telegraphed the move to Asia for a longer period that we would increase the odds of having more people attend. I would also like to have an actual host - someone that lives in Asia who is willing to volunteer - so that we have someone who can coordinate the event. My hope was that we could start that ask now, and have them stand up and advocate for their site at this years conference.

But the point of the email was to provoke a conversation, so thank you for that.

Unfortunately, we don't have a formal mechanism for deciding this; we generally rely on consensus. So ideally I persuade you to my way of thinking, or we get a strong chorus of other voices advocating for one way or the other.

Cheers,

Jeremy

p.s. The summer / fall poll results are running exactly 50/50 at the moment :-/.

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