How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[Scott Ritchie]

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

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/6/07, Scott Ritchie  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

[Claudio Fontana]

Hello all,

--- Dan Kegel  wrote:
> On 2/6/07, Scott Ritchie 
> 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

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[Tom Wickline]

On 2/6/07, Dan Kegel  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

[Steven Edwards]

On 2/6/07, Tom Wickline  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.

[Tom Wickline]

On 2/6/07, Steven Edwards  wrote:
> On 2/6/07, Tom Wickline  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

[Steven Edwards]

Hello,

On 2/7/07, Tom Wickline  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.

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/6/07, Steven Edwards  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

[Brian Vincent]

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

[Tom Wickline]

On 2/7/07, Brian Vincent  wrote:
> Random thoughts:
> - 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.
> - 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
> - 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

How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[Jeremy White]

> 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

How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[martin pilka]

> 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&a...
  + 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

How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[Jeremy White]

> 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

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/7/07, Jeremy White  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

[Dan Kegel]

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

How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[Scott Ritchie]

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

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/9/07, Scott Ritchie  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]

> 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).

How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[Jeremy White]

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

[Mike Hearn]

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  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
>
> wineconf mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.winehq.org/mailman/listinfo/wineconf

How about holding Wineconf at Google's campus in Mountain View, California?

[Jeremy White]

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

[Andreas Mohr]

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

[Claudio Fontana]

--- 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).
>
> 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

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[Mike Hearn]

> 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

[Hans Leidekker]

(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

[Dan Kegel]

On 2/6/07, Brian Vincent  wrote:
> - 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

[Kai Blin]

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