Hi Jamie,
thank for asking us to clarify this. There are two main reasons:
In the past in the US we've been lucky to get free to cheap hosting of
the conference that allowed us to make the event for free.
As the size of the conference grows (we expect 500+) , this is becoming
harder to find and we have decided to go for a hotel option for convenience.
Outside US in fact, the devopsdays are non-free as well, because of the
same reason. (hotels aren't charities)
The second reason is to ask for a nominal fee (100 USD for 2 days of
conference and drinks, that's not too bad is it?)
is because we had 500 people registered and 500 on the waitlinglist. At
the day of the event not everybody showed up,
much to frustration of the people that could not make it. There we think
by charging that nominal fee, we discourage to go for the freebie.
hope this helps you understand our decision,
Patrick
On 13/04/13 01:31, Jonah Horowitz wrote:
> I don't mind paying, particularly if it's in a better location, but Santa Clara is a bitch to get to from SF.
>
> On Apr 12, 2013, at 3:25 PM, Jaime Gago <
gago...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hey there,
>> While last year DevOps day in MountainView was free this year it's $100, I completely understand that there is a cost to organizing such event and it's easy to be a critic. That said I think changing the Devops Day model from "free as in beer" to "paid for" could use some explanations but maybe I just missed them.
>>
>> J.