Intent of the group
Sandip Bhattacharya
negative to begin with. Let this initiative not be taken forward because of
frustration, but out of a positive need to add value.
I am sure that there are many more people who would like to join, and
participate by the rules set forward by the community. But as long as
this is portrayed as a camp, it would not get that positive feeling or
the users it deserves, and quite a few people would shy from it.
Just my observation.
- Sandip
Anivar Aravind
+1
॥ स्वक्ष ॥
I hope so too.
Moving forward, I'd like to propose discussions on:
0. the name of the conf -- does it need one or are folks happy with 'noname'?
1. when, where and what is the focus of the conf?
--
Regards,
vid ॥ http://svaksha.com
Kingsly John
We agree completely, what happened at launch was purely due to the lack of
hindsight or a time machine!
Like we've earlier stated on twitter and the blog, we *NEVER* expected this
kind of overwhelmingly positive support for our initiative.
I guess we were naively trying trying to pre-empt any attacks for attempting
to organise an event with the standoff-ish/ "je m'en fou" nature of the
teaser website.
But considering the response so far has been 99% postive and 1% ambivalent,
that kind of posturing is unnecessary and won't be taken forward.
Going forward, we will only be focussing/defining ourselves on what we stand
for and what we do.
Kingsly
--
Raj Mathur (राज माथुर)
> I hope so too.
> Moving forward, I'd like to propose discussions on:
> 0. the name of the conf -- does it need one or are folks happy with
> 'noname'? 1. when, where and what is the focus of the conf?
Here's one suggestion which I can throw out for discussion. This is
controversial, so please be judicious in responding:
How about amalgamating freed.in with nonameconf? Freed.in is currently
not going anywhere, though it has had a fair amount of success in the
past. Joining forces would bring some residual goodwill and also take
the conference beyond a purely local presence.
If we can have dual boot machines why not dual name conferences? ISTR
other conferences also having multiple identities, can't think of which
ones off the top of my head right now, though.
I'm not speaking on behalf of freed.in -- if the idea makes sense it'd
probably be best to talk to Andrew, Gora and Kishore directly.
Regards,
-- Raj
--
Raj Mathur ra...@kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/
GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F
PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves
Sandip Bhattacharya
I for one, whole heartedly endorse Raj's idea. I like the thought behind freed, the kind of people it attracts and fits in well with the original idea of it being held in multiple cities.
- Sandip
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Deependra Singh Shekhawat
this sounds excellent. if this happens it will be really great.
On Wednesday 3 November 2010 at 12:45 PM, Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) wrote:
On Wednesday 03 Nov 2010, ॥ स्वक्ष ॥ wrote:I hope so too.
Moving forward, I'd like to propose discussions on:
0. the name of the conf -- does it need one or are folks happy with
'noname'? 1. when, where and what is the focus of the conf?
Here's one suggestion which I can throw out for discussion. This is
controversial, so please be judicious in responding:
How about amalgamating freed.in with nonameconf? Freed.in is currently
not going anywhere, though it has had a fair amount of success in the
past. Joining forces would bring some residual goodwill and also take
the conference beyond a purely local presence.
If we can have dual boot machines why not dual name conferences? ISTR
other conferences also having multiple identities, can't think of which
ones off the top of my head right now, though.
I'm not speaking on behalf o f freed.in -- if the idea makes sense it'd
probably be best to talk to Andrew, Gora and Kishore directly.
Regards,
-- Raj
--
Raj Mathur ra...@kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/
GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F
PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves
tazz
> How about amalgamating freed.in with nonameconf? Freed.in is currently
> not going anywhere, though it has had a fair amount of success in the
> past. Joining forces would bring some residual goodwill and also take
> the conference beyond a purely local presence.
॥ स्वक्ष ॥
> On Wednesday 03 Nov 2010, ॥ स्वक्ष ॥ wrote:
>> I hope so too.
>> Moving forward, I'd like to propose discussions on:
>> 0. the name of the conf -- does it need one or are folks happy with
>> 'noname'? 1. when, where and what is the focus of the conf?
>
> Here's one suggestion which I can throw out for discussion. This is
> controversial, so please be judicious in responding:
>
> How about amalgamating freed.in with nonameconf? Freed.in is currently
> not going anywhere, though it has had a fair amount of success in the
> past. Joining forces would bring some residual goodwill and also take
> the conference beyond a purely local presence.
Interesting suggestion and I wish freed.in success in future. Fwiw,
Gora has floated this idea on the inpycon list last year.
> I'm not speaking on behalf of freed.in -- if the idea makes sense it'd
> probably be best to talk to Andrew, Gora and Kishore directly.
No offence, but if folks are interested, they are welcome to discuss
it here, on the list. With that in mind, I'd propose emulating the
openness and transparency precedent that IPSS has set in its
functioning thusfar. Discussions, finances, elections, ...in short,
everything is open on public mailing lists and they have taken care
that control is not restricted to a select few in the name of the
community. If the same open and transparent approach (inpycon) is
going to be replicated with nonameconf.in or freed.in or
whatever-you-wish-to-call-it-conf.in, then it gets my vote. So I'd
prefer to wait and listen to others opinions on this.
A huge +1 for "nonameconf" moving to various cities around India -- it
should be as simple as the local group of people coming forward and
lending support on the ground, similar to the chennaipy group working
on inpycon2011.
Sandip Bhattacharya
> No offence, but if folks are interested, they are welcome to discuss
> it here, on the list. With that in mind, I'd propose emulating the
> openness and transparency precedent that IPSS has set in its
> functioning thusfar. Discussions, finances, elections, ...in short,
> everything is open on public mailing lists and they have taken care
> that control is not restricted to a select few in the name of the
> community. If the same open and transparent approach (inpycon) is
> going to be replicated with nonameconf.in or freed.in or
> whatever-you-wish-to-call-it-conf.in, then it gets my vote. So I'd
> prefer to wait and listen to others opinions on this.
I don't think the idea of freed.in being merged necessarily means that
the "management" of both the events be the same. They would be more like
LUGs, like different chapters. The city local coordinates should have
complete autonomy to conduct the conf the way they want to, just that
some guiding principles needs to be agreed to.
In any case, instead of having only one freed.in in Delhi, having
delhi.freed.in at one time of the year, and bangalore.freed.in at a
different time of the year would be really nice to have. Over time, it
might actually be nicer to have some kind of healthy friendly
competition between these on the terms of organization, and features.
- Sandip
॥ स्वक्ष ॥
<san...@foss-community.com> wrote:
> I don't think the idea of freed.in being merged necessarily means that
> the "management" of both the events be the same. They would be more like
> LUGs, like different chapters.
Not the same -- LUG's are usually limited to mailing lists and loco
meets and afaik dont handle money and finances unlike a
conference--BIG difference that. AFAIK, most upstream community events
in floss are organised with financial records being public. IIRC, the
FSF publishes its tax-returns on its website as do others, but I've
not seen any community-event in India follow these footsteps, besides
the example i cited earlier. Anyway, fwiw, the merger was Raj Mathur's
idea, not mine. I'd vote nonameconf be independent and follow the
inpycon footsteps of open transparency in its functioning, elections
and finances.
> In any case, instead of having only one freed.in in Delhi, having
> delhi.freed.in at one time of the year, and bangalore.freed.in at a
> different time of the year would be really nice to have. Over time, it
> might actually be nicer to have some kind of healthy friendly
> competition between these on the terms of organization, and features.
Now I'm a little confused. Why should there be a competition at all if
a few individuals are willing to put in an effort to organise a floss
event? If we can enjoy multiple distros and multiple programming
languages why not multiple conferences?
Sandip Bhattacharya
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 16:24, Sandip Bhattacharya
> <san...@foss-community.com> wrote:
> > I don't think the idea of freed.in being merged necessarily means that
> > the "management" of both the events be the same. They would be more like
> > LUGs, like different chapters.
>
> Not the same -- LUG's are usually limited to mailing lists and loco
> meets and afaik dont handle money and finances unlike a
> conference--BIG difference that. AFAIK, most upstream community events
> in floss are organised with financial records being public. IIRC, the
> FSF publishes its tax-returns on its website as do others, but I've
> not seen any community-event in India follow these footsteps, besides
> the example i cited earlier. Anyway, fwiw, the merger was Raj Mathur's
> idea, not mine. I'd vote nonameconf be independent and follow the
> inpycon footsteps of open transparency in its functioning, elections
> and finances.
Some LUGs like ILUG-Delhi are registered societies as well, with published financials,
and have held events like freed.in quite similarly to how pyconindia was
run. So I don't see the difference that you see.
I am not voting for a merger either. I am just discussing openly a
suggestion put forward by Raj. It is just that any initiative like
nonameconf can always do with help. If the help is financial, great. If
the help is logistical, or in kind, that is great too. But here is an
unique one-time advantage too. If you believe that nonameconf doesn't
need a branding or existing goodwill and can stand on its own, that is
perfectly fine. We can discard the proposal. However, if you leave aside
the perfectly understandable fear of the unknown for a second :) , and
think "does it make sense to go forward with all the publicity and brand
building from scratch" or "does it make sense to piggyback something
which is already there, and available *without any strings* (I know
nobody has guaranteed this, but just assuming)".
Don't forget that pyconindia does get some visibility because of its
association with pycon/PSF. If someone had gone ahead and just tried to
make a python conference from scratch, it might have been a tad more
difficult. No matter how good the organisers already were.
This is a one-time discussion. Once we settle on a new name, and once
the conf is on, nobody is ever going to discuss this again.
>
>
> > In any case, instead of having only one freed.in in Delhi, having
> > delhi.freed.in at one time of the year, and bangalore.freed.in at a
> > different time of the year would be really nice to have. Over time, it
> > might actually be nicer to have some kind of healthy friendly
> > competition between these on the terms of organization, and features.
>
> Now I'm a little confused. Why should there be a competition at all if
> a few individuals are willing to put in an effort to organise a floss
> event? If we can enjoy multiple distros and multiple programming
> languages why not multiple conferences?
You will get confused if you take the word "competition" too seriously.
:)
I meant it is a light-hearted way.
- Sandip
Anand B Pillai (pythonhacker)
On Nov 3, 3:04 pm, ॥ स्वक्ष ॥ <v...@svaksha.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting suggestion and I wish freed.in success in future. Fwiw,
> Gora has floated this idea on the inpycon list last year.
>
> > I'm not speaking on behalf of freed.in -- if the idea makes sense it'd
> > probably be best to talk to Andrew, Gora and Kishore directly.
>
> No offence, but if folks are interested, they are welcome to discuss
> it here, on the list. With that in mind, I'd propose emulating the
> openness and transparency precedent that IPSS has set in its
> functioning thusfar. Discussions, finances, elections, ...in short,
> everything is open on public mailing lists and they have taken care
> that control is not restricted to a select few in the name of the
> community. If the same open and transparent approach (inpycon) is
> going to be replicated with nonameconf.in or freed.in or
> whatever-you-wish-to-call-it-conf.in, then it gets my vote. So I'd
> prefer to wait and listen to others opinions on this.
Python community in India and one of the board members of IPSS,
I appreciate it.
Kenneth has taken a lot of care to see that IPSS remains truly open
and "not prone to hijacking" (in his own words) when drafting the
society rules. However I feel that we need a wider conference to
espouse some of the real ideals of free software (not open source,
which *is* different) and freed.in has the right spirit if not the
vision.
What I personally perceive is a conference/society with the openness
and ideals which inpycon /IPSS espouses and marry it with the
core ideals of free software and promote a community that is
free in its thinking. Elitist conferences are doomed to fail at a
certain
point in the future, since they loose grass-root support in the long
run and might end up as high-paid/professional conferences. So
it is not a bad idea to combine the ideals of freed.in into the new
"nonameconf", if not merge both freed.in *into* nonameconf on
the ground, which IMHO is a bit too early to discuss right now.
>
> A huge +1 for "nonameconf" moving to various cities around India -- it
> should be as simple as the local group of people coming forward and
> lending support on the ground, similar to the chennaipy group working
> on inpycon2011.
not having any implicit meaning. In other words to me it feels like
a mirror, leaving to the person to perceive it the way he wants.
But philosophy aside, one needs a better and well thought-out
theme to move forward, if not a different name.
Regards,
--Anand
Ramdas S
On Nov 3, 7:32 pm, "Anand B Pillai (pythonhacker)"
which IPSS took to organize Pycon. It was small, but simple and sweet.
And had every element that a community conference need to have.
I was looking at the web site, and I get an impression that the
organisers are keen to have the conference soon, but are worried
about the financial aspects of the conference.
If you can follow the discussions in the mailing list of the Pycon,
you'd understand that a number of engineering colleges in Bangalore
are very keen to host conferences of this kind that would give some
kind of exposure to their students.
I know for sure that PESIT, RVCE, MSRIT are all keen to host a general
conference on Linux and FOSS, which means the venue and the
infrastructure will come in free, well almost at least.
Then why do you need sponsors? If you charge Rs 100 a day for food, ,
you can manage a 2 day conference for Rs 200 and a 3 day conference
for Rs 300.
I am sure if there's conference announced there'll be someone out
there who will be interested in sponsoring the costs you require for
other elementary stuff such as T Shirts and other costs. In fact you
can do without that. A T Shirt less and CD less conference is pretty
fine with me at least, and preferably no paper& brochures.
What I would appeal to the organisers and thought leaders behind the
conference is to make it something that appeals to all. I have often
heard and also formed an impression that the other popular conference
on FOSS which happens in Bangalore have become elitist and several
users of Linux & FOSS feels that the conference is no more relevant to
many of us.
If you could stick to the basics and get speakers who can provide
excellent content then a number of us are right there with you and
shall attend and participate in the conference. That also would mean
that there needs to be a lot of viral marketing to reach as many
people as possible. Are there enough hands and heads out there to make
it happen?
Let me also reiterate that the conference should appeal to users and
not just developers. Please focus on ensuring that you have appealing
enough content for the audience.
Hence if you do intend to have the conference in December, then just
announce the conference, the themes, call for proposals and be done
with it.
Raj Mathur (राज माथुर)
> [snip]
> What I personally perceive is a conference/society with the openness
> and ideals which inpycon /IPSS espouses and marry it with the
> core ideals of free software and promote a community that is
> free in its thinking. Elitist conferences are doomed to fail at a
> certain
> point in the future, since they loose grass-root support in the long
> run and might end up as high-paid/professional conferences.
Just playing Devil's advocate here, but that seems to be an over-
generalisation. For instance, to pick two at random, I don't see either
foss.in or O'Reilly's OSCON anywhere on the way to failure.
We may agree that community conferences are the right way to go for us,
but invalidating professional conferences on that basis would be short-
sighted. I'm sure the world (and the potential audience) is large
enough to permit both to co-exist.
Kenneth Gonsalves
> Hence if you do intend to have the conference in December, then just
> announce the conference, the themes, call for proposals and be done
> with it.
>
>
I assume this is december 2011
--
regards
KG
http://lawgon.livejournal.com
Kenneth Gonsalves
> it is not a bad idea to combine the ideals of freed.in into the new
> "nonameconf", if not merge both freed.in *into* nonameconf on
> the ground, which IMHO is a bit too early to discuss right now.
I am a strong -1 to this conference merging with freed.in. In the first
place, as far as I know, freed.in does not exist any more. Secondly, to
be frank, freed.in has a very negative image among the foss activists in
and around the NCR and a lot of them will keep away from this conference
if there is any hint of association with them. From what I see on the
website, this conference is partially inspired by the need to repair the
damage to the foss community caused by conferences like foss.in - and
since it is more or less the same people who run both foss.in and
freed.in, associating with them in any way is going to send the wrong
message.
Let us have a fresh initiative without any old baggage hampering us.
Sandip Bhattacharya
> if there is any hint of association with them. From what I see on the
> website, this conference is partially inspired by the need to repair the
> damage to the foss community caused by conferences like foss.in - and
> since it is more or less the same people who run both foss.in and
> freed.in, associating with them in any way is going to send the wrong
> message.
I have attended both foss.in and freed.in, and I found the tone of the
events being totally different, whether there is that one person in
common between them or not.
Besides, lets not make this whole argument process people-centric. If
you do, then by guilt-by-association you would next be condemning all
those associated with foss.in (or even freed.in) from ever being a part of
this. That would be as bad as what people are trying to avoid in this
conference.
The only thing that is going to (or should) differentiate this conf from
others is not the people but the guiding principles of transparency and
community involvement that we are claiming. If that can be ensured,
should the rest even matter?
- Sandip
Anand B Pillai (pythonhacker)
On Nov 3, 11:37 pm, "Raj Mathur (राज माथुर)" <r...@linux-delhi.org>
wrote:
>
> > [snip]
> > What I personally perceive is a conference/society with the openness
> > and ideals which inpycon /IPSS espouses and marry it with the
> > core ideals of free software and promote a community that is
> > free in its thinking. Elitist conferences are doomed to fail at a
> > certain
> > point in the future, since they loose grass-root support in the long
> > run and might end up as high-paid/professional conferences.
>
> Just playing Devil's advocate here, but that seems to be an over-
> generalisation. For instance, to pick two at random, I don't see either
> foss.in or O'Reilly's OSCON anywhere on the way to failure.
fine
with me. What I don't understand are the ones which claim to be grass-
roots
and are in fact working on the way to be elitist and because of this
currently
is somewhere in between. You know the <unnamedconf> I am talking
about here. Such conferences will surely have an identity crisis
sometime
in the future, if not now.
>
> We may agree that community conferences are the right way to go for us,
> but invalidating professional conferences on that basis would be short-
> sighted. I'm sure the world (and the potential audience) is large
> enough to permit both to co-exist.
>
is pretty obvious. Professional conferences run entirely on a
different
scale from community conferences in terms of the money and
organization. However community conferences should remain true
to that amorphous, ever-changing, formless but still identifiable,
tangible entity called "community" which actually benefits from them
in terms of networking and the shared knowledge. That way
"community" conferences are quite similar to open source in the
way knowledge is being openly shared but should remain true
to the ideas of freedom and sharing, instead of becoming platforms
run by a self-selected group of people. Such conferences are not
community conferences, but semi-elitist/semi-professional conferences
faking as community ones.
॥ स्वक्ष ॥
<san...@foss-community.com> wrote:
>
> Some LUGs like ILUG-Delhi are registered societies as well, with published financials,
> and have held events like freed.in quite similarly to how pyconindia was
> run. So I don't see the difference that you see.
Thanks for the clarification. Its nice to hear that
ILUG-Delhi/Freed.in financial reports are published openly and
accessible to the general community-- please do provide a publicly
accessible link for the same. As you so eloquently put it in another
mail, "transparency and community involvement" are key, so it seems
prudent to cross this bridge before any talk of mergers. Thusfar, that
is the biggest differentiator between INpycon and other so-called
"community" events in India and on behalf of those who 'walk the
talk', the inpycon financials, FY2009,
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2009-October/001243.html and
FY2010, http://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2010-October/003693.html
> I am not voting for a merger either. I am just discussing openly a
> suggestion put forward by Raj. It is just that any initiative like
> nonameconf can always do with help. If the help is financial, great. If
> the help is logistical, or in kind, that is great too. But here is an
> unique one-time advantage too. If you believe that nonameconf doesn't
> need a branding or existing goodwill and can stand on its own, that is
> perfectly fine. We can discard the proposal. However, if you leave aside
> the perfectly understandable fear of the unknown for a second :) , and
> think "does it make sense to go forward with all the publicity and brand
> building from scratch" or "does it make sense to piggyback something
> which is already there, and available *without any strings* (I know
> nobody has guaranteed this, but just assuming)".
Help is always welcome, considering that this list is open to anyone
who wants to subscribe and discuss the merger proposal which if
accompanied by their thoughts and ideas about what they are bringing
to the community table -- especially regarding open and transparent
community processes (read, open finances + open elections, for
starters). Anything else is mere speculation on their behalf, which
stymies the 'lets move forward with nonameconf' process, hence prefer
to avoid tangential discussions.
> Don't forget that pyconindia does get some visibility because of its
> association with pycon/PSF. If someone had gone ahead and just tried to
> make a python conference from scratch, it might have been a tad more
> difficult. No matter how good the organisers already were.
Not entirely true. While the PSF did bless the event, ALL the ground
work was done locally (read, the PSF does not interfere or make
decisions on how things run locally at any conference around the
world). I'd hazard a guess that the motivation of last (and this)
year's INpycon attendee's was inspite of the "visibility because of
its association with pycon/PSF". The inpycon organisers (with a whole
lotta local community support) did indeed organise a successful
community-run python conference from _scratch_ so lets give credit
where its due.
> You will get confused if you take the word "competition" too seriously.
> :)
>
> I meant it is a light-hearted way.
Fine, but humor rarely comes across "as intended" in an impersonal
online communication mediums like email/irc *shrug*.
Regards,
vid ॥ http://svaksha.com
Kenneth Gonsalves
> > Don't forget that pyconindia does get some visibility because of its
> > association with pycon/PSF. If someone had gone ahead and just tried
> to
> > make a python conference from scratch, it might have been a tad more
> > difficult. No matter how good the organisers already were.
>
> Not entirely true. While the PSF did bless the event, ALL the ground
> work was done locally (read, the PSF does not interfere or make
> decisions on how things run locally at any conference around the
> world). I'd hazard a guess that the motivation of last (and this)
> year's INpycon attendee's was inspite of the "visibility because of
> its association with pycon/PSF". The inpycon organisers (with a whole
> lotta local community support) did indeed organise a successful
> community-run python conference from _scratch_ so lets give credit
> where its due.
vid thanks for clarifying this point. For the first conference, PSF
helped out with giving us a .in domain name. *After* the conference they
also gave Noufal an award for his work in spreading python in India. The
main reason for the success of the conference was the grass roots work
done by the two major groups involved - bangpypers and chennaipy.
Bangpypers has been chugging along for at least 5 years and has built a
substantial community. Chennaipy, though founded circa 2004, was revived
in 2006 and since then frequent meetings were held, and, more important,
python workshops were conducted in many parts of Southern and Western
India, while other members of Bangpypers did the same in the north.
Consequently there was a large body of python people available for the
two conferences. In addition yeoman work by Prahbu and others through
FOSSEE has spread python through the length and breadth of India. For
the 2011 conference, Chennaipy is already chalking out a systematic
program to spread python awareness in colleges as a run up to the
conference.
I cannot overemhpasise the importance of grass roots work in laying
foundations for conferences. I have been a constant critic of the
functioning of foss.in, freed.in, ilug delhi and even ilug bengaluru on
this point. No grass roots work - no evangelism == no useful conference.
Please remember that due to grass roots work both in Bangalore and now
in Chennai, colleges are bidding against each other to hold the
conferences.
Yes, this year the PSF sponsored a delegate in David Goodger which gave
extra lustre to the conference - but it was a success due to what I have
spoken about above.
Sandip Bhattacharya
> vid thanks for clarifying this point.
I have no idea how a simple discussion turned out into such a strong
defense of inpycon, which required clarifications, etc. I have seen
more about inpycon this year than I have seen all these days about
freed.in. I have been completely impressed with the way it was organized
and I dont need anybody to tell me how good it was. My points about
freed.in was not intended to disparage the work done by inpycon, nor to
reduce their success. Gosh, I am even being told "give credit where it is
due" as if I took away all its credit!
I wasn't lobbying on behalf of freed.in. I hardly represent the people
behind it. It just seemed like a good idea to me. I am not the kind of
person who has to say the last word, but given the way how I seem to
have ruffled the feathers of some people here, I had to "clarify"
myself.
This is the last mail from me on the subject. Good luck.
- Sandip