Re: [Help-glpk] Any chance for a GLPK user group at a conference

[Robbie Morrison]

Hi Marc, all

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To:          "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
Subject:      [Help-glpk] Any chance for a GLPK user group at a conference
Message-ID:  <address@hidden>
From:        "Meketon, Marc" <address@hidden>
Date:         Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:14:38 -0600
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> I wonder if there should be some type of
> face-to-face user group meeting to discuss GLPK.
> Perhaps in Germany? Or perhaps associated with
> another conference such as an INFORMS
> conference.  We could have some interesting
> discussions about parallelization, source code
> control, various features, etc.

Germany would certainly have some appeal and
Berlin offers some additional advantages.

Berlin is fast becoming an open-source hub of
sorts: LinuxDays [LinuxTage], Libre Office
foundation, Chaos Computer Club, berliOS, and so.
There is arguably more acceptance for free and
open source (FOSS) by state and federal public
agencies in Germany than elsewhere.

---

The original suggestion would be to tack on to an
academic conference.

ISMP 2012 (21st International Symposium on
Mathematical Programming) was held in Berlin 19-24
August 2012.  But there was virtually nothing on
FOSS projects.  FOSS doesn't seem to be a
priority.  That could be related to either solver
performance or to the fact that industry
collaboration and patents-before-papers are now
important academic drivers.

I looked at the INFORMS calendar to the end of
2104, but nothing particularly useful there:

  http://www.informs.org/Attend-a-Conference/Conference-Calendar

----

Another strategy would be to align with an
academic institution.  No one in my world is
remotely interested in application programming
(although GAMS is widely used), so I cannot really
help there.

---

Another strategy would be to try for a slot at the
LinuxTag for May 2014:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxTag
  http://www.linuxtag.org/2013/en.html

One idea would be for Andrew Makhorin to make a
presentation and for us collectively to cover
Andrew's travel and accommodation.  There should
be a GLPK meeting as well.  But success would not
be so contingent on this meeting being especially
complete or productive.

We could also try for 2013 but have only two weeks
to react:

  "Candidates have until 20 January 2013 to submit
  their ideas for the programme of papers"

Personally, the LinuxTag 2014 option has merit.
I have been to quite a few past events, probably
about five.  Just some thoughts, Robbie
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany
University email (redirected) : address@hidden
Webmail (preferred)           : address@hidden
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