GNUstep @ FOSDEM - status update - cancel it or not?

[Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf]

Hello everybody,

I want to give a short status update on the GNUstep presence at  
FOSDEM 2009:

- currently just 4 people (me included) confirmed to be at FOSDEM

- several talks and topics where proposed, as of now only Helge has  
confirmed two talks (thanks Helge!)

- there's room for 31 people

- not every session needs to be a talk - we can also have (open)  
discussions, for instance about GNUstep & Theming (what was a hot  
topic in the last days on the list)

- deadline is in two days


since the outcome of all the efforts to organize the GNUstep presence  
at FOSDEM were so weak I was close to canceling the DevRoom  
yesterday. Only because I was so tired yesterday (after some almost  
sleepless nights this gave me) I went early to bed and postponed any  
action until today.

Since there were some reactions today on the list and on the  
wikipage  http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/FOSDEM_2009 some of my  
hope got restored.


Now I am asking you:

a) who wants us to continue and wants to account for something (talk,  
presentation, discussion moderation) at FOSDEM? Just us four won't  
cut it. Maybe you reconsider your decision not to come.

b) who thinks its better to pull the plug before it is to late to  
hand the room over to some other, more committed project?


"a" means that we need some more folks to commit to the cause and  
really do something (just voting for "a" and later doing nothing  
won't help a bit)

"b" means that there will be no official GNUstep presence on FOSDEM  
this year (because there's no GNUstep booth or desk this year). This  
also means that the message "GNU says good bye to the booming world  
of ObjC and Cocoa and accepts the status quo of the closed source  
nature of Apple's approach" is spread and perceived by the public (I  
know this is not the case but this is the way the public reception  
and opinion works). It could also mean that it might become be very  
difficult (if not impossible) to get any DevRoom, booth or stand at  
FOSDEM in the following years.


Those are the facts. Now it's up to you to decide.


regards,

        Lars


p.s.: If you ain't got a wiki account just mail to the list - I will  
then enter everything into the wiki.