[Phpgroupware-developers] phpGroupWare Conf 2006?

[Dave Hall]

Bonjour,

phpGroupWare as a project has been running for a very long time.  During
this time there has only been one conference which was over 2 years ago
and only for developers.  We think it is about time for a proper phpGW
conference.

We are planning to hold a conference in France in November 2006.  We
have chosen France for the conference as it is where several of our
active developers are located, it is close to other developers and we
have many french users and an active French (speaking) community.  We
hope to hold the conference some time around PHP Forum 2006 (see
http://www.afup.org/pages/forumphp/english.php ) as this is one of the
biggest PHP conference in France each year.

We want you to participate in the conference.  Even if you can't make it
we would like you to have some input into organising it.

After some discussion we decided that the conference will run for 2
(maybe 3) days.  One day will be for developers to discuss the direction
of the project and to share ideas.  The other day will be for end users
to learn more about phpGW and to get to meet the people who have
developed the project.

We would like your feedback on the following ideas/issues

Agenda
What do you think users would like to see discussed at the conference
for the user day?  Keep in mind it is really aimed at people who admin
phpGW installs.

Attendance
Would you consider coming? Why?  Can we change your mind?

Cost/Sponsorship
We have done some rough math and think that the conference will cost
around 5kEUR to run.  This mostly covers to costs of active developers
who wish to attend.  We hope those employed to work on phpGW will be
able to get their employer to cover costs, but this is yet to be tested.

We have 3 main ideas for attracting sponsorship, let us know what you
think of them:

1 Sponsorship
  You donate money and we promote you in return (such as advertising).  
  We are looking at the following structure:
    - 1 Gold (~2kEUR)
    - 2 Silver (~1kEUR)
    - 4 Bronze (~500EUR)

2 Hackfest
  You nominate a feature and a fee and during the conference the 
  feature is coded by the developers attending.  All nominations will 
  be taken on board and the coordination team and attending developers
  will decide which offer/s will be accepted

3 Sponsor a bug
  You nominate something that annoys you about phpGW and during the 
  conference it gets fixed.  Again a payment is involved.  Nominations
  for bugs (along with contributions) will be evaluated by the 
  coordination team and attending developers.

Attendance/Entry Fee
As many of our users are businesses or government bodies we think it is
reasonable to charge a small fee (upto 150EUR) for those people
attending the conference to cover the costs of the user component of the
conference - including a networking evening.

Let us know what you think.  Please keep the discussion on list unless
you want to make an offer of sponsorship, then please email me direct.

Cheers

Dave
-- 
Dave Hall (aka skwashd)
API Coordinator
on behalf of the Coordination Team
phpGroupWare
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