Thread: On future conferences
Hi all,
Some of you will know that this summer's conference in Toronto was
mostly successful (we've been struggling with some blockers on
putting up all the conference materials, but I have been assured
several times that that state of affairs will end in the next few
days). Some of you will also know that we did some work to try to
find out what sort of future conference, if any, was desired by the
community.
Based on the feedback we received, the community apparently wants a
combined user/hacker conference: that is, a conference that combines
the PostgreSQL-server developer tracks we saw at this year's
conference with some user-focussed items similar to what one might
find at typical database conferences for users.
Such a conference is not free to put on, of course, and actually
requires a considerable amount of money in order to make it both
successful and accessible to community members. This year, we were
successful mostly because of the generosity of our many corporate
sponsors; we are thankful to them. This conference was necessarily
planned to be smaller than a combined conference would be, so we can
anticipate that a future conference would require more money than the
money required by the 2006 conference.
Those who are in charge of the funds currently held by Software in
the Public Interest have a number of other projects besides a
conference they are hoping to support in the upcoming year.
Accordingly, the group has reached a consensus that 2007 is too soon
to plan to fund another conference. Accordingly, the 2006 conference
committee is not planning to try to organise a conference for 2007.
We believe that it would be in the best interests of everyone to plan
for a biennial conference, if we wish to have a repeating series,
rather than an annual one. So, in the unlikely event you were
holding your breath waiting for the announcement of next year's
conference, wait no more.
Best regards,
Andrew Sullivan
(2006 PostgreSQL Summit committee chair)
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
--Jane Jacobs
How far off are we, money-wise? Is that the only thing holding this up? On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 04:56:19PM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote: > Hi all, > > Some of you will know that this summer's conference in Toronto was > mostly successful (we've been struggling with some blockers on > putting up all the conference materials, but I have been assured > several times that that state of affairs will end in the next few > days). Some of you will also know that we did some work to try to > find out what sort of future conference, if any, was desired by the > community. > > Based on the feedback we received, the community apparently wants a > combined user/hacker conference: that is, a conference that combines > the PostgreSQL-server developer tracks we saw at this year's > conference with some user-focussed items similar to what one might > find at typical database conferences for users. > > Such a conference is not free to put on, of course, and actually > requires a considerable amount of money in order to make it both > successful and accessible to community members. This year, we were > successful mostly because of the generosity of our many corporate > sponsors; we are thankful to them. This conference was necessarily > planned to be smaller than a combined conference would be, so we can > anticipate that a future conference would require more money than the > money required by the 2006 conference. > > Those who are in charge of the funds currently held by Software in > the Public Interest have a number of other projects besides a > conference they are hoping to support in the upcoming year. > Accordingly, the group has reached a consensus that 2007 is too soon > to plan to fund another conference. Accordingly, the 2006 conference > committee is not planning to try to organise a conference for 2007. > We believe that it would be in the best interests of everyone to plan > for a biennial conference, if we wish to have a repeating series, > rather than an annual one. So, in the unlikely event you were > holding your breath waiting for the announcement of next year's > conference, wait no more. > > Best regards, > Andrew Sullivan > (2006 PostgreSQL Summit committee chair) > > -- > Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca > Everything that happens in the world happens at some place. > --Jane Jacobs > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly > -- Jim Nasby jim@nasby.net EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)
Jim, > How far off are we, money-wise? Is that the only thing holding this up? From my perspective, it's not the money, it's the people. We need someone who can devote 300+ hours over the next year to organizing the conference, and another person who can devote 150+ hours to fundraising for it, *assuming* we can afford a professional event team (otherwise, it's more hours). Andrew and I did the bulk this last year (with considerable time investment from Peter, Gavin, Neil and Gavin) and we can't afford it this year. If we had some community people who could devote the time, then I think we could get the money. -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
> and another person who can devote 150+ hours to fundraising for it,
> *assuming* we can afford a professional event team (otherwise, it's more
> hours). Andrew and I did the bulk this last year (with considerable time
> investment from Peter, Gavin, Neil and Gavin) and we can't afford it this
> year.
>
> If we had some community people who could devote the time, then I think we
> could get the money.
However, make no mistake this is a big project and not something that
can just be done on a whim. It takes an unusual amount of dedication and
organization.
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Joshua D. Drake wrote: >> and another person who can devote 150+ hours to fundraising for it, >> *assuming* we can afford a professional event team (otherwise, it's >> more hours). Andrew and I did the bulk this last year (with >> considerable time investment from Peter, Gavin, Neil and Gavin) and >> we can't afford it this year. >> >> If we had some community people who could devote the time, then I >> think we could get the money. > > However, make no mistake this is a big project and not something that > can just be done on a whim. It takes an unusual amount of dedication > and organization. > There is another way to look at this! Consider, what business is the postgresql community in? Is it producing the absolute best sql standard database, and slowly getting it accepted in the open source world and beyond, or is the community in the business of producing viable and ever increasing in scope shows at that! If it is the former, then why not think of hooking up with someone who is in the latter biz! PostgresWorld, etc. Why must all these things be conceived, written and produced by the community??!! Wouldn't it be better for the database and the community if the community stuck to its knitting, and started moving in the direction of more partnerships?? Just a thought from the sidelines. Michael
After a long battle with technology, mdean@xn1.com (mdean), an earthling, wrote: > Joshua D. Drake wrote: >>> and another person who can devote 150+ hours to fundraising for it, >>> *assuming* we can afford a professional event team (otherwise, it's >>> more hours). Andrew and I did the bulk this last year (with >>> considerable time investment from Peter, Gavin, Neil and Gavin) and >>> we can't afford it this year. >>> >>> If we had some community people who could devote the time, then I >>> think we could get the money. >> >> However, make no mistake this is a big project and not something >> that can just be done on a whim. It takes an unusual amount of >> dedication and organization. >> > > There is another way to look at this! Consider, what business is the > postgresql community in? Is it producing the absolute best sql > standard database, and slowly getting it accepted in the open source > world and beyond, or is the community in the business of producing > viable and ever increasing in scope shows at that! > > If it is the former, then why not think of hooking up with someone who > is in the latter biz! PostgresWorld, etc. Why must all these things > be conceived, written and produced by the community??!! Wouldn't it > be better for the database and the community if the community stuck to > its knitting, and started moving in the direction of more > partnerships?? Just a thought from the sidelines. > Michael The trouble with this is that they have to come up with a way of making the conference profitable, and their ideas/needs may not entirely fit with community needs. The needs of a technical conference are quite a bit different from those of a sales-oriented conference; getting that mix right is nontrivial. That being said, there could be merit to joining with some other technical conference of a reasonably congrent nature. Getting people in the PostgreSQL community behind it is probably touchy at the moment simply because the folks that organized the 2006 conference just went thru the process of determining that they don't feel they can do another so soon. That's a bit of a barrier... -- (reverse (concatenate 'string "ofni.secnanifxunil" "@" "enworbbc")) http://linuxdatabases.info/info/slony.html All generalizations are false, including this one.
On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 04:28:12PM -0500, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> How far off are we, money-wise? Is that the only thing holding this up?
Sort of; but see Josh Berkus's comments. If we had a _lot_ of money,
we could of course pay someone to do most of the work, in which case
we might be able to do it.
But there's something else that Josh doesn't mention. We did have
some discussion about doing things with some other conference, or
doing things with more volunteers. The problem with all of that is
that it is now the latter half of September, which gives us less than
a year to do it. And involving more people automatically means
taking longer.
You can make your pool of volunteers bigger, thereby sharing the
load, if you have time to handle all the communication overhead. But
I think, based on the experience of the last year (and previous
things I've organised) that the time to allow for that is already
gone. It would actually be easier now for one or two people to
organise this than it would be for a group of 10 to do it, because
the cost of consensus is so great. Even with our rather small group
of organisers this year, we occasionally suffered from the time it
took to reach consensus. And we were aiming at a small conference
(the actual plan was for only about 50 people, which we exceeded
beyond our wildest estimates).
There's one other thing worth mentioning, and that is that in the
funds group, there were some very persuasive arguments (well, to me,
anyway) that a biennial conference is easier for the community too.
That is, many people don't have a lot of sponsorship for travel, so
running a conference only every two years makes the burden on
individuals somewhat easier to bear.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
--George Orwell
On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 06:06:06PM -0700, mdean wrote:
> If it is the former, then why not think of hooking up with someone who
> is in the latter biz! PostgresWorld, etc.
If someone is actually in that business, and there's money to be made
from such a conference, they'll set it up anyway ;-)
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
If they don't do anything, we don't need their acronym.
--Josh Hamilton, on the US FEMA
On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 09:34:56PM +0900, Tatsuo Ishii wrote:
> Hi,
>
> If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I
> would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if
> we could do anything for this.
>
> What do you think?
It appears that there is also interest on the part of some to try to
do a conference in Canada again next year. But I don't see any
reason not to have one in Japan!
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
In the future this spectacle of the middle classes shocking the avant-
garde will probably become the textbook definition of Postmodernism.
--Brad Holland
Hi, If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if we could do anything for this. What do you think? -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan > Hi all, > > Some of you will know that this summer's conference in Toronto was > mostly successful (we've been struggling with some blockers on > putting up all the conference materials, but I have been assured > several times that that state of affairs will end in the next few > days). Some of you will also know that we did some work to try to > find out what sort of future conference, if any, was desired by the > community. > > Based on the feedback we received, the community apparently wants a > combined user/hacker conference: that is, a conference that combines > the PostgreSQL-server developer tracks we saw at this year's > conference with some user-focussed items similar to what one might > find at typical database conferences for users. > > Such a conference is not free to put on, of course, and actually > requires a considerable amount of money in order to make it both > successful and accessible to community members. This year, we were > successful mostly because of the generosity of our many corporate > sponsors; we are thankful to them. This conference was necessarily > planned to be smaller than a combined conference would be, so we can > anticipate that a future conference would require more money than the > money required by the 2006 conference. > > Those who are in charge of the funds currently held by Software in > the Public Interest have a number of other projects besides a > conference they are hoping to support in the upcoming year. > Accordingly, the group has reached a consensus that 2007 is too soon > to plan to fund another conference. Accordingly, the 2006 conference > committee is not planning to try to organise a conference for 2007. > We believe that it would be in the best interests of everyone to plan > for a biennial conference, if we wish to have a repeating series, > rather than an annual one. So, in the unlikely event you were > holding your breath waiting for the announcement of next year's > conference, wait no more. > > Best regards, > Andrew Sullivan > (2006 PostgreSQL Summit committee chair) > > -- > Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca > Everything that happens in the world happens at some place. > --Jane Jacobs > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly >
Ishii-San, > > If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I > > would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if > > we could do anything for this. Hmmm ... would JPUG want to host a bilingual conference? I don't find this out of the question. The main issue would be that accomodations etc. in Tokyo are very expensive. At least there's plenty of direct flights. -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, Tatsuo Ishii wrote:
> Hi,
>
> If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I
> would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if
> we could do anything for this.
>
> What do you think?
I'd like to visit Japan.
> --
> Tatsuo Ishii
> SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Some of you will know that this summer's conference in Toronto was
>> mostly successful (we've been struggling with some blockers on
>> putting up all the conference materials, but I have been assured
>> several times that that state of affairs will end in the next few
>> days). Some of you will also know that we did some work to try to
>> find out what sort of future conference, if any, was desired by the
>> community.
>>
>> Based on the feedback we received, the community apparently wants a
>> combined user/hacker conference: that is, a conference that combines
>> the PostgreSQL-server developer tracks we saw at this year's
>> conference with some user-focussed items similar to what one might
>> find at typical database conferences for users.
>>
>> Such a conference is not free to put on, of course, and actually
>> requires a considerable amount of money in order to make it both
>> successful and accessible to community members. This year, we were
>> successful mostly because of the generosity of our many corporate
>> sponsors; we are thankful to them. This conference was necessarily
>> planned to be smaller than a combined conference would be, so we can
>> anticipate that a future conference would require more money than the
>> money required by the 2006 conference.
>>
>> Those who are in charge of the funds currently held by Software in
>> the Public Interest have a number of other projects besides a
>> conference they are hoping to support in the upcoming year.
>> Accordingly, the group has reached a consensus that 2007 is too soon
>> to plan to fund another conference. Accordingly, the 2006 conference
>> committee is not planning to try to organise a conference for 2007.
>> We believe that it would be in the best interests of everyone to plan
>> for a biennial conference, if we wish to have a repeating series,
>> rather than an annual one. So, in the unlikely event you were
>> holding your breath waiting for the announcement of next year's
>> conference, wait no more.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Andrew Sullivan
>> (2006 PostgreSQL Summit committee chair)
>>
>> --
>> Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
>> Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
>> --Jane Jacobs
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
>> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>
Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83
After a long battle with technology, josh@agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus), an earthling, wrote: > Ishii-San, > >> > If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I >> > would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if >> > we could do anything for this. > > Hmmm ... would JPUG want to host a bilingual conference? I don't find this > out of the question. The main issue would be that accomodations etc. in > Tokyo are very expensive. At least there's plenty of direct flights. It strikes me that for 2007 to be the year of "regional PostgreSQL conferences" might be a neat idea. Thus, one in Japan, one in eastern Canada, perhaps one in the western US, perhaps one or more in Europe and elsewhere, with the assumption of rather less heavy travel being involved than was the case for the "Anniversary" conference. -- (format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "gmail.com") http://linuxfinances.info/info/languages.html "Love is like a snowmobile flying over the frozen tundra that suddenly flips, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." -- Matt Groening
Christopher Browne wrote:
> After a long battle with technology, josh@agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus), an earthling, wrote:
>> Ishii-San,
>>
>>>> If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I
>>>> would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if
>>>> we could do anything for this.
>> Hmmm ... would JPUG want to host a bilingual conference? I don't find this
>> out of the question. The main issue would be that accomodations etc. in
>> Tokyo are very expensive. At least there's plenty of direct flights.
>
> It strikes me that for 2007 to be the year of "regional PostgreSQL
> conferences" might be a neat idea.
I agree, my original thought was to tack onto other conferences for
example, LinuxWorld West runs tue-thu, we run our conference "in"
Linuxworld West by actually have a booth that people can sit at and talk
to us, then on Friday we host a series of talks etc... or something.
That allows us to reach out to people who don't know about us, including
informing them of something that is happening at the very end of the show.
Western US is a good idea, we have *alot* of potential community members
on this side.
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Josh, > I agree, my original thought was to tack onto other conferences for > example, LinuxWorld West runs tue-thu, we run our conference "in" > Linuxworld West by actually have a booth that people can sit at and talk > to us, then on Friday we host a series of talks etc... or something. If we're going to do anything in the Western US, I think a PostgreSQL Day at OSCON makes more sense (we were invited to have one last year). It's a better conference, run by better staff who are far more communicative, and it would be either free or very low cost. However, I don't want to take away from Ottawa being the "main" English-language conference, if we decide to do Ottawa at all. That should be the one, for example, that we do travel sponsorships for. Maybe Tokyo in 2008? Make the annual JPUG conference multi-lingual? -- Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
Josh Berkus wrote:
> Josh,
>
>> I agree, my original thought was to tack onto other conferences for
>> example, LinuxWorld West runs tue-thu, we run our conference "in"
>> Linuxworld West by actually have a booth that people can sit at and talk
>> to us, then on Friday we host a series of talks etc... or something.
>
> If we're going to do anything in the Western US, I think a PostgreSQL Day at
> OSCON makes more sense (we were invited to have one last year). It's a
> better conference, run by better staff who are far more communicative, and it
> would be either free or very low cost.
I was just using LinuxWorld as an example. However I will note that I am
the one that has organized OSCON for the last couple of years and I also
handled LinuxWorld Boston. Frankly LinuxWorld Boston at least from an
exhibitor perspective was a much better run show. Yes it wasn't as big
as they wanted, but they bent over backward to make sure we had
*everything* we needed.
OSCON definitely has the upper hand in the "Open Source + Oreilly" ideal
but LinuxWorld Boston went all out for us. I am not familiar with what
organizing LinuxWorld SF was like as I was just a booth babe this year.
>
> However, I don't want to take away from Ottawa being the "main"
> English-language conference, if we decide to do Ottawa at all. That should
> be the one, for example, that we do travel sponsorships for.
Why? That doesn't seem to make much sense frankly. I would say save the
travel sponsorships for speakers and have those sponsorships available
for any of the regional shows we determine is going to happen.
>
> Maybe Tokyo in 2008? Make the annual JPUG conference multi-lingual?
>
Maybe. I actually wouldn't mind seeing AU as or UK a hub for a big
conference.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Josh, I don't agree with holding a pg-hackers' conference in Japan *next year*. It is not only financial issue. JPUG has own conference for business users and application developers every year. In my opinion, this conference is more important than hackers' conference, because business users/application developers are *very very* important for the software product. So I don't want to push a bilingual/English-language conference to them (bilingual keynote speech is welcome). Of course, I understand the hackers conference is also important, so if you plan to separate two conferences (for hackers and users), it's good idea, but I don't think JPUG has ability to have two big conferences in one year. I agree with holding pg-hackers conference at OSCON or LinuxWorld. It looks reasonable for us. On 9/24/06, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > Josh, > > > I agree, my original thought was to tack onto other conferences for > > example, LinuxWorld West runs tue-thu, we run our conference "in" > > Linuxworld West by actually have a booth that people can sit at and talk > > to us, then on Friday we host a series of talks etc... or something. > > If we're going to do anything in the Western US, I think a PostgreSQL Day at > OSCON makes more sense (we were invited to have one last year). It's a > better conference, run by better staff who are far more communicative, and it > would be either free or very low cost. > > However, I don't want to take away from Ottawa being the "main" > English-language conference, if we decide to do Ottawa at all. That should > be the one, for example, that we do travel sponsorships for. > > Maybe Tokyo in 2008? Make the annual JPUG conference multi-lingual? > > -- > Josh Berkus > PostgreSQL @ Sun > San Francisco > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend > > -- NAGAYASU Satoshi <snaga@snaga.org>
Satoshi, > Of course, I understand the hackers conference is also important, > so if you plan to separate two conferences (for hackers and users), > it's good idea, but I don't think JPUG has ability to have two big > conferences in one year. OK, I was a little surprised when Tatsuo suggested it. Idea dropped. > I agree with holding pg-hackers conference at OSCON or LinuxWorld. > It looks reasonable for us. I was thinking just a day/special event type thing. The main conference will probably be someplace else. -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
On Sat, Sep 23, 2006 at 01:05:09PM +0400, Oleg Bartunov wrote: > On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, Tatsuo Ishii wrote: > > >Hi, > > > >If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I > >would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if > >we could do anything for this. > > > >What do you think? > > I'd like to visit Japan. I'd like to visit Japan, too :) Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote!
On Sat, 23 Sep 2006, Christopher Browne wrote: > After a long battle with technology, josh@agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus), an earthling, wrote: > > Ishii-San, > > > >> > If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I > >> > would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business people if > >> > we could do anything for this. > > > > Hmmm ... would JPUG want to host a bilingual conference? I don't find this > > out of the question. The main issue would be that accomodations etc. in > > Tokyo are very expensive. At least there's plenty of direct flights. > > It strikes me that for 2007 to be the year of "regional PostgreSQL > conferences" might be a neat idea. I will be holding a one day PostgreSQL 'mini conference' in January in Sydney. Web site and full details available soon. Thanks, Gavin
> > Of course, I understand the hackers conference is also important, > > so if you plan to separate two conferences (for hackers and users), > > it's good idea, but I don't think JPUG has ability to have two big > > conferences in one year. > > OK, I was a little surprised when Tatsuo suggested it. Idea dropped. I don't think JPUG itself can do the two conferences in a year neither. Rather, I suggest to establish a new "committee" to run the hacker's conference. That's why I'm going to talk with not only JPUG, but also useres and business people. -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
On 9/23/06, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> wrote: > It strikes me that for 2007 to be the year of "regional PostgreSQL > conferences" might be a neat idea. > > Thus, one in Japan, one in eastern Canada, perhaps one in the western > US, perhaps one or more in Europe and elsewhere, with the assumption > of rather less heavy travel being involved than was the case for the > "Anniversary" conference. Completely I agree with that. Regional conferences are very important for many local developers/users. And I want to ask the community to - share our presenstation(educational) materials under CreativeCommons lisence. - update our past presentation materials for 8.1/8.2. - make podcasts of our regional conferences. - make collection of our presentation/podcast materials at www.postgresql.org. If we share such information/materials on the Internet, it will be a world-wide knowledgebase, and it will help small user group to start their small local conference. Thus, if we get many materials and developers/users, we will be ready to have a world-wide PostgreSQL conference in 2008 (or later). -- NAGAYASU Satoshi <snaga@snaga.org>
On Sep 23, 2006, at 9:36 AM, Christopher Browne wrote: > After a long battle with technology, josh@agliodbs.com (Josh > Berkus), an earthling, wrote: >> Ishii-San, >> >>>> If you guys don't mind to have the conference in Japan next year, I >>>> would like to start discussions with JPUG/community/business >>>> people if >>>> we could do anything for this. >> >> Hmmm ... would JPUG want to host a bilingual conference? I don't >> find this >> out of the question. The main issue would be that accomodations >> etc. in >> Tokyo are very expensive. At least there's plenty of direct flights. > > It strikes me that for 2007 to be the year of "regional PostgreSQL > conferences" might be a neat idea. > > Thus, one in Japan, one in eastern Canada, perhaps one in the western > US, perhaps one or more in Europe and elsewhere, with the assumption > of rather less heavy travel being involved than was the case for the > "Anniversary" conference. One thing to consider is that such a format might make it more difficult to get adequate sponsorship, since presumably it would cost more to host a number of small conferences rather than one large one. Likely sponsors would probably have to lay out more money outside of the sponsorships as well, since they'd likely want to attend multiple conferences. -- Jim Nasby jimn@enterprisedb.com EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)
On Sunday 24 September 2006 20:32, Jim Nasby wrote: > > Thus, one in Japan, one in central Canada, perhaps one in the western > > US, perhaps one or more in Europe and elsewhere, with the assumption > > of rather less heavy travel being involved than was the case for the > > "Anniversary" conference. > > One thing to consider is that such a format might make it more > difficult to get adequate sponsorship, since presumably it would cost > more to host a number of small conferences rather than one large one. > Likely sponsors would probably have to lay out more money outside of > the sponsorships as well, since they'd likely want to attend multiple > conferences. I don't think it's as big an issue as it might be. Look at Linux World, they have multiple shows running throughout the world and not just in the US. cheers
On Sep 25, 2006, at 5:39 AM, Robert Bernier wrote: > On Sunday 24 September 2006 20:32, Jim Nasby wrote: >>> Thus, one in Japan, one in central Canada, perhaps one in the >>> western >>> US, perhaps one or more in Europe and elsewhere, with the assumption >>> of rather less heavy travel being involved than was the case for the >>> "Anniversary" conference. >> >> One thing to consider is that such a format might make it more >> difficult to get adequate sponsorship, since presumably it would cost >> more to host a number of small conferences rather than one large one. >> Likely sponsors would probably have to lay out more money outside of >> the sponsorships as well, since they'd likely want to attend multiple >> conferences. > > I don't think it's as big an issue as it might be. Look at Linux > World, they > have multiple shows running throughout the world and not just in > the US. And they have people willing to pay a lot of money both to attend and to have booths. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but if it wasn't for the financial support of all the corporate sponsors, the anniversary summit simply wouldn't have happened. Hopefully at some point there will be enough commercial interest around PostgreSQL that such sponsorship won't be required, but I don't think we're there yet. -- Jim Nasby jimn@enterprisedb.com EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)
On Saturday 23 September 2006 09:36, Christopher Browne wrote: > It strikes me that for 2007 to be the year of "regional PostgreSQL > conferences" might be a neat idea. > > Thus, one in Japan, one in eastern Canada, Chris.... Central Canada (eastern ontario to be exact) ! ;-) -- Robert Bernier PostgreSQL Business Intelligence Analyst SRA AMERICA (Formerly of One WTC) PostgreSQL Services:Consulting,Migration,Support and Training One Penn Plaza, Suite 1910 New York, NY 10119 Tel: 212.244.8833 ext:22 www.sraapowergres.com robertb@sraapowergres.com www.sraamerica.com
On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 06:35:52PM -0400, Jim Nasby wrote:
> to have booths. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but if it
> wasn't for the financial support of all the corporate sponsors, the
> anniversary summit simply wouldn't have happened.
Sort of. It certainly wouldn't have happened on the scale it did.
When we started, we (or I, at least) sort of assumed we'd get
nothing, but also had had a lot of previous suggestion that we
_might_ get something if we asked. Which made us more willing to
press ahead without really being completely organised.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace.
--Philip Greenspun
jim@nasby.net (Jim Nasby) writes: > On Sep 25, 2006, at 5:39 AM, Robert Bernier wrote: >> On Sunday 24 September 2006 20:32, Jim Nasby wrote: >>>> Thus, one in Japan, one in central Canada, perhaps one in the >>>> western US, perhaps one or more in Europe and elsewhere, with the >>>> assumption of rather less heavy travel being involved than was >>>> the case for the "Anniversary" conference. >>> >>> One thing to consider is that such a format might make it more >>> difficult to get adequate sponsorship, since presumably it would >>> cost more to host a number of small conferences rather than one >>> large one. Likely sponsors would probably have to lay out more >>> money outside of the sponsorships as well, since they'd likely >>> want to attend multiple conferences. >> >> I don't think it's as big an issue as it might be. Look at Linux >> World, they have multiple shows running throughout the world and >> not just in the US. > > And they have people willing to pay a lot of money both to attend > and to have booths. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but if > it wasn't for the financial support of all the corporate sponsors, > the anniversary summit simply wouldn't have happened. It may be that the EnterpriseDB and GreenPlums of the community need to pick and choose which conferences to sponsor by their presence. But in view that there are a lot of trade conferences out there with "Linux" in their names, some of which attract such companies, others that don't, that's clearly already the case. > Hopefully at some point there will be enough commercial interest > around PostgreSQL that such sponsorship won't be required, but I > don't think we're there yet. I don't think that's self-evident. The fact that there was some corporate sponsorship made certain parts of the Anniversary conference easier; in particular, finding a place to hold the "code sprint" would have been a lot more challenging without that. "More challenging" is by no means synonymous with "impossible." The economics of having a set of regional conferences changes most pointedly in that there is no longer the need to raise *nearly* as much money to cover travel expenses. If you're not spending $3000 USD on travel, that leaves a lot of money left over on the part of attendees to possibly even pay a bit more up front for a conference fee. It would be interesting to know what the aggregate travel budget for the Anniversary conference was (that is, what was spent by everyone on travel); I rather suspect that this amount exceeded the corporate sponsorships by a pretty hefty margin. -- let name="cbbrowne" and tld="linuxdatabases.info" in name ^ "@" ^ tld;; http://cbbrowne.com/info/sgml.html Philosophy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
Chris, > It would be interesting to know what the aggregate travel budget for > the Anniversary conference was (that is, what was spent by everyone on > travel); I'm not sure about that, but travel sponsorships were around $12,000. -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
>
> The economics of having a set of regional conferences changes most
> pointedly in that there is no longer the need to raise *nearly* as
> much money to cover travel expenses. If you're not spending $3000 USD
> on travel, that leaves a lot of money left over on the part of
> attendees to possibly even pay a bit more up front for a conference
> fee.
>
> It would be interesting to know what the aggregate travel budget for
> the Anniversary conference was (that is, what was spent by everyone on
> travel); I rather suspect that this amount exceeded the corporate
> sponsorships by a pretty hefty margin.
Well it is my understanding that the travel sponsorships made up about
50% of the entire conference budget and I know those travel sponsorships
would not have covered 100% of travel expenses except for may US based
people.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
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On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 04:10:05PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Well it is my understanding that the travel sponsorships made up about
> 50% of the entire conference budget
Not quite 50, and I think the higher amount included accommodation.
Josh Berkus has all the final numbers, though. Those numbers should
be available as part of the SPI accounting, I assume.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
This work was visionary and imaginative, and goes to show that visionary
and imaginative work need not end up well.
--Dennis Ritchie
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 04:10:05PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> Well it is my understanding that the travel sponsorships made up about
>> 50% of the entire conference budget
>
> Not quite 50, and I think the higher amount included accommodation.
Right, I should have been more specific.
> Josh Berkus has all the final numbers, though. Those numbers should
> be available as part of the SPI accounting, I assume.
Soon :)
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
>
> A
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
Andrew, Josh, > Not quite 50, and I think the higher amount included accommodation. > Josh Berkus has all the final numbers, though. Those numbers should > be available as part of the SPI accounting, I assume. As I posted earlier, travel sponsorships were $12,000 out of a $29,500 budget. Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco 415-752-2500
ajs@crankycanuck.ca (Andrew Sullivan) writes: > On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 04:10:05PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >> Well it is my understanding that the travel sponsorships made up about >> 50% of the entire conference budget > > Not quite 50, and I think the higher amount included accommodation. > Josh Berkus has all the final numbers, though. Those numbers should > be available as part of the SPI accounting, I assume. To avoid wasting too much time on struggling for numbers that may not be as interesting as imagined, the figure I was thinking about as being the *truly* interesting one is the total amount spent by everyone on travel. For my part, that would have been about $5 in subway tokens, and a few dollars worth of gasoline. For those travelling from afar, it may have been thousands of dollars apiece. In some cases, there may not be a meaningful figure to be had; Gavin, for instance, originates in Australia, but had already travelled to the US, so that the trip to Toronto was just a "hop". I honestly don't know whether his figure ought to be $500 or $5000... At any rate, we can really only speculate as to what the TOTAL travel spending was, as nobody was expected to report that. But that *total* does represent a legitimate view on what had to be spent on the conference, and the shape of the equivalent "total travel cost" would be entirely different for a set of regional conferences. Whether we can measure it or not, it's still relevant, as it represents amounts that people have to commit to in order for conferences to be attended. -- "cbbrowne","@","linuxfinances.info" http://linuxdatabases.info/info/linuxxian.html "It's difficult to extract sense from strings, but they're the only communication coin we can count on." -- Alan J. Perlis
On Thursday 28 September 2006 12:09, Chris Browne wrote:
> ajs@crankycanuck.ca (Andrew Sullivan) writes:
> > On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 04:10:05PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >> Well it is my understanding that the travel sponsorships made up about
> >> 50% of the entire conference budget
> >
> > Not quite 50, and I think the higher amount included accommodation.
> > Josh Berkus has all the final numbers, though. Those numbers should
> > be available as part of the SPI accounting, I assume.
>
> To avoid wasting too much time on struggling for numbers that may not
> be as interesting as imagined, the figure I was thinking about as
> being the *truly* interesting one is the total amount spent by
> everyone on travel.
>
> For my part, that would have been about $5 in subway tokens, and a few
> dollars worth of gasoline. For those travelling from afar, it may
> have been thousands of dollars apiece. In some cases, there may not
> be a meaningful figure to be had; Gavin, for instance, originates in
> Australia, but had already travelled to the US, so that the trip to
> Toronto was just a "hop". I honestly don't know whether his figure
> ought to be $500 or $5000...
>
I would speculate that the typical airfare cost for someone in the US
traveling to YYZ would be around $500, based on that being what I paid for my
flight out of Tampa. It would have been more if I had left from Gainesville,
but probably cheaper for others who might have been able to pick up a direct
flight. That said the cost to fly from Florida to Portland also tends to be
around $500, assuming you do enough bargain hunting for a good fare.
> At any rate, we can really only speculate as to what the TOTAL travel
> spending was, as nobody was expected to report that.
>
> But that *total* does represent a legitimate view on what had to be
> spent on the conference, and the shape of the equivalent "total travel
> cost" would be entirely different for a set of regional conferences.
>
> Whether we can measure it or not, it's still relevant, as it
> represents amounts that people have to commit to in order for
> conferences to be attended.
Part of the issue might be how big you consider the regions to be. IMO if you
do one in NYC or Philidelphia, people from Georgia/Florida/Alabama will not
see that as being in there region. If you do it in Atlanta, I'm not sure if
you even get enough people to go (the south east doesn't seem to be a hotbed
of postgresql activity). It might work in someplace like Atlanta since it is
a major hub, so maybe you can get airfare under $100 which should be doable.
(Though don't forget hotel).
Don't forget though, there are numerous conferences built around different
models for people to check out (yapc, php|works,oscon) if you're interested
to see how the packages tend to look.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 08:35:37PM -0400, Robert Treat wrote: > I would speculate that the typical airfare cost for someone in the US > traveling to YYZ would be around $500, based on that being what I paid for my > flight out of Tampa. It would have been more if I had left from Gainesville, > but probably cheaper for others who might have been able to pick up a direct > flight. That said the cost to fly from Florida to Portland also tends to be > around $500, assuming you do enough bargain hunting for a good fare. I suspect that airfare to pretty much any hub city in the US will be approximately $500. > > At any rate, we can really only speculate as to what the TOTAL travel > > spending was, as nobody was expected to report that. > > > > But that *total* does represent a legitimate view on what had to be > > spent on the conference, and the shape of the equivalent "total travel > > cost" would be entirely different for a set of regional conferences. > > > > Whether we can measure it or not, it's still relevant, as it > > represents amounts that people have to commit to in order for > > conferences to be attended. > > Part of the issue might be how big you consider the regions to be. IMO if you > do one in NYC or Philidelphia, people from Georgia/Florida/Alabama will not > see that as being in there region. If you do it in Atlanta, I'm not sure if > you even get enough people to go (the south east doesn't seem to be a hotbed > of postgresql activity). It might work in someplace like Atlanta since it is > a major hub, so maybe you can get airfare under $100 which should be doable. > (Though don't forget hotel). I suspect trying to hold it near a group of users only really matters if you're trying to attract a lot of those users, because pretty much everyone else will have to travel. (Just to be clear, I'm in no way speaking for my employer here.) My point about corporate sponsor costs still stands... if there are two US conferences and a sponsor wants to be at both they now have to either double the amount they're spending or divide it up between both conferences, which means sending fewer people and sponsoring less money. I think people are arguing that dividing the money up is OK because the travel sponsorships will cost less, but I don't think that's the case. Putting the money aside, having 2 US conferences means roughly 2x the amount of planning legwork, which is a huge consideration. Now, 'regional' as in the Americas (combined or separate), Europe and Japan/Asia is somewhat of a different story. Flying across either ocean is extremely expensive, so it severely limits people from outside North America when attending a conference in Canada. And you're somewhat less likely to have sponsor overlap, since very few companies have a large presence outside their 'home continent'. And I think there's enough community members in those different areas to support the planning an execution of a conference. -- Jim Nasby jim@nasby.net EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)
On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 09:26:48AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
> As I posted earlier, travel sponsorships were $12,000 out of a $29,500
> budget.
You don't seem to have noticed that I was saying we seem to have (at
least, on any spreadsheet I saw) accounted the accommodation we
sponsored differently from the travel we sponsored. Looking at the
last spreadsheet I have, which was from May, it looks like the
combination of the two scrapes about $12,000; but I can't be sure
because it looks to me like some people I know were sponsored aren't
listed there.
In any case, according to the docs I have, the travel sponsorships
including rooms were just under double the facitilies cost, and even
rather more expensive than the cost of the facilities plus the
remarkably expensive insurance. So it's undoubtedly true that a
conference that relied mostly on donated travel sponsorship could
run at a significantly lower cost.
Of course, this brings us back to Chris's point. What we actually
did in this case was get, for example, EnterpriseDB's sponsorship
twice: they not only paid for their own employees to come, but they
also gave us some money that allowed us to bring people who otherwise
would not have had travel sponsorship.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
A certain description of men are for getting out of debt, yet are
against all taxes for raising money to pay it off.
--Alexander Hamilton
Increasing the number of conference goers makes it possible to defray costs directly from conference itself thus relyingless upon the sponsors. Were you able to cover these issues from those other people who've run their own conferences? On Friday 29 September 2006 09:29, Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 09:26:48AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote: > > As I posted earlier, travel sponsorships were $12,000 out of a $29,500 > > budget. > > You don't seem to have noticed that I was saying we seem to have (at > least, on any spreadsheet I saw) accounted the accommodation we > sponsored differently from the travel we sponsored. Looking at the > last spreadsheet I have, which was from May, it looks like the > combination of the two scrapes about $12,000; but I can't be sure > because it looks to me like some people I know were sponsored aren't > listed there. > > In any case, according to the docs I have, the travel sponsorships > including rooms were just under double the facitilies cost, and even > rather more expensive than the cost of the facilities plus the > remarkably expensive insurance. So it's undoubtedly true that a > conference that relied mostly on donated travel sponsorship could > run at a significantly lower cost. > > Of course, this brings us back to Chris's point. What we actually > did in this case was get, for example, EnterpriseDB's sponsorship > twice: they not only paid for their own employees to come, but they > also gave us some money that allowed us to bring people who otherwise > would not have had travel sponsorship. > > A
On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 09:39:14AM -0400, Robert Bernier wrote:
> Increasing the number of conference goers makes it possible to
> defray costs directly from conference itself thus relying less upon
> the sponsors.
Well, maybe. That's really a matter of income from the number of
attendees.
> Were you able to cover these issues from those other people who've
> run their own conferences?
Yes. We looked at many models, and this was the one we came up with.
Other models might work differently.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
"The year's penultimate month" is not in truth a good way of saying
November.
--H.W. Fowler
Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 09:39:14AM -0400, Robert Bernier wrote: > > >> Increasing the number of conference goers makes it possible to >> defray costs directly from conference itself thus relying less upon >> the sponsors. >> > > Well, maybe. That's really a matter of income from the number of > attendees. > > >> Were you able to cover these issues from those other people who've >> run their own conferences? >> > > Yes. We looked at many models, and this was the one we came up with. > Other models might work differently. > > A > > I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center.
On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 08:46:17AM -0700, mdean wrote:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> >Yes. We looked at many models, and this was the one we came up with.
> >Other models might work differently.
> >
> I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced
> levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center.
Could be.
Remember, all, that the goal of the 2006 conference was for
_contributors_ to the software. It was intended to celebrate the
history and talk about possible future directions. So everybody was
all in the "expert" category already.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Unfortunately reformatting the Internet is a little more painful
than reformatting your hard drive when it gets out of whack.
--Scott Morris
> I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced
> levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center.
They are :) OTG, Command Prompt, SRA and Varlena all offer training.
Joshua D. Drake
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match
>
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
...and EnterpriseDB. > -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-advocacy- > owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Joshua D. Drake > Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 12:19 PM > To: mdean > Cc: Andrew Sullivan; Robert Bernier; pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] On future conferences > > > > I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced > > levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center. > > They are :) OTG, Command Prompt, SRA and Varlena all offer training. > > Joshua D. Drake > > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to > > choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not > > match > > > > > -- > > === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === > Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 > Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 > http://www.commandprompt.com/ > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
On Friday 29 September 2006 12:18, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced > > levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center. You do have a point: if we made for a more inclusive (sic popularized) event, a sponsor could offer a training course where all proceeds would go to the conference itself. A one day training could be broken into two half days thus permitting the person to see at least a bit of what else is going on. The training fee could either be the admission fee itself or a small additional charge added to the basic fee. It would make for good publicity. robert
Robert Bernier wrote: > On Friday 29 September 2006 12:18, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >>> I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced >>> levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center. >>> > > You do have a point: if we made for a more inclusive (sic popularized) event, > a sponsor could offer a training course where all proceeds would go to the > conference itself. A one day training could be broken into two half days thus > permitting the person to see at least a bit of what else is going on. The > training fee could either be the admission fee itself or a small additional > charge added to the basic fee. It would make for good publicity. > > robert > > Thanks! I think inclusiveness is a real issue with postgresql, both in terms of pr, and in terms of partnerships with user applications such as Alfresco who use hibernate for db connectivity. Mysql, due to its massive user population is the natural first database for these kinds of enterprise applications, and Mysql provides developer suppoprt for these applications, but the door is open for postgresql to provide code such that postgresql is used also. There is greater payoff for postgresql to begin a new era of inclusiveness, of integration with higher levels of an application stack, of partnerships with developers creating business applications, rather than relying on their commercial cousins for this.
All, I think that people are missing a big part of the "draw" around a PostgreSQL conference. The presense of the major PostgreSQL hackers (Core, Neil, Gavin, Simon, Tatsuo, etc., etc.) is a considerable part of the reason why people want to go. I think that would hold true of a conference with a higher user quotient as well; not so much because they actually want to meet Tom, but because the presence of the "lead developers" makes the conference special. If we had several "official conferences" in North America, then our lead hackers could not afford to go to all of them. This would result in each conference being less of a draw and consequently less successful. If we split the conference effort, then we risk having *all* of the PostgreSQL events fail. Maybe in a couple of years, we'll have enough going on to support regional conferences beyond the "continental" level. But for 2007, I think it's very important that we focus our energies on one "official" conference, with only *minor* activities elsewhere. I also say that talk about having other conferences is moot, anyway, becuase we have no staff to run anything. That was why we were going to cancel the 2007 summit, remember? -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 11:18:25AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> becuase we have no staff to run anything. That was why we were going to
> cancel the 2007 summit, remember?
Or rather, why we announced that we weren't going to hold one. I
don't think we _ever_ said that we were planning an annual
conference. Certainly, if we'd announced that, I'd have regarded it
as a duty to find the time to make it happen.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
In the future this spectacle of the middle classes shocking the avant-
garde will probably become the textbook definition of Postmodernism.
--Brad Holland
Andy Astor wrote: > ...and EnterpriseDB. What isn't clear is whether EnterpriseDB offers straight PostgreSQL training, rather than EnterpriseDB product training. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -----Original Message----- > > From: pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-advocacy- > > owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Joshua D. Drake > > Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 12:19 PM > > To: mdean > > Cc: Andrew Sullivan; Robert Bernier; pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org > > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] On future conferences > > > > > > > I think that if training courses for persons at beginning and advanced > > > levels were offered, this would be a decent profit center. > > > > They are :) OTG, Command Prompt, SRA and Varlena all offer training. > > > > Joshua D. Drake > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > > > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to > > > choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not > > > match > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === > > Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 > > Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 > > http://www.commandprompt.com/ > > > > > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly -- Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian wrote: > Andy Astor wrote: > >> ...and EnterpriseDB. >> > > What isn't clear is whether EnterpriseDB offers straight PostgreSQL > training, rather than EnterpriseDB product training. > > I see only expensive courses in North Carolina, Ottawa, and Swizerland. The Enterprisedb site does not mention training. Postgresql vendors need to adopt the SAS model and offer lower priced courses in many more cities, such as in San Francisco, Oakland, Des Moines, etc. or let users kill two birds with one stone and take courses AND certification at major conferences, like linux is doing with Linuxworld. We all know the Pervasive model for "support" does not work, I would question how popular these training courses are either. Personally my company would not pay 3-5 grand plus travel costs for one week courses. So like the conferences, the courses relate only to elitest elements, and offer nothing for the masses, which are good reasons why postgresql is NOT used by the masses. After over a full year in reviewing the operations of the postgresql community, I sense a strong elitest mentality and an unwillingness to define and take care of customers. A formula for failure.
> We all know
> the Pervasive model for "support" does not work, I would question how
Uhmm... perhaps you should stick to speaking what you actually know? As
the lead consultant of the company that was doing this long before
Pervasive attempt and the company that is still doing it, profitably
with zero debt and zero venture capital...
You are wrong.
> popular these training courses are either. Personally my company would
> not pay 3-5 grand plus travel costs for one week courses.
There is a thing called market rates. Market rate for database training
is anywhere from 1.5k-5k based on what you are getting and that is only
if *you* go to the training.
Market rate for a trainer coming to you is 2k-2.5k a day + all expenses.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
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On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 06:23:02AM -0700, mdean wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: > >Andy Astor wrote: > > > >>...and EnterpriseDB. > >> > > > >What isn't clear is whether EnterpriseDB offers straight PostgreSQL > >training, rather than EnterpriseDB product training. > > > I see only expensive courses in North Carolina, Ottawa, and > Swizerland. The Enterprisedb site does not mention training. > Postgresql vendors need to adopt the SAS model and offer lower > priced courses in many more cities, such as in San Francisco, > Oakland, Des Moines, etc. or let users kill two birds with one > stone and take courses AND certification at major conferences, like > linux is doing with Linuxworld. We all know the Pervasive model for > "support" does not work, I would question how popular these training > courses are either. Personally my company would not pay 3-5 grand > plus travel costs for one week courses. So like the conferences, > the courses relate only to elitest elements, and offer nothing for > the masses, which are good reasons why postgresql is NOT used by the > masses. After over a full year in reviewing the operations of the > postgresql community, I sense a strong elitest mentality and an > unwillingness to define and take care of customers. A formula for > failure. Are you proposing something to change this, or are you just whining again? If it's the latter, please do yourself and the rest of us a faovor and leave. Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote!
On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 06:23:02AM -0700, mdean wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: > >Andy Astor wrote: > > > >>...and EnterpriseDB. > >> > > > >What isn't clear is whether EnterpriseDB offers straight PostgreSQL > >training, rather than EnterpriseDB product training. > > > > > I see only expensive courses in North Carolina, Ottawa, and Swizerland. > The Enterprisedb site does not mention training. Postgresql vendors > need to adopt the SAS model and offer lower priced courses in many more > cities, such as in San Francisco, Oakland, Des Moines, etc. or let > users kill two birds with one stone and take courses AND certification > at major conferences, like linux is doing with Linuxworld. We all know > the Pervasive model for "support" does not work, I would question how > popular these training courses are either. Personally my company would > not pay 3-5 grand plus travel costs for one week courses. So like the > conferences, the courses relate only to elitest elements, and offer > nothing for the masses, which are good reasons why postgresql is NOT > used by the masses. After over a full year in reviewing the operations > of the postgresql community, I sense a strong elitest mentality and an > unwillingness to define and take care of customers. A formula for failure. Another model of offering is like what I do. I come to the company to train as set of developers on PostgreSQL basics. This usually costs trainer time and expenses. My "official" class is short however it usually gets extended to an extra day or days with discussion of company specific needs. --elein Varlena, LLC elein@varlena.com
On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 06:23:02AM -0700, mdean wrote:
> used by the masses. After over a full year in reviewing the operations
> of the postgresql community, I sense a strong elitest mentality and an
> unwillingness to define and take care of customers. A formula for failure.
Well, we don't really have customers; we have a community of users.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the distinction there is
something that is in fact important to that community. And before
you start lecturing me about the real world, how business works, &c.,
please know that I was one of the first major commercial users of
PostgreSQL to "come out of the closet". I understand about corporate
ways of thinking.
That said, one of the _reasons_ I noted, in starting this thread, for
holding a developers' conference only every two years was an argument
provided me by elein: it's just easier on our community, who then
don't have to worry about the travel every year. I don't think that
qualifies as "elitist". I'm not sure what is supposed to be
"elitist" about PostgreSQL, unless you mean "rigid adherence to good
programming practices". I wish more projects were so elitist.
A
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problem.
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mdean wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: >> Andy Astor wrote: >> >>> ...and EnterpriseDB. >>> >> >> What isn't clear is whether EnterpriseDB offers straight PostgreSQL >> training, rather than EnterpriseDB product training. >> >> > I see only expensive courses in North Carolina, Ottawa, and > Swizerland. The Enterprisedb site does not mention training. > Postgresql vendors need to adopt the SAS model and offer lower priced > courses in many more cities, such as in San Francisco, Oakland, Des > Moines, etc. or let users kill two birds with one stone and take > courses AND certification at major conferences, like linux is doing > with Linuxworld. We all know the Pervasive model for "support" does > not work, I would question how popular these training courses are > either. Personally my company would not pay 3-5 grand plus travel > costs for one week courses. So like the conferences, the courses > relate only to elitest elements, and offer nothing for the masses, > which are good reasons why postgresql is NOT used by the masses. > After over a full year in reviewing the operations of the postgresql > community, I sense a strong elitest mentality and an unwillingness to > define and take care of customers. A formula for failure. We've tried offering courses (and advertising them quite a bit - even at LinuxWorld) in California (I think Josh B was even poking people who might be interested) - we ended up without enough people to run the class - and we were willing to run it at a loss with 3 students. I think the term "expensive" is in the eye of the "purse-holder". We offer PostgreSQL Admin training (5 days) for $2,195 including hotel and round-trip airfare . That's well below the national average for a 5 day class (oracle university is much more than that for 5 days), and I don't think you'll find a single open source training company that is competitive with that price - and is looking at a national audience. And that's not including the gov't/education discounts. The question is would your company pay 2.2k for 1 week plus travel - 'cause that's what we charge (travel included). I won't speak to the numbers, but we're doing well enough to support the PostgreSQL project through SPI.... The problem with offering courses at a low cost in many cities is one of volume - there isn't enough PostgreSQL training volume in these cities to consistently fill classes. I think when you refer to SAS you're referring to a beast that is used in pretty much every fortune 500 company out there...and many others. Their problem is more one of offering training to support their sales machine (I'd wonder if it is even a profit center for them)... The certification issue is a whole different ball of wax. It's quite expensive (~ 25k/year from what I've read) maintain a certification with a PearsonVUE or Prometric...and while a "practicum" type model would be great, there is a question as to how you maintain its consistencty, quality and integrity - without becoming an asterisk-type certification that is available from only 1 source...which is difficult from a community perspective. I think if PostgreSQL gains enough popularity and there isn't a community supported certification, you'll see some company or companies come out with bogus certifications designed to fool consumers into coming to them for training...with various "we guarantee you'll pass" type assertions (it's what we've seen before with other Open Source products...) Consumers become sorely disappointed when they find such certifications aren't work anything to employers (and they blame the community, not the vendor that gave 'em the bogus cert). Chander Ganesan Open Technology Group, Inc. One Copley Parkway, Suite 210 Morrisville, NC 27560 Phone: 877-258-8987/919-463-0999 > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 12:49:27PM -0400, Chander Ganesan wrote:
> company out there...and many others. Their problem is more one of
> offering training to support their sales machine (I'd wonder if it is
> even a profit center for them)...
I think this is an important observation. "Certification" in many
technologies in fact has nothing to do with producing competent
administrators or users. It's instead a sales technique, in which
the certified pay for the privilege of being indoctrinated in the
world-view of the producers of the technology (yes, I wrote that in a
deliberately inflammatory way. It's a exaggeration). It is
sometimes the case that such certification happens to be technically
as good as can be; that isn't to say that it isn't still primarily a
sales effort.
A
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