[plug] [OT] ish - LCA

[Bret Busby]

On Tue, 14 Jan 2003, Jacqueline McNally wrote:

> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:36:44 +0800
> From: Jacqueline McNally <jacqueline at decisions-and-designs.com.au>
> Reply-To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> Subject: Re: [plug] [OT] ish - LCA
> Resent-Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:30:08 +0800 (WST)
> Resent-From: plug at plug.linux.org.au
> 
> 
> >I dont mean to diss LCA, I just found it hard to define their target audience.
> 
> It is one of the few conferences that I wish to attend where I don't have 
> to get on a plane. Yes, it is technical, but if you are even remotely 
> involved in Linux and Open Source I don't know how you can not go.
> 
> 

As a person who uses and promotes Linux, and only boots up Windows to 
run applications that are not available for Linux (eg, good genealogy 
programs), or to use a GDI printer apparently not supported by CUPS, I 
am one person who is not at this stage going to the conference.

Attending a conference is not something that we all have to do like 
lemmings.

People all have their limits and expectations, and, for me, in reading 
the program, I found (from memory) one tutorial and three seminars that 
I would like to attend. Is that worth the fee? To me, no.

I had responded to the request for chaperones, put up about a week ago, 
as it was mentioned that a chaperone could attend a lecture of the 
chaperone's choosing. However, the response was not acknowledged, 
leading to the impression that the chaperone concept had been abandoned. 
I had thought that, perhaps, depending on what was involved (both ways), 
it could have been a way to attend the item that I most wanted. Howver, 
given that, apparently, the idea of chaperones has been abandoned, that 
possibility has gone.

If the PostgreSQL mini-conference, and/or the (proposed) Red Hat 
mini-conference, had occurred (and not clashed), then it may have been 
different. It is a question of deciding for each individual (and, not 
for a mob, as the above response implies), whether the fee is justified 
by what an individual finds to be of interest, and, that the person is 
able to absorb and understand, at the conference.

The Rusty Rusell components were "TBA", so a person could not be sure 
whether they related to ipchains or iptables, or both, and if that was a 
deciding factor, and the result was other than wanted, the fee would be 
wasted, if the final topic(s) happened to be other than what an attendee 
wanted or expected.

In my case, the perceived benefits do not justify the fee. That is not 
to say that there is anything significantly wrong with the conference; 
rather that I believe that it would not be appropriate for me.

Some attend conferences, and become conference-bunnies; some do not 
attend conferences and manage. I have not attended a conference that I 
remember, and that is not boasting; merely an observation. That does 
not make me better or worse than any person who has attended 
conferences; it only indicates that, for whatever reason, I have not 
attended conferences.

A person can still learn via other means, and, can keep up to date, via 
other means.

I think that it is unfortunate that the discussion lost its objectivity 
and became subjective and personal, as some good could have come from 
the discussion, for future conferences.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Douglas Adams, 1988
....................................................