[Wine] Rethinking WineConf

[Marcus Meissner]

On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 12:31:11PM -0600, Jeremy White wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> This past Wine conference, while great fun as always, was not as well
> attended as Wine conferences in the past.
> 
> So I would like to stir up trouble by suggesting we rethink WineConf.
> 
> For those that have not attended, the Wine conference has been a mostly
> annual affair since 2002.  It is open to all, but is advertised as being
> aimed at Wine developers.  About 35 people attend each year.  It's been
> in Minnesota about every 3rd year, and is otherwise 'normally' somewhere
> in Europe.
> 
> I see the primary goal as creating human bonds between otherwise
> anonymous people (aka going to the pub).  It's a bonus if it also spurs
> resolution to tricky issues, or motivates people to get more done.
> 
> So I'd like to ask folks to brain storm with me.
> 
> How could Wineconf be different?  If you've never been, what would
> encourage you to come?
> 
> If you've been to a technical conference recently that you thought was
> well done, what did they do well?  Anything we could emulate?
> 
> Any other ideas, or suggestions?

- Users ... as this was brought up 

  Reality check: Wine users will not travel 100s of kms to a standalone conference.

  This would make sense only if we attach wineconf to another general conference


- Attaching to other conferences?
 
  We do not really share much with other projects (please do not bring up Samba: we don't),
  but perhaps attaching to general conferences...


  General conferences like FOSDEM (where other projects run Developer Rooms)... 
  or LinuxCon with their specific tracks.
  This might be workable... but I do not think it will bring more people.

- Changing the style...

  A talk / discussion only wineconf is not really flying anymore... we don't have that much
  talks.

  The workshop elements we introduced in the last years are however more the direction to go.
  So something of a workshop is my best bet at keeping interest.


  Question is whether we can find workshop style things besides "fixing the testsuite" that attract
  all developers? I think that will be hard.


- Perhaps a shrinking audience is unavoidable. 

  This is a bit of a fact that some projects I have been in found hard to cope with... That after
  the interest peak it might go down.

Ciao, Marcus