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European [BSD Daemon] BSD Conference, Munich Germany
Organisers' Pre Planning Page http://www.berklix.org/conf/
Host Group: BIM - Berkeley In Munich

Event Not Scheduled.

We got so far, but couldn't find a cheap venue, then got distracted. I since found a free venue, but we've not had time since to further a conference. Page kept as a store of ideas & references, perhaps for www.eurobsdcon.org

INDEX

When Will It Be ?

No date yet. Depends on:
  • Finding answers to remaining logistical issues documented on http://www.berklix.org/conf/
  • Getting enough organisers. If willing to help please Join conf-org@ Mail List or Other Lists
Date will be decided solely by organisers willing to work free to provide the cheap Munich conference. Date will Not be subservient to fitting within the frame of " location of next European BSD conference is decided on by the current expensive Euro BSD conference", which later scheme satisfies
  • Only those who can afford expensive conference fees, &/or are subsidised by employers to go on a company `jolly' as a perq. etc, as choosers & bidders are attending current expensive BSD conference.
  • They don't represent a class of people keen on BSD tech who want Cheap, not bloated costs.
  • If we were to conform, & take a time slot conformant with existing expensive conferences, a lot of people who currently go to high cost conferences will be annoyed, & annoy us, when they find themselves deprived of partner program, T shirt, terminal room, quality hotel conference room, official hotel etc, at a really cheap price they don't much care about, 'cos employers often pay.

WHAT THIS PAGE IS - & IS NOT !

  • This Page Is

    • A call for many people to volunteer their names along with others, to take widely shared, thinly loaded responsibility for organising some small particular part of the BSD Munich conference. Motto: `Many hands make light work': We have just part of an organiser team assembled, what we need right now, much more than people mailing us ideas, is people willing to Volunteer to Join The Organiser Team.
    • Notes of work in progress. Some portions of text are cut from emails & need stripping/ merging. That will probably not be caught up with until we get more volunteers to join us. Our emphasis at present is to recruit volunteers, a nice set of web pages with info for conference attenders (read `end user' ;-) will come later smiley face icon

  • This Page Is NOT

    • Not an announcement of conference details.
    • Not a request for critical comment (as we don't have enough helpers to field comments yet, & as said our plans are Not complete, far from it!
    • Not a polished web doc, not glitzy, not designed for press or public relations ! - That'll come later when the team is complete (why not join the organisers team & be on the inside track, helping us make decisions etc ?
    • Not short enough ! It needs shrinking ! Some things are repeated, or too verbose, often cut from email. ... When I get time I'll deal with it. ... I'll have more time to do that when more people Volunteer to help smiley face icon Changes are accepted in "diff -c" format

  • Volunteer Welcome

    • Some of our organising volunteers come from the local BSD group BIM - Berkeley In Munich. Others come from elsewhere & are equally welcome. Some people could be based on the moon & still help ! Residential proximity is not necessary for many things you might enjoy helping us with.

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MUCH CHEAPER THAN USUAL BSD CONFERENCE

  • We Aim To Be Cheap

    • This conference aims to be Very Much Cheaper than previous BSD conferences in California, Brighton & Amsterdam !
    • If that doesn't motivate you enough, then there are also some very good reasons why cheaper conference will benefit BSD more .
    • To enable us to avoid bloated conference fees, we need your help to organise things other conferences use hotels or professional organisers to provide.
    • English / German ? For many jobs below, writing good English or German is Not necessary, as long as you can read one or other that's sufficient, you can also write back to local organisers in either English or German, whichever you prefer, (though not to remote organisers elsewhere in Europe) Don't let less than perfect English prevent you helping ! Some work below would even be better done in German than English, so please do not leave it to others with better English smiley face icon Please Volunteer, we need your time & effort - we're here for BSD, not to be deterred by the idiosyncrasies & warted `design' of human languages.
    • organisers have a variety of mail lists documented on this page, but BIM locals can also discuss conference planning with the rest of the membership, on their BIM Mail List,

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  • Why Be Cheap ?

    • So more BSD people can afford to go !
    • So more developers, who may be in under funded universities can afford to go.
    • So people in companies with less cash can afford to go: Companies under financial pressure are perhaps more likely to want to adopt free software, than companies flush with money, who can afford to waste money paying for Micro$oft &/or expensive hotel rooms).
    • So it'll cost virtually nothing for Students, if they are local & help.
    • So unemployed permanent employees & under-employed freelancers between jobs etc can easily afford to attend (those with time on their hands may have more time to contribute to BSD .
    • In early 1980s:
      • Unix was commercial, but
      • Unix conferences were at Universities, cheap to attend, & if an employer wouldn't pay, you could book a few day's holiday, & pay your own way. Local students & ex students of whichever University campus - Not Hotel - where the conferences were held, could also often smuggle in free for a few lectures, boosting interest smiley face icon
      Now:
      • The software's free, but
      • The conference fees are prohibitively expensive : Facilities are provided by expensive hotels specialising in providing luxury facilities at high prices. Indicators of Bloat can also include `Partner Programmes' ( It didn't need money to a partner programme, when a group of us plus assorted girlfriends organised our own picnic in a park at the European Unix User Group in Paris in '82; & it cost nothing when German Unix User Group conference attendees were invited to join the Munich BSD group's monthly drinks session ).
      • Bloated company paid conference fees is not the way it has to be.
      A cheaper more inclusive solution for some conferences is:
      • Back to the Universities ! Dump the hotels !
      • Use University campuses, lecture theatres & student halls of residence & student campus bars during student holidays.
      • Get a free or near free lecture room from a University during a vacation, reward their generosity with equally free or near free lecture hall entry to students & local ex students & organisers of the host college, & give the student halls of residence the profit of our overnight accommodation, food, & coffee/ beer bar income.
      • If local organisers are needed, let students do it, they'll be more grateful for any money, be cheaper & likely more intelligent & or more committed to the technical agenda of the conference, than random hotel conference employees.
      • Keep it _Cheap_ so that people who aren't sure yet if they're interested in BSD, can still drop by for a few lectures.
      • Keep it _Cheap_ so people not flush with cash can afford to attend.
      • Keep it _Cheap_ to not be too far out of kilter with _Free_ software.
      • Further suggestions at http://yetanother.org/ http://www.yapc.org/venue-reqs.txt
      Heavy fees tilt the balance & possibly contributory worth of who can attend:
      • Students:
        Will only attend if cheap, may then discover BSD, write code for BSD, &/or take a BSD Cdrom to install in new companies during holidays, part time jobs, etc, seeding the BSD market.
      • Unemployed & under-employed programmers:
        (yes there are some, see jobs_ERASE_@freebsd.org list if in doubt ) They will have some time on their hands, but not much money to pay bloated conference fees on top of travel/accom. costs)
      • Employees of firms on hard times:
        Probably also find it hard to justify heavy conference fees, yet their employers would be more receptive to free BSD software/solutions.
      • Employees of firms doing well:
        Probably find it easiest to get conference fee travel & accommodation paid, yet harder to get employers to use BSD (after all, one attraction of Free Software is that you avoid wasting money buying Microsoft).
    "We get people anyway, there's no problem" is complacently wrong: BSD remains fringe, & high conference fees can only deter those with an initially casual / light interest. (the fees certainly deter me, a dedicated Unix person with decades of experience )

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How To Achieve Cheapness ?

  • Avoiding the cheap requirement would allow us the luxury of lots of professional organisation, but at a price of perhaps 250 * 200 Euros, ... we thought we'd save the BSD users that cash, ... & ask them to do a little work helping out instead, & also adopting a few changes of practice:
  • Use cheap hotels, without conference facilities.
  • Use University Lecture Theatres during the student holidays/ vacations.
  • Use designated beer halls, bars, restaurants, cafes to meet in. We don't need expensive official conference hotels to `give' us a place to meet, we're not all strangers in this town ! we have a lot of local BSD people who know many very good places to meet !
  • Avoid countries such as UK with expensive hotels (continental cheap hotels can be a lot cheaper than UK (I'm British resident in Germany, that's certainly how it used to be!)
  • Avoid bloated conference planning with spurious things like `Partner Programme' - if you want to bring your bed/room mate - don't expect us to provide any `partner programme'. `Partner Programmes' are arranged by professional conference organisers - people we haven't got & won't pay for. We're not a holiday company, providing a bloated jolly at an expensive hotel, as a corporate incentive award for being a good employee. We're just BSD enthusiasts here to talk BSD ! Bring a partner if you must but that's your affair, & not to our benefit or interest.
  • No Pre Paid Conference Dinner ! They're always very expensive, & you could get cheaper yourself right ? (You know that if you see the extra broken out price for a partner's extra meal at other conferences). Don't Panic ! smiley face icon Yes we'll still meet to eat & have fun & talk BSD ! But you will pay your waiter direct for what you _choose_ to eat & drink, we will merely reserve the seats. We will not waste our valuable time collecting your money hidden in a conference fee, & giving it back to you as a meal. You will be free to order what you want, no set menu, & you can interrogate your own waiter whether it's got allergic nut products, vegetarian, vegan, kosher or whatever. That will be _your_ business, we are not going to pay an expensive hotel restaurant high prices to spend time on non BSD catering issues. An attendee mail list will be available for you to individually post on, & arrange a sub-set alternate venues for if you want to form " BSD + must eat kangaroo" or " BSD + no lactose", or " BSD nut allergic & want to drink Guinness" or whatever sub groups. Catering is not our business. Venues you will get from will be Cheapish Large locations: Beer halls (where you can also eat), Pizzerias, Cafes etc.
  • Avoid expensive onward rail costs: Use Munich - A city by a major airport, with rail fare of just 8 Euros (single) from airport to conference (compare that with Stansted-London-Brighton, where just Stansted to London costs 10 pound (15 euro) (return) + then need to pay for London Transport (2 singles on circle line) & return ticket London to Brighton (cost unknown).

  • No Terminal Room Probably

    • Don't need an ethernet cabled terminal room ! It costs lots more money in rental & organiser effort to provide a terminal room. No reason for all to subsidise the subset who won't manage temporarily without net access.
    • Those who _need_ access for business, can bring their own company laptops equipped with WLAN,
    • you'r saving money on a Low conference fee, so buy a WLAN card. Or visit & pay your own internet cafe fees,
    • We may provide a WLAN base station near a wide hallway, if it has convenient height on window bay shelves for laptops Or a WLAN base station in the lecture theatre, conditional on it being known it will be firmly turned Off without delay at official lecture start times, as timed & visible & predictable in advance to all with a DCF-77 wrist watch, which are very cheap, so no excuse to whine when promptly Off !
    • We can provide multiple power sockets at a front corner of lecture room, for laptops to charge securely in view of owners also watching the lectures. No room rental needed, & safer.

  • Financial Risk

    We have to charge something for hall. But not a lot, compared to normal conference fees, so as the travel costs will then be a lot higher percentage than normal conference fee, there may be increased worry compared with normal conferences, of people's commitment to travel & turn up. We could charge more, & then give a cash partial rebate to those who do turn up with their named receipt & ID in hand. Gets complex though, & as long as we take the conference fee before, good enough, so long as we're not financially liable for some Umsatz/Turnover guarantee on a hall.

    Think about: Tax registration who issues receipts in what name ? MWST/VAT/TVA etc. Risk insurance (building collapse, fire, other risk ?. If there's a profit or loss who does it go to ? (Any suggested "If there's a profit it goes to A, if there's a loss it goes to B" may likely be unacceptable).

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You Don't Want To Be Cheap ?

  • Then you've had opportunity to spend lots of money at all BSD conference so far, so either wait for USA or Paris, meanwhile some of the many who couldn't afford those can try a cheap BSD conference in Munich !
  • Some might prefer a bundled price, an impressive venue & conference proceeding, & a CDROM & an official conference ticket etc, to prove they're going on business, & not a holiday. Well sorry, we're not going to raise prices for everyone just to give you that. Tell your boss to look at the web, check the conference schedule of talks, & note this is a hard core technology conference, & you hope to be working your brain very hard learning, _and_ not spending much on expenses. We also offer No partner programme to discredit that aim of working hard, so leave your spouse/ partner back home !
  • Some may say: "Cheap venues won't impress businessmen" - (A laudable target ! they're this writer's consultancy customers smiley face icon But we should burden all our BSD conferences with expensive fees on that argument. At least do what German Unix User Group does: alternate [slightly cheaper?] (spring technical) & more expensive (Autumn full blown) conferences.

Are Sponsors Needed ? eg Companies and a university.

  • For a normal expensive conference, yes, but perhaps not for Cheap: A company might subsidise a hall hire & an access point/LAN. But it costs effort to recruit & satisfy sponsors, who have hall & advertising quality etc expectations, that can push up the price, needing yet more sponsorship, ending with yet another standard expensive conference. I won't work free to organise an expensive conference. I will work free to organise a Cheap conference.
  • A university `sponsor' is of very dubious benefit. They charge a Lot of money for hall hire (see Ref. to Perl conf. hall charge in http://www.berklix.org/conf/ (& in personal mail organiser was bitter how much Uni had reamed him, despite earlier assurance). Universities have become very greedy (compared to the old days, when I went to Paris in ~ '82 for a cheap Uni. based Unix conf, paid for by Me, not my employer.

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COMMERCIAL VENUE SUCH AS M.O.C. ? NO !

Text to be chopped & merged later.
  • Not interested in arranging another standard high price BSD conference that many can't afford. Plans on that traditional high price basis apparently now include alternately USA in 2003, then Paris in 2004.
  • We're aiming for a _cheap_ conference, probably in a University, during a student vacation, (not necessarily many students present though), but if companies don't like that, & think it doesn't sound professional enough to rent exhibition space, that's irrelevant, unless we receive offers to fund over 100% of the alternate more expensive commercial venue companies might prefer (over 100 % to help sponsoring speaker travel, else no benefit to us). This conference is for attendees on a budget, who will in no way be asked to share any costs for what companies may prefer.

    Similarly we will not use prestige premises at attendees expense, partly to boost PR, & impress the press with a good image for BSD

  • MOC is way out nowhere, dead boring ! We want a city centre walking distance if weather fine venue, near decent lunch time & evening facilities: parks & beer halls, & Schiller- Str. for computer bits & cheap railway style down market hotels ! Companies would have to pay us well to use MOC up north. Give me a cheap/free Uni lecture theatre every time.
  • Modern BSD conference fees are bloated, back at EUUG Paris conference in 1982, in heart of city, it was affordable, (& we had an impromptu picnic in park with Bill Joy & others near Louvre, but no formal dinner I recall, just bistros). It was in a Uni. There were exhibitors too I think, not that I cared, I (& many others) were there for the code & the knowledge, not to buy hardware.
  • This will be a _Cheap_ conference most/all BSD developers can afford, not just those with rich company salary filled wallets, but also students, academics, BSD people between jobs ( both permi & freelance), employees of impoverished companies & institutions (include Stadt Muenchen there!) (who are probably more likely to interested in using cheap BSD, than companies flush with cash to squander on expensive conferences & expensive Microsoft).
  • Conference conformists use flash commercial venues & professional conference arrangers, & prestigious official conference hotels, & offer partner programmes etc. We're BSD, non conformist, & we & won't offer Any of that bloat ! We'll just offer an amazingly cheap BSD conference.
  • Some end users may prefer another conference with more luxury & bloated fees, paid for by their company, they can get that elsewhere. The Munich model stresses cheap. Cheap is IMO a better fit to a free software Unix community used to a DIY tools approach, rather than monolithic high cost fixed package luxury prices.

ACTION LIST: NAMES & WORK

In Approximate chronological requirement order, most urgent first.

We have many mail aliases, each responsible for different things. Some are for individuals, some for teams. We work on the basis "Many hands make light work", so no one gets overloaded, so we want a lots of volunteers please, each to contribute a little work.

WARNING VOLUNTEER MAIL ALIASES NOT IN USE UNTIL LATER
Problem: a lot of the mailto: volunteer* aliases go to conf-org@ & only some also expand to already recruited volunteers, however list conf-org@ currently silently discards all mail Not sent from existing members of conf-org@ This will remain so until we recruit more help to deal with incoming mail.

  • conf-rooms@ *** Lecture Theatre Searcher @ University

    • We need contacts to University staff who could arrange a lecture theatre, [& maybe a seminar room &/or terminal room ?] Andreas L. Is exploring 2 contacts.

      One way to get a cheap room out of local Uni maybe to give free entry to Uni students & staff. Ref BSD Can Ottawa 2005's registration fee structure below:

      • Note Ottawa acronyms removed & replaced by "Local", Local national currency sign removed, as our might bear no relation, even after mapping by currency exchange rates, but numbers themselves left to show ratio between types, of what others considered appropriate.
        Type Money
        Individual 195
        Individual - One day 130
        Local User Group Member 140
        Local User Group Member - One day 95
        Corporate 350
        Additional Corporate 1 125
        Student 2 60
        Local University Staff/Student/Faculty 3 Free
        Tutorial - half day 55
        Tutorial - full day 85

      Fallbacks:

      • Ask BIM people who are Ex or currently @ Uni for contacts [pref./maybe BSD or Linux inclined ?]. If you don't want to ask yourself, give conf-rooms@ the phone/email contacts, & we'll ask instead. Volunteer Needed
      • Ask Norbert Gruener re. Munich Perl Mongers who organised the YAPC Europe at the TU Munich in September 2002. Julian to ask Dr Bernd Finkbein @ Uni CAD Dept, & Rolf Schlagenhaft (ex CAD lecturer there). CAD dept. is firmly Linux oriented though.
      • Maybe Gasteig ?
      • Maybe VCFE Venue, Julian to ask Hans. (perhaps we'd need to restrict coms to just mail & no http as just ISDN & no DSL I think ? Freddy will know.
      • Maybe Deutsches Museum ? Julian checked this this partially: 3100 Euro. Extra charges if beyond 17:00. Extra charges for microphones etc. Outstanding question: Could they could use their ticket collectors @ Kasse to avoid us needing to collect .
      • Gary suggested he could explore Garching - but that's not viable for 2003 he now thinks (an astro event is already planned)
      • YMCAWeb They have a large Tagungs- Raume that can take maybe from memory 200 sitting without desks, or 100 with desks. Hr Rietsch for detail: Tel +49.89.55214151.
      • Final fallback options: Out of town: Josef K. informs: If we do not get a good place at Munich Universities, Fachhochschule Rosenheim also has an Informatik Department. We could also ask there. There's a local Linux Group kernelpanic.de which seems quite active.
      • Maybe a Buergernetz Verein EG http://www.bnro.de or http://www.muenchen.org might lend support ?

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    conf-previous@ *** Contacts to Previous & Future organisers

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    conf-dates@ *** Dates Of Other Conferences To Avoid Clashing With

    • Volunteer Needed Another easy job, web browsing &mailing, no Munich knowledge required: Investigate & Recommend to us when the event should not be, & ideally when it should. It will be during student holidays (to get cheap lecture room), but which other conference dates do we need to avoid ? Maintain a list of potential collision dates & here's a start:
      • 2003 03 01-02 5. Chemnitzer Linuxtag (CLT5)
      • 2003 03 12-19 CeBit Hannover

      Coordinate with

      • Jochen Topf who is responsible for organising the conferences of the German Unix User Group, (to avoid date clashes, & for other help/ advice too).
      • Walter Belgers reports: Ollivier Robert will do a European BSD Conference 2004 in Paris, details via discuss@ via majordomo@bsdconeurope.org

      Conference should not be a midweek time slot IE Tuesday-Thursday, but should instead, be at beginning or end of a week, this will allow people to stay over Saturday, to achieve much cheaper flight (&/or train travel ?), the travel savings should well outweigh any extra Saturday night hotel people might optionally wish to book.

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    conf-sponsor@ *** Recruiting Of Sponsor Organisations

    • 2 or 3 People to contact government organisations to see if there's any sponsorship available, either cash sponsorship for event expenses, or more likely promotional web & PR contacts & listings. (Julian) has done similar before for Systems, but 1 / 2 Volunteers Wanted, perhaps 1 German & 1 Some-Other European might be a good mix to approach German & European bodies to ask for a little support ? The EU's supposed to be dead keen to promote Non MS Solutions so let's ask them to put a little money where their mouth is ! Even departments with no money can at least point from their web to our conference, & themselves become aware of BSD.
      • Investigate Funding From:
      • European
        • Any Ideas or Links ?
      • German
        • Edelgard Bulmahn, Bundeministerin fuer Bildung und Forschung (@ 2002.12 featured on page 3 of DLGI magazin, where it also says on page 4 of Erst ausgabe IV/2002: Im Juni dieses Jahres rueckte der Entschied des Innesminesteriums, Behoerden-Computer auf das Betriebssytem Linux umzuruesten.
        • Bayerische Staatsministerium fuer Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Andreas has looked at it, thinks it's a long shot. Question: might it inspire somebody to think of an associated government body that could help ?
      • Bavarian
        • www.bayern-international.de info@bayern-international.de, Am Messe See 2, D-81829 Muenchen +49.89. 94926.0 Andreas has looked at it, thinks it's a long shot. Question: might it inspire somebody to think of an associated government body that could help ?
        • Innovation Relay Centre Bavaria = Bayern Innovativ Gesellschaft fuer Innovation und Wissens- transfer mbH eu@bayern-innovativ.de www.bayern-innovativ.de +49.911.20671.20 Gewerbe- museums- platz 2, D-90403 Nuernberg.

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    conf-exhibit@ *** Recruiting Of Commercial Exhibitors

    • Julian &/orVolunteer Needed
      To recruit commercial exhibitors. Purpose:
      • Exhibitors fees, to help sponsor flying in some guest speakers etc.
      • Give more for attendees to look at.
      • Provide more interest for press & non BSD committed computer users to review
      Rosa Riebl publisher of FreeX Magazine offered: If you need contacts (names, addresses) to exhibitors, I can help you. (Rosa says: Exhibitors don't like the atmosphere @ Uni..)

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    conf-recruit@ *** Recruiting Of Speakers

    • Volunteers Needed
      Hubert F. & Andreas L. have volunteered to recruit speakers, but more volunteers welcome to help them. Easy for people attending other BSD conferences. Also feel free to nominate yourself of others conf-recruit@ if you think the technology may interest others. Please remember many people won't nominate themselves (perhaps because they think their work is not that novel, whereas to an outsider it is), so maybe you an associate or friend should nominate them smiley face icon
    • Speaker travel cost sponsoring may be possible if we have commercial exhibitors contributing to costs.

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    conf-review@ *** Review Of Papers (following Call For Papers)

    • A team to review / select papers to be presented. Team of Volunteers Needed Geographic location of reviewers irrelevant. Should obviously be good in-depth BSD people ! Suggestions from previous conference organisers maybe ? If you are willing & qualified to help, or know someone who is, please contact Gary J. & Hubert F.

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    conf-timetable@ *** Timetable Planning Of Talks

  • Planning order of shorter & longer talks & possibly parallel streams & BOFs etc to keep a lively & sensible mix, feeding info to leaflet planner & own sub web page, & from reviewers etc.

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    conf-web@ *** Web Page

    • Volunteer Needed Later
      Not needed yet, but later, to extend this web page to a set of slick pages for the conference, separated by subjects & in multiple human language variants possibly. Work to start After we have recruited the team of volunteers, & before we advertise. Bi/multi-lingual pages are envisaged in am macro'd form, perhaps in a similar m4 method to indx.m4 (but think about maintenance with `tidy'. Macroing will save multiple copies with old URLs. Before this, pages could be spun off for EG: travel providers, cheap plane & train companies etc, perhaps using a WIKI method as per http://bsdcon.kwiki.org/. Priority & purpose of this page is to recruit & co-ordinate people to make the event happen. Fiddling with a glitzy web page on its own won't do that, & is not at this stage useful, so can come later, more important at this early stage is to recruit the rest of the team that will do the work to make the event happen smiley face icon

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    conf-publicity@ *** Public Relations / Publicity / Promotion

    • 2 Volunteers Needed
      Julian has posted to advocacy@freebsd, Andreas L has or will post to a German List, but We need someone to contact lists regularly when needed, (International & European & German lists), & other public source organisations, magazines etc, & Austrian, German, & European BSD groups. Perhaps 2 people: one native of each language ? Or two people happy to write in both English & German, however _you_ the volunteers choose to arrange it.
      List of contacts (to be extended) include

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    conf-leaflet@ *** Conference Leaflet

    • Josef El-Rayes (Linz) is our first volunteer, but more Volunteers Welcome
      to work with him, &/or as fallback.

      His first efforts will appear Broken Link http://bsdcon.daemon.li/leaflet/ here. Obviously people, particularly out-of-towners, need to know where to go & when, they need the essentials on preferably a single sheet, complete with a small map, & maybe emergency last minute co-ordination mobile phone numbers. BIM has a leaflet using BSD tools that would make a good template for a conference leaflet. Consult the leaflet page for the mail list of editors, for more advice. We need a Volunteer to create the official conference reference leaflet. Or just use whatever other tools you want (using BSD tools so others can help or take over in case you cease to be available). The leaflet will be something conference delegates will be very thankful to keep handy, as a vital reference in their back pocket throughout the conference, with maps to locations, & lists of times & events).

      Attendees will be told to print their own leaflet before coming, to save us work & cost, (also as they will need it for reference, for map before arriving at lecture theatre).

      Rosa Riebl publisher of FreeX Magazine offered: If you need assistance in production of paperware, do not hesitate to contact me. I have print contingents with good prices. .... They also should not hesitate to contact me with regard to artwork and DTP.

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    conf-form@ *** Conference Booking Form

    • Volunteer Needed
      Web/email BSD based of course. BIM servers & apache available for this. Work on a first trial/ skeletal implementation can start as soon as a volunteers is found. Suggestion: You could discuss with people at the BIM Stammtisch or BIM mail list what information the form should collect. Later you can enhance the form as info. evolves.

    • Josef El-Rayes has volunteered to help on this too, (& knows PHP) but as he's already down for the leaflet, he's not hypertexted & mail aliased here too, as we don't want to overload people.

      The first version of the leaflet might be needed before a booking form, if the first version is more of a promotion type leaflet to be given away at other events, to promote knowledge of our event, then later we'll need web bookings, & an authoritative leaflet for conference attendees to print just before they depart to travel to Munich.)

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    conf-info@ *** Enquiries From Attendees

    • Several Volunteers Needed
      To deal with enquiries from attendees &/or prospective attendees, that can't be dealt with on the web form. This should include some Munich area people, familiar with infrastructure/geography, but some non Munich people could help too.

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    conf-register@ *** Register To Attend Conference

    • Several Volunteers Needed
      After web form is filled. Compile list of definite attenders. May involve accepting money if we have a conference fee.

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    conf-hotels@ *** Hotels

    • More cheap places on VCFE page
    • Volunteer Needed We will need cheap hotel lists, recommendations, even if only several URLs & phone numbers of such as below.
    • Address of tourist office, phone numbers, & useful info for visitors to be compiled & included in conference leaflet
    • Perhaps typical down market pricing info:
      • For a more current list see http://www.vcfe.org/E/Unterkunft.html
      • YMCA (near Schiller- Str. & HBF,
      • http://www.KolpingHaus-Muenchen.de @ Sept 2005: 28 Euro/ single room 25/head double. Haneberg- str 8. Tel 126050
      • Pension Maya, Landwehr str 32c (computer shopping area centred on Schiller- Str.) Tel +49.89.552370 Fax +49.89.554651, 35 Euro/night & 50 Euro if twin bedded, inc breakfast.
      • CVJM = YMCA (but someone told me not affiliated to international YMCA ? ) 38.5 Euro @ 2009.10, but normal YMCA annoyance, like no visitors & doors locked at 00:30 5 Euros less if younger than 26. Landwehr str 13. Web Nov.-March is about 20% less.
      • Hotel Brunnenhof, Schiller- Str. has special rates for 20+ people, they have a web address
      • www.hrs.de is an index of hotels, includes Munich. Negatives: Any non German has to guess & click on this internationally unknown German word "Sprache" before it gives a column of countries ("Land" would have been better understandable in English & German). (unless that's cos it saw I'm coming from a .de domain, but that's still too simple). Black background make it virtually impossible to read tabularised icons etc. Cheapest I found after specifying 30 Euro 5 Km radius was 38 Euro (Tassilo Apartments, single rooms only,Rabl- Str. 10-12, 81669 Muenchen Haidhausen ).
      • Someone I trust mailed me 2006.02 to say:
        Rough Guide recommends: Blauer Bock (?60-77), Sebastians- Platz 9 (Stadtmuseum) Am Markt, Heiliggeist Str 6 (Viktualien Markt) Braunauer Hof (best known for restaurant) Frauen- str 40 (close Isartor transport) ;'good value rooms'
      • If you want a better hotel, (eg twice as expensive), there are of course a vast number via search engines, but here's one I happen to know of:
        Hotel Daniel, Sonnen Str 5, Tel +49 89 54824 0 Standard single small room, Small desk, sufficient for laptop & maybe 4 or 5 x A4 sheets, modem point, shower toilet in room. Rooms designated as smoke or non smoke. 85 Euro / night inc tax & breakfast @ 2006.02 (Fri Sat Sun cheaper: 75 ) Also cheaper when they have lots of rooms free: Ask. Prices jump during Oktoberfest & trade fairs.
      • There's a bunch of map servers listed here.
      • Bed & Breakfast: Numerous B & B, presumably cheap on road side on Verdis Str. between Obermenzing (Autobahn A8 roundabout from Augsburg), and Nymphenburg. Needs daylight to spot them. Usually noticed by off road. ex front garden, concrete parking space in front. Too long to walk. Hire one of those new bikes that litter the city (They need an App AVG more &/or credit card).

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    conf-lunch@ *** Lunch Locations

    • Volunteer Welcome We will need a large lunch venue arranged - Student eating hall (`casino') probably & or large cafe, or adjacent park & sandwich bar option if weather is good. It needs to be investigated, decided & put in leaflet.

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    conf-evening@ *** Evening Locations

    • Volunteer Welcome We will need large evening venues arranged - beer halls probably & or large pizza joints/cafes, where people can hang out & meet, (not everyone drinks alcohol, or even caffeine, & we will not be using expensive hotel foyers as meeting points, so we need other locations designated. This can't be left ad hoc, most people will be from out of town, & won't have a clue, they need list of Venues: Date & Time, Addresses, phone numbers, maps. As there will be no official conference hotel, it's important to get this right ! It needs to be investigated, decided & put in leaflet.

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    conf-print@ *** Speaker Support/ Co-Ordinator

    • Volunteers Needed Maybe 2/3 people to liase with speakers These should be a Munich area people, familiar with infrastructure & geography: Imagine yourself as a speaker from Amsterdam or Madrid, & you've never been there before, & you have an overhead projector or beamer problem, or need to print off some last minute photocopies, or check a web ref. You will be the local who knows what's where.

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    conf-net@ *** Network/Technical/Equipment Support

    • Volunteers Welcome
      Current volunteers include Andreas L (local) & Tim K. (remote) . Maybe Freddy will want to join them (esp. if site=vcfe) ? A load of out-of-towners visiting our town, will want the same tech support we'd like if having a conference in their town: Net access & perhaps power to recharge laptops etc]. A the very least, a printed map to the Internet Cafe opposite the Haupt Bahnhof, + Map to Schiller- Str. to buy blank media etc. They'd probably like more: hubs for their laptops etc, even ideally, some-one who has negotiated access to an equipped terminal room. Some of this depends on the venue, but whatever, all other organisers will be busy organising other aspects of the conference, so we need a few BIM Munich locals who have access to combinations of loan equipment, cars, contacts, cable, whatever, people to be team oriented, tech. support problem solvers. If we want to provide net access ? If we have a node to connect to, but can't borrow enough hubs etc, we'll need to consider buying some hubs etc & charge a conference fee to cover it.)
    • Andreas enquired about Münchner Bürgernetz: dieses Buergernetz macht nur noch reinen Schulungs- betrieb und hat keine eigene Netz-Infrastruktur mehr.)

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    conf-cdrom@ *** Conference CDROM

    • Volunteer Needed
      To keep costs down, & enable last minute entries we will not have a bound Conference Proceedings. Perhaps we will have a CDROM, or perhaps not, just an FTP image to download, & or a directory tree. containing copies of papers to be presented, &/or associated code. If we decide to burn real cdroms, paid for by a conference fee, we may as well fill remaining space with other code/data (what ?). Alternately if we just provide an image to download & burn, we may as well keep it to minimum volume. This will be decided later by a Volunteer CDROM/Proceedings compiler, who will need to work with our "Speaker Relations Co-Ordinator" The CDROM volunteer may want to request bandwidth/space from ftp-admin@leo.
      Rosa Riebl publisher of FreeX Magazine offered: If you need assistance in production of CD-ROMs, do not hesitate to contact me.

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    http://mailman.berklix.org/mailman/listinfo

    • We have lists served by Mailman Typically: 
      Lists:
conf-announce   Venues, Calls For Speakers & Registration: Open, Read only. 
conf-chat   Car & code sharing etc: Closed Later Open, Unmoderated.
conf-core   Core Organisers: Closed, Unmoderated.
conf-detail Detail for Registered / Paid Attenders, Closed, Read only.
conf-org    Organisers: Closed, Unmoderated.
conf-speak  Speakers: Closed, Unmoderated.
    • Join Mail List or Other Lists

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    Volunteers Needed *** The Organiser Teams

    • Work not listed above will be dealt with by our
      ORGANISER TEAM, on list conf-org@ (Please volunteer to join a team.) Although all organisers are on the one list, we are grateful for all categories of helper:
      • Remote Organisers willing to do work that doesn't need knowledge of or access to Munich infrastructure. Work such as email, web, scripts, lists etc. Volunteers include: Martin M. & Sebastian.K. & Josef K. Please contact these people first if local knowledge is not required.
      • Local Organisers familiar with Munich infrastructure.
      • Core organisers: Expected to do more work than others, bear more responsibility, & have a larger say in decisions, commensurate with effort expended. Some will be Munich locals, & perhaps some not.
      If you really need to contact all organisers

If lots of us contribute a little bit of effort, it'll spread the load & be quite easy ! Please let us know what's the little bit you can contribute ? (People who help can be rewarded by lower to zero conference fees (though we're aiming ideally for very low to zero fees anyway)).

Just because someone is listed for a job, does not necessarily mean we have enough people on that job, or that person wants to hog the job, or even do it particularly, it does mean someone has been prepared to put his/her name down for it though. The job may well need more people, either 50/50 or as backup, etc, please feel free to Volunteer ! You may help relieve a heavy load, or be be better suited, motivated, or geographically situated etc, or just release another volunteer to do some other job also needed. We obviously need at least one person for each area, so to start the ball rolling, people have been listed for each area where possible. Please don't feel you've been overlooked, we want your contribution too, & want you to volunteer please.

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This Section Of Email Not Yet Merged In

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COST COMPARISON

  • If people want another EuroBSD in the UK, University of Kent at Canterbury does a roaring trade in vacation conferences, & was one of the first Unix centres in the UK, & would probably be happy to seriously way underbid previous BSD hotel venues such as Brighton. Copious public terminals of course, I suspect all study bedrooms on campus are net- wired by now. Presumably many other Universities around the world offer similar good deals during student vacations.

    Compare prices above with last California or EuroBSD Amsterdam 2002, Hotel based pricing:

    • EUR 130 per night (excluding. breakfast and excluding. 5% city tax) + American breakfast - EUR 16 less hotel bulk pre-book discount
    • 250 Euro for 3 day conference booked before October 18th
    Note the UKC University price may or may not have a discount negotiable, I don't know, not tried, but UKC price _Includes_ cost of conference facilities, so only extra fees BSD volunteer organisers would need to collect would be out of pocket phone charges, & maybe more cash for guest speaker accom. & travel if desired.

    exchange rates long ago when this was written: Approx: 3 Euros = 3 US Dollar = 2 Pounds Sterling (UK)

    Comparison:

    • Hotel 3 * 146 * 1.05 guess discount 0.7 + 250 Euro = 570 Euro
    • Uni. 3 * ( 57 + 5 for org. expenses + 15) * 1.5 exchange = 340 Euro
    15 = a guess at extra surcharge to subsidise guest speaker travel &/or accommodation.

    Accommodation in Universities might be more basic, but where it really counts: tiered lecture Theatres & net access, they'll be way ahead ! Plus ... Approx. Half Price !! Lets have some BSD conference in Universities, not hotels !

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LANGUAGE

Lecture Language: English.

  • This is a European conference for an international BSD audience.
  • Exception may be made for individual speakers who explicitly register their requirement to lecture in another language, as part of the call for papers & selection procedure. Any such language requirement must be registered before we take bookings & payments from attendees.
  • In the unlikely case there's sufficient demand, speakers & attenders, the organisers might (prior to start of registration & payment) choose to organise a parallel stream in German.
  • If all present at a lecture understand German well enough, change may occur, if it does not exclude others.
  • Native English speakers should speak clearly, in non complex English, without dialect, or obscuring accent, etc.
  • Non native English speakers are particularly welcome, we want to hear about BSD, we're not a bunch of linguists here to criticise grammar, please help non English native speakers, please don't criticise them, but help if they get stuck.
  • Any Lecturer who chooses to provide a written transcript / paper / notes of his lecture is free to provide it in any language(s) he wants (as writing in `Foreign' is harder than reading or speaking in `Foreign', & writing these things is chore enough, without the burden of language, & even if readers can't understand the paper, they can still look at code fragments, diagrams, URLs etc).
  • The machine language for presentations should Not be the hated MS product power point, but something PD sourced eg perhaps Magicpoint (or perhaps one of the other Presentation Managers listed here

Questions Following Lectures: Mostly English

But language may well switch, possibly several times, as lecturer & participants will be less prepared for impromptu questions & answers.

BOF (`Birds Of A Feather')

Ideally mostly English, so no one is excluded, but maybe German too.

Social, Coffee & Evening:

English in some circles, German in more circles, Others third languages too maybe ?

Organisers Mail List:

As of writing, all organisers read/ speak both German and English, more are currently German. That will probably change. If you want to know what language(s) the organisers use on their planning list, see: "Volunteering To Help".

Translations Of Publications:

Web pages & mail announcements will be provided in whatever languages the volunteers write them, & whatever languages they or other volunteers translate them to. If documents are originally in German, at least a minimal shorter English summary will be sought.

Target Audience are capable of listening in English.

  • Conference is intended to be cheap, heavily technical, & of high worth to BSD people with tangible Unix experience, who are thus assumed to be reasonably comfortable reading & listening in English.
  • The conference technical value will not be reduced by tilting the conference to appeal to those with little Unix expertise, & little capability to understand English as used on international Unix documentation & mail lists.
  • The conference is not a BSD recruitment & marketing exercise for Unix newbies. BSD promotion & support to the technically &/or linguistically limited is covered by: { German BSD books, & German (Lehmanns) CDROMS, & German language mail lists on de.freebsd.org & maybe de.netbsd.org ; BIM (Berkeley In Munich) also provide a BSD leaflet & stands at Elektronik Boerse, Systems & VCFE & will host a Munich BSD install event later, etc. We do enough other BSD promotion - so this BSD conference is not to have many concomitant criteria changed or sacrificed to attracting newbies. This one's for us, the people already into BSD smiley face icon

TRAVEL

  • The City: Good building & rail/road/air infrastructure; Central West European location; A healthy local BSD group ; several Universities; Popular city to visit in it's own right ; Cheap hotels/pensions round the rail station near the main computer street (Schiller- Str.). Julian's list of Web Map Providers.
  • Flights
    • From the UK there'll be cheap flights in London papers & Private Eye etc.
  • Rail Transport In Munich
    • Munich Airport is on a good new rail link to the city. Buy a 9 Euro blue strip ticket from the large blue machines near top of `MVV' escalator in Airport, fold between 8 & 9, insert in small box at top of escalator, top side will be stamped, (MVV bad translation calls it `cancelled', but in fact the ticket is now validated, & remains valid for travel for 2 hours, only after should you consider it `cancelled'). Take any train, they only go one way, to centre of town = "Stadtmitte"

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LESSONS FROM YAPC (Yet Another Perl Conference) 2002 MUNICH

  • Norbert Gruener was main organiser for YAPC,

    Notes of a phone call, apologies if errors etc:

  • They had 150 at London Perl, 200 at Amsterdam, 250 at Munich;
  • They charged 89 Euro/head
  • they made about 1K Euro profit. Without the auction of signed T shirts books & stuff @ end, that made 3.5K, they'd have made a loss.
  • The legal organiser was YAPC USA, as it takes a long time to register an EV or GMBH in Germany. YAPC USA would have been liable in event of loss.
  • As they'd expected up to 350/500 people, they used TUM, as it has big lecture halls; they had a 600/800 seat lecture theatre, + a 350 + a 150 seat. for Wed-Fri, plus a room + key lockable (for equipment etc), + a lobby for catering, last 2 were for Tues-Fri.
  • TUM had verbally quoted them 20% discount if free entry for staff & students, or 50% discount if sponsored by a Uni. department,
  • They didn't have this in writing though, & ended up looking at full 100% 10K Euro room hire fee ! they chased it round the Uni, but got no joy, & no discount, & they couldn't switch venue, 'cos it was announced for the Uni, & too late. The Uni bureaucrats that negotiate have no guidance from the academics, & no motivation to promote technology, their aim is to make money for Uni.
  • YAPC had a nightmare with credit card payments, & faxing people with payment problems.
  • Germany quotes end users inc MWST, but conference organisers are not seen as end users, so bills such as 10K Euro for halls become (+17%) 12K, which can upset budgeting if one forgets.
Conclusions/Comments
  • BIM conf will have a mandatory conf. delegate email list so we can make emergency changes at short notice if necessary (+ web of course).
  • TUM sounds like no chance of a free lecture hall in exchange for free entry (though we need to ask anyway), & need to ask other places too.
  • By reduced BIM room usage relative to Perl Conf (YAPC) we could reduce cost; by finding a sponsoring uni. dept. we could get a worthwhile reduction, IF we convince a department & IF it's in writing, vitally important that ! But it'd still cost, so we'd still have to charge everyone.
  • Other Universities/ tech schools may be cheaper, but have smaller lecture theatres.
  • IBM & Sun are worth investigating as sponsors. But if we were to get a free room usage @ IBM/Sun at their site, it wouldn't be big enough, companies only generally have one room for up to maybe 100 people & beyond that they themselves use hotel type facilities etc.
  • If we have to pay to hire accommodation & collect conference fees, then it becomes a lot more work _and_ risk of loss.
  • Julian knows a professional event organiser who could probably help us, but that too would cost.
  • Summary: either we find a free room, or we find a room sponsor (inc exhibitors), or we charge a per head fee, but if we have to collect 250 or more times X Euros, we need to pay someone to do that (out of fees collected), it's too time consuming for us to do that free I think.

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VOLUNTEERING TO HELP

We appreciate all offers of help. Even more appreciated, are those who see work listed here with no person listed for it, (or not enough people, or overloaded people listed in too many places), "who say, OK, I'll help with XYZ then", or possibly, "You haven't listed XYZ, but you'll need XYZ, & I'll help on it".

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Other BSD Conferences Around The World

  • Euro BSD 2004 http://2004.eurobsdcon.org = http://www.eurobsdcon2004.de
  • Broken Link "http://www.asiabsdcon.org" March 13-14 2004
  • EuroBSDCon 2004 semi-official announcement
From: "Patrick M. Hausen" hausen_ERASE_@punkt.de
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 13:54:41 +0100 (CET)
To: discuss_ERASE_@bsdconeurope.org
Hi all!
EuroBSDCon 2004 is going to take place:
    Date:       Oct. 29th - 31st, 2004
    Location:   Karlsruhe, Germany, Queens Hotel
We are in the process of setting up the website including
the official program, conference venue, registration
and call for presentations.
The complete website will be up by May, 1st. We will announce
the URL here and via Daemonnews. Any additional suggestions on
where to send the announcement?
In the meantime a preliminary website will be up in a couple of
days so we can get the call for presentations started early
and give anyone enough time. Announcement as above.
Patrick M. Hausen
  • 2005 November 25 - 27, 2005 University of Basel, Switzerland www.eurobsdcon.org
  • fosdem Not BSD but interesting.

Laser Pointers & Presenters

If presenter is Right handed, he should sit to Left of projector beam.
Why ? Because when people use these combi wireless mouse & laser, they use right hand to point, & don't always turn off laser power quick enough between pointing away from screen back to where hands are at rest position. Imagine worst scenario: presenter sits near wall in a smallish room, backside on a table half facing neutrally between screen on his right & people on his left. He is right handed, where would his too late turned off beam swing into ? the wall or eyes of the people in the left front of the audience.

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