Re: [Ksummit-2006-discuss] 2007 Linux Kernel Summit

[Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 04:41:39AM +0530, Sunil Naidu wrote:
> >You have to remember that the Kernel Summit is invite only.  Holding
> >the summit at a location doesn't really mean it's open to anyone
> >there.
> 
> Defnitely this could be held on invite only. Many Top forums happen in
> India in this fashion. This initiatives itself would be like a booster
> in a Rocket which gives *huge* impact.

Presumably the way to do this would be to have a large conference
(such as OLS) after the kernel summit.  Hopefully most kernel summit
attendees would stick around for 2-3 days afterwards for the technical
conference.

The problem is that the value of the kernel summit is that we get the
> 90% of the key, "right" people there so we can have face-to-face
conversations.  There reason why I started organizing it years ago was
that I hoped that if key developers had a chance to meet with each
other at least once a year, it would help them more productively
communicate with each other via e-mail the rest of the year.  I think
it has succeeded in that goal quite well.  The problem though is that
most people can't afford to fly to India or Australia, and their
employers' travel budgets won't allow that either --- and the value of
the K-S is based on getting as many of the key kernel developers in
one place as possible.

Two years ago, maddog tried to convince me that Brazil would be a
perfect place to hold a kernel summit, and that the Brazillian
government was 100% behind linux, and could provide a wonderful
location, yadda, yadda, yadda.  What I told him was that the only way
I could imagine it working would be if the Brazillian government was
willing to pay travel costs for all 80+ kernel summit attendees to fly
from whatever their home airport to Brazil.  That way, we don't have
to deal with the pushback from corporate travel budget keepers for
having to pay $$$ for travel to places around the world.  When I told
maddog that, presumably he went back to his Brazillian contacts and we
never heard back from him about moving the kernel summit to Brazil again.  :-)

I would suspect it would be a similar issue with India.  I'd love to
have the opportunity to visit Bangalore (or should I say Bengaluru? :-).  
I also know that it's extremely unlikely that my employer would agree
to pay for me to fly there, not to mention all of the other folks that
would need to go to the K-S.  But hey, if you think that there are
organizations in India who would be willing to pay travel for _all_ of
the K-S attendees (preferably business class travel :-), let's
talk....

						- Ted