Linux-Bangalore 2004
Linux-Bangalore/2004 finally comes to an end. I attended exactly 3 talks. Slept through one, the other two were quite interesting and the rest were pure tech talks which frankly I can learn by reading up online.
For me, LB has been an excellent place to catch up with loads of old friends, meeting people from online communities (LJ, LUG’s) for the first time (now you can associate a face to that person), people from my college etc. Many folks came up to introduce themselves and mentioned that they read by blog. Cool! Thanks for dropping by to say hi.
There has been lot less noise about the event this time around, but the event itself was as good as last year. Apparently next year, the event will be held at palace grounds. I personally like the IISC halls and their seating system. Guess we do not have too much choice.
jace has my 5GB CF card and all my pics are on that card. Will try to post them once I get back my card.
Rather than a media hyped event (which is wht i think the annual LB is), is there a more frequent meet with flexible agendae? I’ll be more interested in such an event
There are BoF meets that happen more or less once a week at various restaurants/hang out places in the city.
media hyped?
which media had even one word about the event?
aren’t you exaggerating a bit?
Swalpa Adjust Maadi
By media, I dont mean that Bangalore times had a half page pic of Kallu or even “by” Kallu for that matter 🙂
ok, forget the media part of your statement. what about ‘hyped’? i dont recall seeing any hype anywhere.
and what does Swalpa Adjust Maadi mean?
Dude, before making such sweeping statements like “media hyped event”, try and understand what those words mean, and whose toes you are stepping on when you use them.
I agree with teh anonymous dude – I too havent seen a single word about it in the media, and I certainly didn’t see it hyped up anywhere. LB is a community event, and is much anticipated by a lot of people, many of whom happen to people who value the event, and enjoy it.
So when you say something like “media hyped event (which is wht i think the annual LB is)”, you are basically using words you don’t understand, and are just using them because they sound cool.
Try thinking before posting. There is an old saying – when you have nothing positive to say, consider not saying anything.
Ahem!
I’m not kalyan, but lemme say this: it may not be “media-hyped” event, but where were the LB™ quality talks ??, there were only a few awesome ones and a lot of bad ones, as for the 500 bucks (for the T-shirt+cdrom+entrance fee): it was a ahem *cough *cough rip-off 😀 and that could be one of the reasons for such a poor crowd density.. no-offense… just my views on it 🙂
Re: Ahem!
Good observations.
I still think the quality of talks were the same as last year, just that last year around we had people like nat, jeremy etc to make a lot of noise around the event and make the talks themselves quite interesting.
And I also agree with you on the 500 bucks free. Prob 300 bucks is a good price.
Re: Ahem!
*bows down to nat*, indeed he rocks!, LINDEC was good because of him. And food was better there(LINDEC) too :D. And it wouldn’t be fair not to mention the good talks at LB-2004, Atul’s talks, Harald’s talks, Weitse Venema’s talk, and your talk was good too
Re: Ahem!
LINDEC is a commercial event and they have backing from a very big linux company. So its not fair to compare both of them.
Also the folks at this year’s LB were as good, just that most of them are the very quite hackers kinds.. not the guys who have good social skills 🙂
Re: Ahem!
Two major observations that bear observation:
The argument will be, of course, that “those events are glossy, high quality events with lots of foreign speakers”. Well, if you are willing to pay that premium, then I would be happy to take more money off you to pay for a “glossy, high quality event with lots of foreign speakers”.
Let us not lose perspective of what LB is/was – a community event, not a commercial event. You guys are looking at the 500 bucks as “I paid 500 bucks and got only Rs.295.42 worth stuff, so the extra Rs.204.58 were a ripoff”. Are you trying to tell me that you value the event by the stuff you “bought” with your 500 bucks? That all the event was worth was the T-Shirt and the food you ate? The fact that your contribution went towards expenses of running the event isn’t counted at all?
In fact, am I to understand that this all about take, and not about give?
If so, then I think you have missed the point of this event, and that *REALLY* hurts.
Re: Ahem!
If you want to complain about speakers, then please remember that *YOU* were the speakers, and if the speakers were bad, then *YOU* were bad. Despite that I would easily and comfortably say that the number of good talks at LB far exceeded the number of good talks at LINDEC.
Hey, I never cribbed about the speakers. The speakers were as good as last year, and as i said, this time they were lot less entertaining thats all 😉
As for the 500 bucks part, as you said we should not compare a commercial event with a community one, and hence its not fair for you to compare these two. I, for one, found 500 bucks to be slightly steep. If I was a student, I honestly could not afford it. I dont think anyone compares the 500 bucks for what they get back, but back in college days, my budget for the whole month was slightly more then 500 bucks and I would surely not spend it on LB. ( again I am not saying its not worth it, just that its not economical )
I am not a supporter of a compelete free event either. I think one should payup and yes prob 300 bucks is a good amount. I am not saying LB is only worht 300 bucks, I am just saying 300 bucks would be more easy for people to payup and attend the event.
Or I have another suggestion. charge 200/day if you like, and 500/3days. That way people who can attend only a day, will not mind the 200 bucks.
Re: Ahem!
> The speakers were as good as last year, and as i said, this time they were lot less entertaining thats all 😉
Specifically, you are referrring to Nat and Miguel. I realised last year itself that it was a HUGE mistake bringing those two professional speakers in, because they make all the less experienced community speakers look like crap, no matter how good the community speaker may know his subject, or the value of his talk.
> I am just saying 300 bucks would be more easy for people to payup and attend the event.
Anything more than completely free is unacceptable to most people.
In 2002, we asked some colleges to handle the registration of their students for us – just give us the consolidated info, and the students of that college who had registered would have been allowed in for free.
The reply we got was “too much work for us”.
Yeah, right.
For 3000 people, reducing the cost of entrance from 500 to 300 would mean Rs.(500-300) x 3000 = 600,000 bucks less to spend on the event. Who exactly do you think would pay for this difference?
And don’t even get me started with the gadzillion of people who will show up with fake college ID (Rs.30, on Avenue road – any college).
[sarcasm]No, the correct way appears to be what the commercial guys do – charge 10K/head, and then give student discount of 50%. That way, you dont need to hunt for sponsors, can pay expensive event management companies to do everything, fly in proven, expensive commercial speakers.[/sarcasm]
Not like us – who have to hunt for sponsorship, charge pittance for the event, do all the event management ourselves, and encourage unproven, non-commercial community speakers.
It is pointless trying to make anyone understand what constraints we work under. All that matters is those 200 bucks that no one will think twice about spending on a movie the next day. After all, *that* is important.
Please guys – let’s not confuse “open source” with “charity”.
Re: Ahem!
Good.. now that you have mentioned the real logistical issues, let other people realise that. It helps when you speak in normal mode and not in the flaming mode to people 😉
Re: Ahem!
This is LJ – speaking normally is considered bad etiquette.
IAC, was right when he called LB/2004 a miracle.
Just wait till I start spilling the beans about what we had to go through with this event – it is time that people begin to see things from a less self-centered perspective. What we have had to put up with for 4 years is *not* funny. My (cancelled) talk about the making of Linux Bangalore was to have been about that.
From next time, things will be very Very VERY different.