If LF want to do it they can. It's their conference. I totally agree that we should not be a part of it.
We discussed this when negotiation the contract. Buying sessions is not on the cards. However, my point is not about sales pitches or bought slots. Mine is about taking it too far. People have their time paid for by companies. Companies have valuable experience that should be shared. A knee jerk "it mentioned a product therefore its a pitch" evaluation is counter productive. Sent from my Windows Phone ________________________________ From: Joe Brockmeier<mailto:j...@zonker.net> Sent: 2/4/2015 7:17 AM To: dev@community.apache.org<mailto:dev@community.apache.org> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed On Wed, Feb 4, 2015, at 09:07 AM, Niclas Hedhman wrote: > Regarding "commercial" or "advertising" presentations; Why should we > reject > these outright? Why not allocate a track for corporations to present > whatever they like, in 20, 30 or 60 min blocks? And auction out those > slots. Either there is a market, or there is not... And/or combine them > with on-site sponsorship programs, of booths, give-aways and so on. > Stallman wouldn't do this, but we are said to be business-friendly, are > we not? Not sure that allowing businesses to buy slots to run "advertising" presentations is a good practice for ApacheCon, the attendees, or the businesses that might purchase the slots. We don't want to program "commercials" not because we're anti-business, but because most attendees show little to no interest in attending a commercial. So if we sell a track of product pitches, we risk annoying the ApacheCon attendees *and* disappointing the vendors who will inevitably be surprised when their presentations are not well received. It is possible to do a useful, well-received talk that also promotes your company/project - it just requires some additional thought and preparation to make sure you are presenting what the audience is interested in rather than just what your marketing department thinks they should think/say about the company/product/project. Best, jzb -- Joe Brockmeier j...@zonker.net Twitter: @jzb http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
