On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 12:07 PM, Jay Pipes <jaypi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all, > > tl;dr > ===== > > I have long thought that the OpenStack Summits have become too commercial > and provide little value to the software engineers contributing to > OpenStack. > > I propose the following: > > 1) Separate the design summits from the conferences > 2) Hold only a single OpenStack conference per year > 3) Return the design summit to being a low-key, low-cost working event > > details > ======= > > The design summits originally started out as working events. Developers > got together in smallish rooms, arranged chairs in a fishbowl, and got to > work planning and designing. > > With the OpenStack Summit growing more and more marketing- and > sales-focused, the contributors attending the design summit are often > unfocused. The precious little time that developers have to actually work > on the next release planning is often interrupted or cut short by the large > numbers of "suits" and salespeople at the conference event, many of which > are peddling a product or pushing a corporate agenda. > > I've had this discussion with a number of developers with mixed views, but generally speaking it's been positively received. I would like to see this split occur. It would allow the dev work be more focused and be less overwhelming by also needing to deal with the Conference and Expo. > Many contributors submit talks to speak at the conference part of an > OpenStack Summit because their company says it's the only way they will pay > for them to attend the design summit. This is, IMHO, a terrible thing. The > design summit is a *working* event. Companies that contribute to OpenStack > projects should send their engineers to working events because that is > where work is done, not so that their engineer can go give a talk about > some vendor's agenda-item or newfangled product. > > ++ 100% agree, I would hope this is in-fact the case. If it isn't, we need to work to change that. > Part of the reason that companies only send engineers who are giving a > talk at the conference side is that the cost of attending the OpenStack > Summit has become ludicrously expensive. Why have the events become so > expensive? I can think of a few reasons: > > a) They are held every six months. I know of no other community or open > source project that holds *conference-type* events every six months. > > b) They are held in extremely expensive hotels and conference centers > because the number of attendees is so big. > > c) Because the conferences have become sales and marketing-focused events, > companies shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for schwag, for rented > event people, for food and beverage sponsorships, for keynote slots, for > lavish and often ridiculous parties, and more. This cost means less money > to send engineers to the design summit to do actual work. > > I would love to see the OpenStack contributor community take back the > design summit to its original format and purpose and decouple it from the > OpenStack Summit's conference portion. > > I believe the design summits should be organized by the OpenStack > contributor community, not the OpenStack Foundation and its marketing and > event planning staff. This will allow lower-cost venues to be chosen that > meet the needs only of the small group of active contributors, not of huge > masses of conference attendees. This will allow contributor companies to > send *more* engineers to *more* design summits, which is something that > really needs to happen if we are to grow our active contributor pool. > > So this is more akin to the midcycles? I am in support of this as long as we have enough support from the Foundation (also for things such as visa letters, etc) to ensure we have large-enough-ish venues for the required cross-project working, if this supplanted the mid-cycles as well I could see it being a win. Reducing the travel for contributors to 1 or 2 venues [especially for those cross-project], would be fantastic. > Once this decoupling occurs, I think that the OpenStack Summit should be > renamed to the OpenStack Conference and Expo to better fit its purpose and > focus. This Conference and Expo event really should be held once a year, in > my opinion, and continue to be run by the OpenStack Foundation. > > I, for one, would welcome events that have no conference check-in area, no > evening parties with 2000 people, no keynote and powerpoint-as-a-service > sessions, and no getting pulled into sales meetings. > > OK, there, I said it. > > Thoughts? Criticism? Support? Suggestions welcome. > > -jay > > I, for one, am happy to see this discussion start on the ML. --Morgan
__________________________________________________________________________ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
