[Eug-lug] OSCON & OSCamp pre-report - More on OSCAMP

[David Mandel]

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Ben Barrett wrote:

> Thanks for the great summaries, David!! ...

You are welcome.

> As for OSCamp being new -- I thought this was simply the first time 
> O'Reilly embraced it ...

This is the first time we had OSCAMP.  However, there have been other
things in the past.

PLUG and I have always actively worked with O'Reilly to try to make 
something available for people who can't afford the complete OSCON,
and O'Reilly has always been very helpful.  Like the rest of us 
the O'Reilly people have to make a living, but they also want to 
help the Open Source Community and they realize that many people 
can't afford to pay very much money and that some of these people 
can add a lot of value to OSCON by being there.

As a result, OSCON has opened some keynotes, the vendor displays, 
and the BOF sessions to everyone for several years now and they 
have always been generous with booth space for .orgs.  They have 
also experimented with volunteers and such in the past. 

Last year, FOSCON (Free OSCON) was started and held at FreeGeek.
It wasn't really embraced by O'Reilly, but they weren't really invited
to be part of it either.  During the year, O'Reilly attended the 
RecentChangesCamp where some of us discussed OSCON fringe activities
and O'Reilly said they wanted to be included in them.  OSCAMP was a 
result of this.  Meanwhile, FOSCON-II was held at FreeGeek again this
year and I believe it was a success.

                                          Sincerely,
                                          David Mandel
                                          Chief Activist
                                          Portland Linux/Unix Group
                                          560 SE Alexander
                                          Corvallis, Oregon 97333
                                          (541) 737-9153 at work (OSU)
                                          (541) 730-5285 cell

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   David Mandel                        http://www.DavidMandel.com
   Portland Linux/Unix Group           http://pdxLinux.org
   LinuxFund                           http://LinuxFund.org
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