Time to plan Rockbox devcon 2008?!

[Bagder]

http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2008/02/08/rockbox-international-devcon-2008/

[LambdaCalculus]

Bagder, as a proud Rockboxer and honorary New Yorker, I feel it is my duty to help you guys in locating a place in New York to host DevCon 2008.

Let me know exactly what it is you're looking to get (in terms of hotel, workspace, whatnot), and I'll start researching on that field.

[pondlife]

Happy to do my first proper devcon, with actual dev and con, but I can't make the last weekend in June. (Unless I fail to get a ticket for http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ , of course.)

pondlife

[shotofadds]

* shotofadds makes a mental note to get the D2 port ready to demo by June

[kugel.]

I just want you to consider about a meet in a European city.

Firstly, noone was able to find a flight for less than 600€ (ok, US people probably will have to pay a similar price to get to the EU).

But secondly, as Europeans (actually everyone) have to submit VERY personal data such as religion, finger prints, credit card numbers. I think they want to have DNA too. It totals to about 20-25 data fields. This means, traveling to the US means giving up privacy.
I'm not sure if US people have to submit similar data to the EU, but I don't think so.

Thirdly, from what I've heard, there're more core devs in the EU than in the US. Probably also more other people that like to join the meet.


At this point, I'd like to suggest Berlin. I know that 2 devs live there, and I live there too. Anyway, Berlin is a great city at all, and it's way less expensive then i.e. London.

Edit: According to GodEater, they don't want to have the credit card number. But that doesn't change anything (for me). It's still a bunch of data, which is very personal, and I can't control their way through the US

Edit2: If you want to read more about that issue, I've found this two official docs/pages:
http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/us/intro/apis_en.pdf
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/07/294&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

[petur]

* petur also votes for Europe...

[GodEater]

Edited to remove argumentative stuff.

[JdGordon]

just saying that those dates are much nicer than the first week of june which was proposed ages ago

[bluebrother]

/me votes for europe for privacy reasons.

Oh, and GodEater: according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Name_Record they transmit credit card details. And a bunch of other sensible data. If you give me a way to control the data they hold in my record ...

[JdGordon]

soap isnt in irc at the moment so ill reply here and hope he sees it (as well as everyone else...)

15:12:01 soap "I want to hold a affordable conference for N people arriving from X, Y, and Z. What would be the most economical location taking into account average air-fare and lodging?"
15:12:16 soap They do that sort of thing for a living.
15:12:49 Zagor soap: yeah, but how many do that (well) internationally?
15:13:04 soap I guessing quite a few, honestly.
15:13:49 Zagor a tricky thing is we don't really know who's coming until after we decice on location...
15:15:20 soap The trick would be to find one who will provide said service as a service, for a fee, not commission. Somebody amongst all the potential attendees is bound to be only one or two degrees separated from an agent who will crunch the numbers for a fee.

my neighbour back home is a travel agent and specialises on the cheap.. I can email her and see how much help she can be, or at least point us in the right general direction, if thats wanted?

[rasher]

Another thing to worry about if it ends up in the USA:

Customs copying the contents off, and in cases outright confiscating laptops and other electronics: Washington Post story.

[Bagder]

First, I think people should then speak up and suggest European cities and volunteer to help hosting the event at one such city. There's hardly any surprise that us Europeans favor European cities...

Then, it would be interesting to know what the flight prices would be from an average US city to there I mean to compare to what prices an average European would pay for the trip the other direction.

For number of people likely to come, I think we can safely assume that we can at least get 15 interested people to show almost no matter where we end up. And the upper range of number of possible participants is likely to be way more. Quite possibly 30 or 40... or?

Personally, I think I'm game to go almost no matter where we decide to have it.

[JdGordon]

lets do it on the gold coast

should I email my neighbour about her helping us out? anyone want to draft up an email for me to send?

[scorche]

The options are as I see it: NYC, London, Berlin/Hamburg, Amsterdam (although no locals)...

Anyone think of any other cheap hubs?

[Llorean]

I'm not sure how cheap Houston is, but at least we have a very large international airport, and I'm moving there in about a month, if it turns out suitable. But really, I wouldn't mind an excuse to get to Europe again, as long as we decide soon enough.