FOSS4G2007

This is the main page for holding information for discussion on the upcoming FOSS4G 2007 conference held in the period of September 24 to 27. Links to resources and various ideas will be collected here.

Keynote Speakers
The keynote should in "somewhat related" to the conference focusses (geographic and/or open source) and should be entertaining. Here are some ideas for discussion:


 * Damian Conway - A terrific speaker and with a particular talk on open source for suits that might fit our mixed suit/geek attendance.
 * Bruce Perens - Topical on open source issues like patents and so on. Less interesting for non-open source people, since the issues will appear less relevant.
 * Schuyler Erle - As proven in past conferences, a very engaging speaker with a good view of the grassroots of web geospatial.

Lightning Talks
In addition to a full keynote, since Minnesota, a lightning round of short talks (5 minutes) has also been done. In providing an overview of the terrain, it's a handy thing.

Howard Butler (hobu@hobu.net) will be coordinating the lightning talks. Some possible topics are provided below. Please add a topic and your name if you are interested in presenting a lightning talk.

We will be selecting no more than 10 lightning talks for the plenary session. You will have the whole conference watching, and using dual 30' projection screens, so being brisk and entertaining and providing lots of colorful pictures is a good idea.


 * The State of Mapguide
 * Big Mapserver Deployments
 * Desktop GIS: Conundrum?
 * Incredible GRASS Analyses
 * "Proprietary", "Open Source", "Commercial" and "Free"
 * Arnulf Cristl
 * Spatial Databases are Fun

Closing Plenary Session
What to do with the closing plenary? Thank the organizers, distribute the parting gifts? Another speaker could be arranged, perhaps someone journalistic to do a "conference summary on the fly" talk. Or a rousing "call to arms" (Schuyler? Schuyler?).

Ideas welcome.

Panel Discussion
We have had some panel discussions, Q&A, in the past, but the format is getting less and less suitable to the venue and audience size. It is possible that it is time to move this sort of thing to a different part of the schedule.

Sol Katz Award
The Sol Katz Award is a quick item, which is a nice feel-good moment and a good fit for the closing plenary.

Workshop Logistics
We have a limited number of laptops and a large demand for workshops. There are a few solutions:


 * Rent yet more laptops. Another $10K in the budget could net us another 40 or so laptops and probably drop our unit costs through volume.
 * String the workshops out over the conference. The rental is for a week, so only using the things for a day is pretty wasteful.
 * Go for UVIC labs. Hard to organize, requires transportation logistics, but could be doable.
 * What about "bring your own labtop" workshops? Attendees could be provided with bootable CD's ahead of time (download an image via web?). Requires presenters to get their act together sooner rather than later which isn't a bad thing.

Demo Studio
This conference will have the advantage of a tight layout in a conference center and dedicated show floor. As a result, we have the option of running a full-time demo studio on the show floor, with a big screen, sound and seating. There should be enough vendors with products to show and projects willing to take a 15 minute slot that we can keep it active through-out the exhibition.

Bear Pit
There is nothing so entertaining as watching people tear into each other on matters of principle. Rather than genial panel discussions, the Bear Pit brings two speakers together with a moderator charged with putting them at each others throats. Given the right combination of speakers, could be quite entertaining. The lecture theatre might make a nice venue for such a thing.

Integration 'o Rama
Use the show floor to show the Open Source stack all working together. Each vendor brings a part of the infrastucture.


 * Refractions - Big PostGIS server loaded with lots of data, uDig viewing and editing it
 * DM - Mapserver, Mapguide with Fusion
 * Autodesk - Mapguide
 * Camp2camp - CartoWeb
 * WhereGroup - Mapbender

Give away an architecture diagram and have people get each component stamped at the appropriate booth. Fully stamped diagrams get entered for a prize.

Hack'a'thon
On the Friday after the conference, arrange some empty rooms and internet connections for projects to have long format meetings and codings. If projects are interested in such a thing (a day of discussions, planning and coding) they should note themselves down here.


 * Geotools