Comments on: Like it or not, it is the MySQL Conference and Expo

By: The history of OpenSQL Camp at Xaprb

The history of OpenSQL Camp at Xaprb — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:11:58 +0000

[...] but they are by nature a liaison with that company, and it’s not the same thing. My original blog post about this topic is probably the clearest explanation of what I had in [...]

By: Nathaniel

Nathaniel — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:58:48 +0000

I have been involved with a couple of attempts to organize virtual events, always involving people that spend large amounts of time on the computer anyway. They were not fun for me, and I agree that meeting and talking to real people is the real need. We all need to get away from the monitor more, and interact with people more.

By: Xaprb

Xaprb — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:33:03 +0000

Thanks everyone for your comments. A few follow-up comments, all with “IMO” appended invisibly:

I encourage you to join the Google Group Arjen mentioned.

Sponsors are good. There were sponsors at the PG conference. What’s important is where the initiative, responsibility, and authority is vested.

I’m not anti-MySQL, but we as a community are too dependent on MySQL. It’s not healthy for anyone. I think MySQL’s management recognize this, which is good.

The un-conferences I’ve attended (MySQL Camp 1 and 2) were organized by MySQL, and Camp 3 never happened partially because everyone waited for MySQL to organize it.

I wouldn’t be interested in a virtual conference. I’m virtual all year; I want to meet people for real. No offense, but I won’t go near Second Life :-)

To Zach’s point, I think the community will need to take responsibility to meet their own needs.

More about community in later posts. I’ll close this comment by saying the best thing that happened when I attended the PostgreSQL conference was that it brought the MySQL world into sharp focus for me. It was really eye-opening.

By: ZUrlocker

ZUrlocker — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:08:26 +0000

Baron,
as Marten mentioned we have also participated in “un conferences” like the MySQL Camp that we put on twice, once in the bay area and once in New York. Those didn’t cost anything and though they had MySQL participation, we simply got the ball rolling.

Also the MySQL Conference (by whatever name!) is actually jointly operated by MySQL and O’Reilly. While it is a business (O’Reilly wants to make money off it) we try to run it on a breakeven budget for MySQL, and sometimes we make money and sometimes we don’t. The name change occurred a couple of years ago and this was based on a suggestion from O’Reilly to showcase the expo. The focus has not changed though and we very much see it as a conference for our users, as well as our partners, our customers and a showcase of what we’re working on.

But we’re thrilled if there are other events that also pop up to meet the needs of our community of users.

–Zack

By: Arjen Lentz

Arjen Lentz — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:47:27 +0000

http://groups.google.com/group/oursql-conference