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Hi folks,
Concerning the BOFs, I did get information back from
the EclipseCon organizers -- please see the email from Bjorn further below. The
bottom line is that we have the freedom to organize our own BOFs, as well as set
the schedule.
To get the ball rolling, our original proposal was to
hold 2 BOFs, as listed below.
Eclipse CDT
BOF:
Meet the experts and discuss
the implementation and direction of CDT. The format will likely be a series of
mini-overviews on different aspects of CDT along with open
discussions.Intel, IBM, QNX and Redhat
have volunteered to present here. We will also try to get a few customers to
present their experiences.
Remote development and
debugging BOF:
TI, HP, Montavista and IBM
have expressed strong interest in hosting this. The main focus would be on the
specific challenges of using Eclipse and CDT in a host/target configuration,
both for development and debugging. This spans the range from deeply embedded
(TI) to traditional embedded (Mvista) to the server/mini types of apps (HP and
IBM). I also expect we can get a couple of customers to participate in this as
well.
My suggestion is to
schedule these for the Tuesday and Wednesday - the general CDT BOF on Tuesday
the 29th, and the remote development/debugging BOF on Wednesday (March
1st).
As for the content, I
do know that additional companies (e.g. Windriver) have expressed interest in
participating, so maybe we can start by having everyone throw out what they'd
like to contribute (discussion topics, mini-presentations, demos etc) and we'll
collect it into the BOF "program".
Cheers,
Sebastien
Sebastien,
Please forward
this clarification to the CDT mailing list - thank you.
I, as the
EclipseCon Organizing Chair / Final Arbitrar of All Things EclipseCon,
received a forwarded copy of this CDT mailing list and I'd like to take the
opportunity to set the record straight / clarify the
situation...
While working out some issues
with my registration I just got word from Meeting Strategies Worldwide
(they're doing the registration etc for EclipseCon) that the decision on
which BOFs to go with will be made onsite. Yes, you read that right - onsite
on the day of.
This means that if we want to do
a BOF we will have to submit our proposals yet
again.
I have just
received word today that all BoF submissions have been neither accepted nor
rejected – all BoFs will now be decided upon onsite at the conference.
An email will be sent very soon, to all people who have submitted BoFs
detailing the process for getting their BoF submitted
onsite.
It might be
worthwhile to not rely on the EclipseCon organizers for this and organize a
BOF ourselves - does anyone from the Bay area got some meeting space they
could donate? ;^)
We (and by this I mean the Singular We, i.e., me)
decided to organize the BOFs at EclipseCon 2005 exactly the same way
they were run at EclipseCon 2004. We made this choice because it is organizationally
much simpler. Here's how it worked last year and here's how it's going to work
this year:
-
One goal for BOFs is to facilitate the informal
gathering of similarly interested attendees.
-
Another goal for BOFs is to make the process of
gathering for a BOF as simple as possible for everyone
involved.
-
Another goal is to make best use of the meeting
space we have available. Thus we want to provide the larger rooms to the
BOFs with more people and the smaller rooms to those with fewer
people.
-
An explicit negative goal for BOFs is to prevent
their being hijacked by companies using them as advertising pitches.
Allowing BOFs to be pre-scheduled has, at other conferences, allowed them to
be taken over by marketing types.
So, here's the process - it's very simple and I think
you'll find that it easily meets your needs as well our overall
goals:
-
At EclipseCon there is a bulletin board.
Beside the bulletin board are blank sign-up
sheets.
-
You arrive at the conference, you go to the
bulletin board, you take a sign-up sheet and write "CDT" in the title box.
You thumb tack it on the bulletin board.
-
During the day, interested people sign up on the
sheets on the board for the BOFs they are interested
in.
-
At 5pm, the organizers (that's me or one of the
other volunteers) looks at the attendance of each of the BOFs on the board
and assigns them to rooms by writing, in big letters, the room name (e.g.,
Seaside B) on the page.
-
After enjoying the free food at the reception that
evening, people wander by the bulletin board to learn which room their BOF
is assigned to.
This process meets the
goals:
-
People can decided to meet in a BOF in advance or
at the last minute. If you want to schedule it in advance, simple agree
amongst all your colleagues that you are going to have a BOF on, say,
Tuesday night. Put up a sign-up sheet, sign-up, and get assigned a
room. The BOF I'm involved in (Language Toolkits and Universal IDEs)
is doing exactly that - see the announcement that Chris Laffra posted to the
eclipse.eclipsecon newsgroup.
-
Simple physical sheets of paper are easy. Without
having to write any complex programs, they allow us to easily allocate rooms
by size and they are easy for the people attending the conference to sign up
on and to read.
-
Allocating rooms at 5pm the day-of allows us to
make the best use of space. There are plenty of rooms, but some of them are
very small and I'd hate to have to pre-guess the size of each BOF. I know I
don't know whether CDT or WTP is going to draw a larger crowd. This way we
will know.
-
Not pre-scheduling BOFs prevents vendors from using
them as advertising rooms because they can't say "come by room X at time Y
to hear us talk about product Z". It allows you and your colleagues to
do so, because you are collectively agreeing to meet, but it prevents sales
pitches because in those cases there is no collective agreement - it's a
one-way communication.
So, by all means, please schedule a CDT BOF. I look
forward to your having a really great time at the conference, and I apologize
if this mechanism was not explained to you before. Mea
culpa...
Regards,
Bjorn Freeman-Benson
EclipseCon Organizing
Chair
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