[advocacy-discuss] Conference Season Cometh: MySQL Users Conf, JavaOne, CommunityOne, etc.

[Ben Rockwood]

Jim Grisanzio wrote:
> hey, thanks for sending this, Ben ...
>
> Ben Rockwood wrote:
>> CommunityOne: The call for papers went out, but I didn't see anyone 
>> pick up the ball on organizing for the show.  Perhaps this happened 
>> and I just missed it all.  Will OpenSolaris have representation this 
>> year?  Who's leading that effort?
>>   
>
> Also, I understand that the weekend prior to C1 will be the 
> OpenSolaris Summit in San Francisco:
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/indiana-discuss/2008-March/005182.html 
>



Yes, the Summit is going to be great, but I didn't include it because 
its not a "work" event.  The conferences I'm concerned with each year 
are those that may or may not have a Sun presence but are unlikely to 
have an OpenSolaris presence, and in the case that they do, won't have a 
non-SMI employee "community" presence.  I think my presence at shows in 
the past has been an integral part of showing what OpenSolaris is really 
about, not just Sun releasing code, but people having the ability to get 
involved and be part of the team.   I enjoy every opportunity to say, "I 
don't work for Sun,  I'm not being paid, I'm a member of the 
community".... because thats what this is all about.

I _highly_ suggest that others concerned with Advocacy follow suit, find 
shows in your area, throw on your cleanest OpenSolaris shirt and go!  
Its fun, refreshing, and helps ground you in reality... the truth is, 
trademark issues or governance crap isn't our "big" problem, its getting 
people to upgrade from Solaris 8!  And, believe it or not, you would 
_expect_ conference attendees (normally a small subset of any given 
companies IT staff) to be "informed", but most STILL don't know that 
Solaris is Open Source!!!  Sharing the news with people hearing it for 
the first time is exciting and worth spending a floating holiday or two on.

benr.