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BSD Operating Systems

General admission at FreeBSD Con 39

Posted by Nik from the come-one-come-all dept.
softweyr writes "Pat Rietz at Walnut Creek CD-ROM has confirmed that there will be general admission (ie, free) at the FreeBSD Conference for the vendors booths." This is good to have confirmed, as some posters to an earlier story mentioned the cost as a definite disincentive to turning up. I'm looking forward to being able to put faces to very many names next week.
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General admission at FreeBSD Con More

General admission at FreeBSD Con

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  • So, what you're saying is that there is no mechanism actually available for subsystem stop/start control in *BSD.

    Well, one can live with that for now, but it's clearly something that needs addressing.

  • *sigh* Good news, if only I could get out there. Would it be too much to ask to hold one in Chicago or somewhere nearer the East Coast next year? :-)

  • don't know, but what I DO know is that it would be THE COOLEST if it is... I think that this is taking the whole consept of the "open community" a couple of steps further F1r57 p057
  • Unfortunately I don't have that kind of money to dole out for flight to and back as well as conference costs.

    Some of the programs look really interesting.

    Barry Caplin, USWest
    "Running an ISP on FreeBSD"

    Fred Sanchez, Apple
    "FreeBSD and the Darwin Project"

    Jeff Chase, Duke University
    "Gigabit networks with FreeBSD"

    ARGH !

    ----------
  • Here's a second for the East Coast, maybe even within a few hours of Rochester, NY.

    I'm even wearing my daemon T-shirt today.

    George

  • Just remember... (Score:3)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Friday October 15, 1999 @03:14AM (#1612104)
    Free admission, not free beer.
  • What about in Australia ? I think most of these conferences seem to forget about Australia + Europe ... and the ones that ARE there never get publicised ... like InterACT 99 in Melbourne, Australia, never got any publicity in ./ - unless I missed it constantly. It was a very good exhibition, too ...


    -
  • Shouldn't all open source conferences be free?
    I know that it is very expensive to put on shows like this, but chargeing people to come get information about a free, open product seems kind of... unfair?
    I know the money usually just goes toward expenses, but a free event may well attract users that aren't yet on our open source bandwagon.
  • Shouldn't all open source conferences be free?
    Why yes. Everything be free. Nobody should pay for anything, even if that thing is inherently costly.

    You just don't understand. These conferences cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) to produce, and come with severe liabilities.

    Please go to a suitable hotel and scout this out on your own. Tell them you'd like a conference with about a thousand people. (Or even a few hundred.) Figure out how much it will cost to rent the meeting space. Then tell them you need a big area most of the time, but for BOFs/tutorials/working-groups, you'll need several smaller areas as well. And don't forget their supply you with coffee in the morning and pop in the afternoon. We're not even talking about a lunch or an evening reception.

    Seriously, putting on meetings takes REAL MONEY. You are not going to get some philanthropist to waste a half million bucks just so people don't have to pay their own way.

  • Re:FreeBSD community website? (Score:4)

    by georgeha ( 43752 ) on Friday October 15, 1999 @04:30AM (#1612108) Homepage
    A few other good sites, are Daemon news [daemonnews.org], for all sorts of info on the *BSDs, and FreeBSD Rocks [freebsdrocks.com] for FreeBSD information, and FreeBSD Zine [freebsdzine.org] for more information, and finally, to buy your own cuddly daemon, FreeBSD Mall. [freebsdmall.com] George
  • Yeah, they ought to take a lesson from Andover.net.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • It was nice to see both Linux and the free BSDs represented at the recent Linux Expo 99 at Olimpia in the UK. I picked up a FreeBSD PowerPak and loads of books and a cuddly penguin, followed by a great chicken-chilli ramen at Wagamama's. Great day out!

    It's nice to see that the occasional bickering witnessed here between the *BSD and Linux camps fortunately doesn't raise its head at conferences or expos, where everyone seems to realize that we're just different strains within one community and that there is only one real enemy, outside.

    [I'm still trying to live within the limitations of not having an init.d directory in FreeBSD to allow easy stop/start of subsystems without rebooting ... yeow, it seems mighty regressive not to have it!]

  • FreeBSD community website? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does the FreeBSD community have a site where they all hang out and discuss their ideas? Or is there a mailinglist with a web interface/archive?
  • If you feel so strongly about this, go ahead and organize and fund an Open Source event. Make it free to all attendees. I'll go!

    (Not so easy to do this is it!)
    Steven Rostedt
  • It's all well and good to want to be a cheapskate, but someone has to pay for it. Regardless of whether price == 0, cost != 0. Who do you nominate? Name names!

    --
  • No, I realize that no one is going to fork out the thousands of dollars needed to put up for a conference of this nature.

    What I was trying to propose is alternative financing so that a open source show could be open to the public. I think is is fairly obvious that no one person is going to be willing or able to foot the bill.

    How about this: Maybe all those vendors should pay something to be able to set up.
    This is how it works most of the time for other shows, ie gun shows, computer shows, etc.

    The talks and lectures, specialized programs targeted toward specific people should be either by invitation only, or cost attendees however much it should be to cover costs.

    Why would anyone advocate an absolutely free show?
    Think before you post.
  • > Or is there a mailinglist with a web interface/archive?
    You can search the 20+ mailing lists at:

    http://www.freebsd.org/search/search.html

    Or, if you have sufficient amounts of freetime, just browse the archives at:

    http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/
  • Wouldn't it be nice if this was simulacast from a streaming video system? (ala NANOG)


    Then you wouldn't HAVE to travel all the way to the left coast!

  • How many vendors? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is only the vendor area free? How many vendors will be there? What "loot" will be available?
  • This appears to be just free admission to the vendor booths, like the vast majority of conventions/industry shows I've seen (i.e. Seybold).

    What makes free software possible is that software can be made freely available due to its nature. Having a convention, in a convention hall, with all of the costs that entails, would for the most part preclude having a free convention. I expect here that the exhibitors are picking up the tab, which is how it works usually with other big conventions. They realize they shouldn't charge to you walk around and be able to buy their products.

    Now, of course, you could hold a really free convention if you could find someplace to hold it for free. Maybe a field someplace. And vendors and attendees could set up tents... and people could share food... BSDStock!

    Unless you are local to the convention site, I suspect the free admission is not going to pack people in. There is still cost associated with getting to the convention. I doubt $10-$15 is going to make much of a difference either way. And if there is just free admission to the vendor area, it's not all that big a deal anyhow. The panels would be the things that would draw most people from further away.
  • I was there today and the vendor area was TINY! There were some cool things to see -- a dinky little rack-mount chassis that looks just perfect for a web server farm, for instance -- but the best part was definitely the sessions and talking with other FreeBSD users in realtime.
  • There's OS Online's BSD section [osonline.org], which covers all of the BSDs.

    --

  • Morgaine wrote:

    [I'm still trying to live within the limitations of not having an init.d directory in FreeBSD to allow easy stop/start of subsystems without rebooting ... yeow, it seems mighty regressive not to have it!]

    /usr/local/etc/rc.d. Also, see the archives for the -arch mailing list, where this is discussed.

    N

  • If there are no Linux related booths at FreeBSDCon, it would because none registered. I can't imagine any legitimate companies/organizations being turned away.

    So let's not go there shall we?
  • And it was great to see Alan Cox there too at the Corel stand in Olimpia and chat with him about the "good ol' days" and common acquaintances back at Swansea University (he started his hacking while at a place in the business park attached to the Uni).

    What absolutely astounded me though was discovering a Debian stand at the Expo! It's great to see what has been so far the least commercial of the distros be able to display its wares at such a well-regarded exhibition site. Well done guys, and I love the Debian t-shirt I brought back with me too! :-)
  • I ordered my "Cop" T-shirt, plus accompanying OpenBSD CD-ROM set, a few days ago.

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