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Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:40:40 -0700
From: Fred Moyer <fred@taperfriendlymusic.org>
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To: advocacy@perl.apache.org
Subject: Re: perl at apachecon
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 <20080402134612.dq5r3yh0d7eo484g@webmail.utoronto.ca>
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Sender: Fred Moyer <fred@redhotpenguin.com>

adam.prime@utoronto.ca wrote:
> Quoting Geoffrey Young <geoff@modperlcookbook.org>:
> 
>> hi all :)
>>
>> perl's (and mod_perl's) presence at apachecon has been dwindling over
>> the years.  I won't get into a rant about why this might be, so please
>> don't you do it either :)
>>
> 
> (I'm CC'ing this to advocacy, in case anyone else is interested)
> 
> I'm interested in hearing the rant (and any associated rants), and 

I'll offer some thoughts here but am focusing on intelligent discourse 
rather than ranting :)

> especially interested in hearing ideas about what could be done to fix, 
> or at least adapt to the situation.  I was thinking about this a little 

Spend time developing mod_perl related talks and submit them to events. 
  I spent a lot of time developing talks for smaller workshops first, 
and am now submitting those talks to larger events such as OSCON and 
ApacheCon.

> bit this morning after seeing a post on perlbuzz about how the perl 
> track at OSCON actually has twice as many talks as it did the year 
> before (though it's still a far cry from it's TPC days).
> 
> I've been to two apachecon's (vegas and austin) but last year the 
> content in atlanta was underwhelming to me.  I instead chose to go to 
> the pittsburgh perl workshop, which though it didn't have much (or even 
> any) truly mod_perl content, the general perl content was good, and the 
> conference was dirt cheap (70USD IIRC).
> 
> I recently did a little bit of research for Richard Dice on perl 
> conferences and i was somewhat shocked to find out what they've got 
> going on in Europe.  They have upwards of 8 workshop style events, many 
> of which are multiple days all over Europe.  In addition to YAPC::EU.

Europe has a decided advantage in that the concentration of users is 
over a smaller area than the US (making a generalization here, but one I 
think that is reasonable).  Flying from one end of North America to the 
other is more costly and time consuming than flying from one end of 
Europe to the other, so I think that may be a factor.

> I wonder if there would be enough interest in a workshop style event 
> that was focused on mod_perl, or perl and websites to make it worth 
> while.  I wonder why people don't go to ApacheCon,

It's expensive.  I paid for myself last year and slept on a couch at a 
friend's place, and it was still a lot of money (even with my committer 
discount)  My employer paid the year before, which was great, but I got 
a lucky break in that instance :)

The big conferences are for profit events, and most attendees rely on 
employers footing the bill for their employees.  I've dropped about four 
grand out of pocket in the past two years on conferences, I was lucky 
enough to have a well paying job but unfortunately the employer wouldn't 
pay for conferences on those occasions.

> or don't submit 
> sessions to ApacheCon (which both seem to go hand in hand).  If 

Submitted two talks last year (none accepted), two talks this year 
(fingers crossed) :)

> ApacheCon isn't serving the needs of the mod_perl community effectively, 
> then maybe (if there's interest) the community should start serving itself.

I've often thought that it would be cool to have a mod_perl 
conference/workshop, but the mod_perl community is a subset of both the 
Perl and Apache communities, so it seems like the audience is more 
limited than it would be at ApacheCon or YAPC.  It is generally a lot 
easier to encourage and facilitate mod_perl user attendance at an 
existing event rather than putting on a separate event.

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