There were some rumors going around that OSDBcon might get canceled, but I was just speaking to Zak and he confirmed that S&S, the company organizing the event, is committed to making the conference happen. Last I heard there are over 30 proposals with more coming in everyday. But the more the better! This years conference is being held once again in parallel with the International PHP Conference. However I think this is suboptimal. PHP developers for the most part are actively using open source databases already. Especially the MySQL guys have no trouble reaching the PHP guys with conferences dedicated to PHP. So it would be a good idea to to think about how to best get access to other audiences, like the Java and .Net crowd.
I talked to a few people about this via email and IRC. Personally I think it would also be great to have an open source database conference in another continent as well sometime. Also maybe putting the conference in parallel or at least close proximity of a conference that gets more of the Java/.Net crowd or even better general database people would be best.
So one idea that came up was putting the conference right before Oracle OpenWorld. I am not suggesting this because I want to get on Oracle case or anything. Actually I would be hoping that Oracle would also be present at an open source database conference given that they have done some key acquisitions with Innobase and Sleepycat. Its just that I think there will be a lot of good overlap with this conference. I do not know what the schedule is for OpenWorld next year though. I have also never been to San Fransisco ;)
However that is just one suggestion. Maybe you guys have other ideas? I just think that there should be at least 2 conferences a year focused on open source database. This would also hopefully enable the open source database consortium to get together more frequently. Especially due to its very informal character it would be great to meet more often to have an opportunity to find and grow common ground. I still think that topics like benchmarking, SQL standard interpretation and finding common syntax for features that are beyond of the scope of the SQL standard are useful to explore together.
Anyways I really want to get a move on the organization as early as possible this time around, so that we can find a new venue, get sponsors to get as many database developers from around the world and really establish open source databases on the grand conference circus. Zak and Josh, who have been the key players, so far are just really busy all over the place. Anything that lessens their load is good. So please contact me if you are interested in helping, have an idea for a venue or have some resources to sponsor towards making it happen.
Hi Lukas,
the two conferences are held together because they can hold down the effective costs for the conference. You only need one hotel for the days, but they can offer more sponsors, more attendees and so on.
But I already mentioned my ex boss a year ago that its bad that there are so many good sessions overlapping other good sessions. If there's an interesting php session and an interesting mysql session on the same time slot, you have to choose. And you have to miss the other one. That's not good.
