Re: Changing the name of GUADEC

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Vincent Untz a écrit :
> Let's try another question: who are the new people we want to see? People
> who know GNOME? People who don't know GNOME? If they don't know GNOME,
> GnomeCon/GConf is not clearer than GUADEC. If they know GNOME, there
> are some chances they will learn about GUADEC being a GNOME thing, aren't
> they?

It's not quite black & white. One of the things that I want to see 
happen from a GUADEC is to convert people who know and hate GNOME (or 
who know about it, and aren't bothered by it) into disciples.

GNOME has a bad rap in the über-geek world. We're elitist, we don't 
listen to our current users, instead preferring to make decisions for 
some imaginary conservative home user that we don't have yet.

That is the reputation we have for a big chunk of the Linux using 
public. GUADEC and other similar meetings are a chance to open up, 
explain to people why we do what we do, listen to what our high-end 
users actually want, and maybe integrate some of that into our Master Plan.

So GUADEC is, for me, aimed at 3 main audiences:
 - GNOME hackers, to get together, work, have fun, change the world.
 - Developers who aren't currently writing GNOME software, but who 
might like to, to teach them what's great about our software stack. 
(this also benefits existing developers who don't know all the stack).
 - People who are currently using free software, or who are planning to 
use it soon, and who are ambivalent about GNOME, to turn those people 
into our advocates.

> Also, it seems the main idea is to change the name so that the new name
> shows that it's an event. In what context can we see GUADEC without any
> reference to the fact that it's an event?

The main idea to change the name is because it's yet another meaningless 
acronym which sucks. It's not a good name. The only reason to keep it is 
because we've been using it for 6 years.

But it has never served us, and GUADEC, in spite of the best intentions 
of Tim, Anne, Leslie and others, has never become a mainstream general 
public conference, and the stuff aimed at the enterprise and government 
markets just seems to annoy the people who *are* there.

Dave.

--
David Neary
bolsh gimp org