Developerfests vs Installfests

[Christopher Browne]

On 6/28/06, Ken Burtch <kburtch-Zd07PnzKK1IAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 15:42 -0400, Rick Tomaschuk wrote:
> > Some sort of developer environment/show (like Google summer of code) may
> > be preferable to a simple Installfest. People need to see how to develop
> > applications for Linux from sketch to debugged product. Window$
> > advocates keep harping on how Linux does'nt have the 'developer model'
> > like what the world's greediest men from Redmond developed. A push to
> > promote multiple developer environments to quickly churn out
> > applications will turn some heads.
> > RickT
>
> PegaSoft has its annual Summer Programming Challenge and Linux Summer
> Retreat in August.  However, my experience is that developers are
> interested unless there's a big wad of cash involved.

I don't see there being any value in trying to do the "stunt" of
having a LUG arrange something like this.  This isn't the sort of
activity that leverages the Strength of Geographical Community that
LUGs hold.

There's too much diversity of interests and too little specificity of
competence in such contexts.

It is something that does, instead, frequently occur when groups
associated with particular OSS projects get together.

For instance, July 10-12th, there will be a PostgreSQL "Code Sprint"
in Toronto as most of the core developers will be in Toronto in one
spot.

There have frequently been similar groupings at conferences:
 - X11 work at various technical conferences over the years when a
bunch of X-heads have been present
 - OLS tends to be preceded by this sort of activity for Linux kernel developers
 - The days before BSDCAN involved meetings of the BSD core folk together

In each of those cases, that's playing to the strength of the respective group.

When I was in Texas, there were several proposals for "coding stunts"
that would always fall through because making up a project for the
purposes of the stunt turned out to not attract anyone...
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