On future conferences

Hi all,

Some of you will know that this summer's conference in Toronto was
mostly successful (we've been struggling with some blockers on
putting up all the conference materials, but I have been assured
several times that that state of affairs will end in the next few
days).  Some of you will also know that we did some work to try to
find out what sort of future conference, if any, was desired by the
community.

Based on the feedback we received, the community apparently wants a
combined user/hacker conference: that is, a conference that combines
the PostgreSQL-server developer tracks we saw at this year's
conference with some user-focussed items similar to what one might
find at typical database conferences for users.

Such a conference is not free to put on, of course, and actually
requires a considerable amount of money in order to make it both
successful and accessible to community members.  This year, we were
successful mostly because of the generosity of our many corporate
sponsors; we are thankful to them.  This conference was necessarily
planned to be smaller than a combined conference would be, so we can
anticipate that a future conference would require more money than the
money required by the 2006 conference.

Those who are in charge of the funds currently held by Software in
the Public Interest have a number of other projects besides a
conference they are hoping to support in the upcoming year.
Accordingly, the group has reached a consensus that 2007 is too soon
to plan to fund another conference.  Accordingly, the 2006 conference
committee is not planning to try to organise a conference for 2007.
We believe that it would be in the best interests of everyone to plan
for a biennial conference, if we wish to have a repeating series,
rather than an annual one.  So, in the unlikely event you were
holding your breath waiting for the announcement of next year's
conference, wait no more.

Best regards,
Andrew Sullivan
(2006 PostgreSQL Summit committee chair)

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
        --Jane Jacobs