Re: [OSCOM] Announcement: Magnolia introduces official training -starts on May 9th

On 01 May 2005, at 17:28, Erik Hatcher wrote:

> I did it because the only time Tina has communicated with me about the 
> issue is when I mentioned her handling of ApacheCon on this list when 
> she promoted herself as an option for OSCOM.   Part of the reason I 
> posted publicly was to let the community see my experiences with 
> someone who obviously is interested in working with OSCOM.

I'm still confused why you're hijacking this thread for this reason, 
but the exact explanation for this must be in "the other part of your 
reason".

I understand you had issues with Tina in the past (I didn't, FWIW - got 
excellent service): fair enough. I still think your prolonged 
explanation goes a bit over the top in defaming Tina, then again I've 
been organizing some conferences myself in the past, so I might be a 
bit too touchy about this.

>> Imagine you run a tiny business which depends on a number of 
>> subcontractors. Your big client pays late, yet your subcontractors 
>> demand their monthly payment. Tough.
>>
>> I figure Tina is trying to do an honest and hardworking job, 
>> otherwise she wouldn't be putting together conferences for non-profit 
>> interest groups as Apache. Besides, if you think about it, every bit 
>> she pays to speakers also means less money for Apache.
>
> Tina has failed to deliver on her promises to me.  Regardless of the 
> tough times she may have experienced due to ApacheCon, she has ignored 
> my communication with her until it became public.
>
> Her motivations to provide a service to the open-source community is 
> laudable, for sure.  Her professional demeanor while doing so has not 
> been.  I'm not the only one with bad experiences with Tina, but I will 
> only speak for myself here.

I take it you didn't do the imagination exercise I described above, so 
I won't try to convince you that "shift happens, all the time". If we 
would all be extrapolating singular acts of malfunctioning into reasons 
for publicly defaming people, the world wouldn't be a nice place to 
live in. But maybe it isn't anyhow, and I'm missing the point all the 
way down.

> As for paying speakers - that is a different topic altogether, and 
> each conference/symposium does it differently.  Great content can be 
> had at conferences that do not pay speakers, and lousy content can be 
> found where speakers are paid - compensation has little bearing on 
> quality of material.

Absolutely.

> Direct monetary donation to Apache is a good thing, but it is only way 
> way to give back to it.  I personally am a committer on several 
> projects, am a Member of the ASF, and promote the "Apache Way" often, 
> as well as having worked many many long hours on training material, 
> books, and articles on Apache topics.

So should the ASF thank you for this? Should we? Or is it the other way 
around? Frankly, I'm missing the point in seeing you going through your 
ASF karma points over here.

> Using only the money I've earned from all of that total, I'd be in 
> poverty and my children malnourished.  The money from Security Travel 
> is not the issue.  In fact, if she pays me, I'll donate it right back 
> to the ASF!

That's great to hear.

Cheers,

</Steven>
-- 
Steven Noels                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source Java & XML            An Orixo Member
Read my weblog at            http://blogs.cocoondev.org/stevenn/
stevenn at outerthought.org                stevenn at apache.org