Re: [technology-pmc] Re: EclipseCon program selection

[Bjorn Freeman-Benson <bjorn.freeman-benson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jochen,
Continuing our email conversation about EclipseCon program selection, I think this is your key statement:

> From my point of view the long talks are the only format that are suited to the needs of new projects (maybe the demos are too, but have by design little background info). At Eclipse Summit Europe we had a "New and Noteworthy" track with 20-25 minute presentations - this was a little short too, but it was the chance to deliver more than just an idea.

While I respect your opinion on this, I also disagree with it for two reasons. The logistical reason is that there simply isn't enough time to have even one long talk per Eclipse project, much less multiple long talks for the more popular projects (such as the Platform, JDT, BIRT, and so on). In fact, the reason we chose 20 minute presentations at Eclipse Summit Europe was because we didn't have enough time for longer talks - everyone wanted longer talks but there just wasn't enough time. ... The audience-attractiveness reason is that 3/4s of last year's post-conference survey respondents liked the short talk format.

Every project feels that they need more time at EclipseCon to promote themselves - I have not encountered anyone who says "give me fewer slots at EclipseCon":

• new projects need to tell people about themselves,
  
• mature projects have lots of exciting new features to talk about,
  
• big projects have a new & noteworthy the size of a Christmas shopping list,
  
• small projects say "if only we could attract more developers to help us out",
• etc...

The solution I proposed, and Rich and the rest of the program committee has endorsed, is 1/3 long talks and 2/3rds short talks (by numbers; 3/4s long talks and 1/4 short talks by time). We can always consider a different allocation for EclipseCon 2007 to support the continued evolution of the projects and ecosystem.

- Bjorn