GPLv3 conference in bangalore

It's already four days ago, but I just couldn't find some time to write about it in this blog. The 4th international conference on GPLv3, held in Bangalore/India.

I've been to three of those four confrences now, and I guess that makes me the only one apart from the FSF to judge how it actually went, compared to other events.

And I'm sorry that I have to say that it was by far the worst of these events :(

  • They closed down registration at some fixed limit (270?) because the auditorium couldn't hold more people. However, since the registration was free, only 50% fo the people who registered were actually present. And this at the expense of people apparently have been turned away after the quota was filled. Now we had a half-empty auditorium, and people who wanted to come but were rejected.
  • The programme. Basically RMS and Eben did not only give there usual (every time updated) great presentations on the spirit and the wording of the current license draft. But then they were kept alone on the stage to reply to questions for about the same time. Nobody else but them was giving any presentations on something that is really GPLv3 related.
  • The panels. What is the point of a "business panel" if all(most) you have represented there is some small three-men-in-a-garage companies that are run by free software enthusiasts? Where have beeen the Infosys, Wipro, ... companies? Don't they have something to say about the GPLv3?
  • The audience. How can you come to a conference on the GPLv3 and then ask questions that
    • everybody knows will upset rms because they use Linxu with no GNU/ in front
    • are totally unrelated (how can I make Autocad work on Linux
    • reveal that you haven't even bothered reading the GPLv3 draft
    Where were the GPL-savyy lawyers, free software developers and industry representatives that had made their way to the Barcelona and Porto Alegre event?
  • The [non-existing] moderation. Why was there nobody stopping all that off-topic crap like endless discussions on why gnucash isn't conforming the Indian accounting standards. I'm sure those are important problems to be adressed (and somebody should just hack that code into gnucash if he has a need for it). But who the hell cares about this on a conference specialized to license questions?