FSF's 30th Birthday Party & miniconf in Boston

I just got an email notifying me of this. Too bad I can't attend.

I RSVP'd and then realized this conflicts with the Ohio [GNU/]Linux Fest which is a problem. Already committed unfortunately to the other event. I wish organizers would check what other events are scheduled for the same time frames as to avoid these types of problems. There are enough days in a year to better spread these events out and its not the first time I've run into this issue. In 2005 there were two GNU/Linux events scheduled for the same time period as well. While I didn't want to attend the other event it would have been better off if they weren't scheduled at the same time. There were some companies who couldn't make both events, but otherwise would have. That's less of an issue with this, but, there will be at least two fewer people able to attend FSF 30th now :( that really wanted to.

It would be a good idea to check even unrelated events. We attended a Florida event that failed in part due to a mega conference of some sort that attracts a lot of technical people and is more entertainment oriented. It would be like holding a GNU/Linux event during Def Con. Probably not a wise idea... unless maybe you could plan it alongside it somehow. That's worked for some start-up conferences. LinuxCon 2009 in Portland pulled it off quite nicely and it was there first event. It was also a much higher quality event than ones which followed too and it can directly be attributed to the event that was held alongside it that attracted more technical oriented people (as opposed to the business oriented LinuxCon).