From Plugfest to PlugParty?

[Jens Hübel <jhuebel@opentext.com>]

Hi TC,

 

after our call yesterday we had a couple of discussions today about the impact of not having a face-to-face meeting this spring. I fully understand the situation in which we are, but I also see the high risk not getting the spec ready in the proposed time frame. We also will miss a lot of interoperability experience from a PlugFest.

 

The idea of hosting our servers and apps in a public environment is an excellent way to go forward. However at least I saw the real value of the last PlugFest we had in the ability to talk to developers, to look at a call and its parameters and to set a breakpoint in the server to check what's wrong. All this is not possible in a remote environment. Some comments yesterday in the call went into the same direction. The PlugFest does not require a quorum, it's more an informal way for getting feedback and improving the spec. So in my opinion we should think about other options as well.

 

I would like to come up with an additional suggestion to the decisions we already have made. We have a couple of implementations/prototypes in Europe as well as in America. We could reduce travel costs by making the interop tests more a local event. It is definitely not to exclude someone from anything. Everybody would be welcome to participate. I think it would be just better to have such smaller events than nothing. My hope would be that more people easier could get sponsoring for a local trip. Because of the limited scope we might reduce the duration to perhaps 2 days (to be discussed). Last not least CMIS probably would get much more public awareness for such an event than for the remote tests.

 

"Fest" is the German word  for a more official kind of celebration (like a marriage). We use "Party" for the more informal event on a Saturday evening. So why not make a "PlugParty" if we can't get the full PlugFest?

 

For the Europeans my first proposal would be to keep the proposed schedule and location (David Nuescheler from Day would be willing to host such an event as well… Thanks David!). Perhaps someone would be willing to setup something similar somewhere in the U.S.

 

Does this make any sense? Comments?

 

And if there are companies who would be willing to attend a such a downscaled event in Europe please reply to this list.

 

Thanks Jens