YAPC::EU 2010 Pisa
I really enjoyed myself in Pisa. Thanks for all the organizers of YAPC::EU and the speakers and all the attendees. The event was really awesome!
After spending most of my time at YAPC::NA in the hallway track trying to talk about my grant proposal and after being discouraged by some of the negative comments there I decided to try to spend a lot more time in talks and not to initiate discussion about it. Still many people stopped me in breaks and asked me about my grant. I tried to give them a status report and in most cases they tried to encourage me to keep going with it.
I also talked to Allison Randal about the grant and as far as I understand she said the TPF will never approve my grant. She did not say what is her opinion and if she would vote for it, but she was one of the people who told me a few month ago that instead of trying to setup a separate organization for this I should do it within The Perl Foundation.
Actually I think she said that the only thing that can bring Perl back to its fame is a company doing a very interesting and high-profile project in it. Similar to how the work of 37 Signals releasing Rails made Ruby interesting.
Allison also said that instead of asking for a grant I should just organize more events and try to raise money for them from companies. I just wonder, if I take all the risk then why should that be within TPF?
After her adventures in getting to YAPC, finally Karen Pauley and me also had some time to discuss the grant. I think this was very important thought I am not sure we have managed to move forward. At least now I understand much better the various things she needs to balance as the president of TPF. Frankly, I don't think many people would be able to do that and I am quite afraid that she will burn out and then the TPF will stop making any progress.
I won't list here all the other nice people I met at YAPC as that would take ages but I'd like to say again thanks to the organizers and all the people who participated!