In 400 words or less, answer this question: Why is your location and the date you propose the best for OOoCon 2008?
Bratislava is a great place for hosting international conferences, some of the international conferences which happen in Bratislava are the biggest one in central Europe. Slovakia have very good activities with open source software mostly in educational sector, there are several schools using such solutions for teaching purposes. The open source community in Slovakia, which also include some business like international ones such as Novell, Sun, IBM and smaller national small and medium sized enterprise focused on open source software. We have also strong support from a company 602Office, which is using OpenOffice with their own build and are selling support on such solution. 602Office is really popular among Czechs and Slovaks, since early 90s the only software you used for writing documents was from them, basically they are still really famous. OooCon 2008 can have a very intensive impact on the educational processes in Slovakia, which is good for youth people who will become pro open source adults in the future. Also it will boost the general wisdom of open source software, OpenOffice application for usage in government and can put a lot of light on the Open Standards issues which the world is facing right now. Promotion of Open Document Format is also very important mostly in the Eastern parts of Europe, where the government is missing experts regarding Open Standards and services of the government.
Slovakia, Bratislava, conference will be held in main park of culture center. Area of culture center buildings, can hold up to 2000 attendees in the main building, 500 attendees in the second building, is almost at the city center (10minutes by walk), is accessible by public transport (tram and bus) and is located on the old city center side of river danube. Main building offers various combination of smaller and bigger rooms which is ideal for workshops and bigger sessions. Bratislava is accessible by car via highways direction Prague – Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and Poland. Bratislava have three close international Airports, Airport Bratislava with mostly European flights (2km from Bratislava), Airport Vienna (20km from Bratislava / 20minutes by car) via highway Bratislava – Vienna and Airport Budapest reachable 1 hour driving by car.
Between 15 – 19 September / 22 – 26 September 2008, but we are flexible also for October, and we are counting using one weekend day for part of the conference if possible
Jan Husar (jan.husar (at) skosi.org) / SKOSI
One day conference, Open Source in education and government, focusing of usage of FLOSS in gov, edu and focus at open standards in the services of the government. One day event, Software Freedom Day 2008 in Bratislava. Evening events for OooCon, counting from: sight seeing (Bratislava, Vienna by boat, Budapest by boat), drinking and socializing event, electronic music events, parties in clubs, dinner events and one big welcome dinner party, technical and hack events for geeks. There will be also outdoor sports, like trekking/hiking, mountain bikes and such available.
Visas are needed only from countries outside EU. Visa rules are those who apply for Schengen zone.
Coming by car information will be available on the event website, including maps and assistance.
Flights are as follows:
Travel cost, airport Vienna, airport Bratislava, economy class and low
cost airlines London – Vienna, AirBerlin (100eur), Austrian Airlines
(150eur), Lufthansa (200eur), British Airways (200eur)
London – Bratislava, Czech Airlines (270eur), Lufthansa (300eur)
Paris – Vienna, AirBerlin (70eur), Austrian Airlines (90eur), SkyEurope
(120eur), AirFrance (150eur), Lufthansa (200eur)
Paris – Bratislava, Czech Airlines (220eur), Lufthansa (290eur)
Rome – Vienna, Alitalia (85eur), Austrian Airlines (90eur), AirOne
(120eur), Lufthansa (240eur)
Rome – Bratislava, Czech Airlines (230eur)
Beijing – Vienna, Aeroflot (800eur), Qatar Airlines (900eur), AirChina
(1000eur), Lufthansa (1100eur)
Sydney – Vienna, British Airways (1300eur), Austrian Airlines
(1500eur)
New York – Vienna, ** LOT Airlines (600eur), Alitalia (650eur), Iberia
(700eur), British Airways (740eur), KLM Dutch Airlines (770eur)
New York – Bratislava, ** AirFrance (700eur), Lufthansa (800eur),
Hamburg – Vienna, ** AirBerlin (85eur), Lufthansa (100eur), Austrian
Airlines (110eur),
Dublin – Vienna, ** AerLingus (190eur), Lufthansa (200eur),
Dublin – Bratislava, ** Czech Airlines (220eur), Lufthansa
(350eur),
San Francisco – Vienna, ** LOT Airlines (700eur), Air New Zealand
(730eur), Delta Airlines (780eur), San Francisco – Bratislava, **
AirFrance (900eur)
Cape Town – Vienna, ** KLM Dutch Airlines (1000eur), British Airways
(1050eur)
Tokyo – Vienna, ** Aeroflot (1000eur),
Tokyo - Bratislava ** Lufthansa (1050eur), Air France (1100eur)
The Call for Location states: user feedback from previous conferences suggest that the ideal location will:
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