PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit, Call for Contributions

Peter,

I'd need an invitation to get a visa. Is't possible ?

Oleg
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit
=============================

Call for Contributions
----------------------

The PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit will take place on July 8 and 9, 2006, in
Toronto, Canada. We are planning for a gathering of about 50 hackers,
contributors, and other friends of the PostgreSQL project to celebrate the
project's 10th anniversary, reflect on the work accomplished, establish new
contacts, and plan for the future. The summit will feature speaker sessions,
workshops, discussion groups, and social events. We are now looking for
content proposals. Topics can include:

- Development, how to and how not to

- Features for the future (or of the past)

- PostgreSQL-related research projects

- Issues relating to the project's organization

- PostgreSQL-related projects

- Legal issues

- Non-profit organizations

- Advocacy, marketing

- How to make PostgreSQL more appealing to $X

- Business aspects

- Other interesting event proposals such as discussions, contests, awards,
question sessions, etc. will also be considered if you are prepared to
organize them.

There is considerable freedom in developing the program. Anything that is
important to you, of interest to others, and of value to the project can be
reasonable. But remember that this is a conference of PostgreSQL
contributors, so user-level talks should normally not be submitted.

Submissions and the actual sessions should be in English. Contributions
should generally use time slots of 45 minutes, but feel free to specify
otherwise if you have special requirements. We are also welcoming "lightning
talks" of about 5 minutes.

Send submissions to conference-submissions@lists.pgfoundry.org in free form,
but include the following information:

- your name
- your e-mail address
- title of your contribution
- type of your contribution (talk, discussion, etc.)
- abstract of up to 100 words (for publishing in the program)
- extended description (for review by the organizers, not published)

The deadline for submissions is March 31st.

Speakers and other supporters of the conference program (exception: lightning
talks) will be offered free registration. They will also be first in line to
receive financial assistance, but we cannot guarantee any such thing at the
moment, so be prepared to pay for your travel and accomodation.

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83

oleg@sai.msu.su (Oleg Bartunov) writes:

I'd need an invitation to get a visa. Is't possible ?

"Certainty" is difficult to promise, but there is a reasonable
population of relevant people here such that invitations can be
arranged.

In view of the fact that it can take a fair bit of time to arrange
visas, this is something we should watch for pretty early...

Now is not too early to be arranging for passports and visas...
--
(format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "acm.org")
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/internet.html
"Bonus! The lack of multitasking is one of the most important reasons
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Chris Browne wrote:

oleg@sai.msu.su (Oleg Bartunov) writes:

I'd need an invitation to get a visa. Is't possible ?

"Certainty" is difficult to promise, but there is a reasonable
population of relevant people here such that invitations can be
arranged.

I suggest that everyone who needs invitations or other documentation, be
it for arranging a visa or getting a day off work or whatever, write to
conference-plan@pgfoundry.org and we'll work it out.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

Just curious, but what is involved in these "invitations"? For instance,
is there a limit on # of invitations any one person(?) or company can
issue? Are there any legal implications of issuing such an invitation? I
could imagine some pretty hot water if "pre 9/11" someone were to invite
bin Laden to a conference, and had the twin towers go down while he was
here, for instance ...

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Chris Browne wrote:

oleg@sai.msu.su (Oleg Bartunov) writes:

I'd need an invitation to get a visa. Is't possible ?

"Certainty" is difficult to promise, but there is a reasonable
population of relevant people here such that invitations can be
arranged.

I suggest that everyone who needs invitations or other documentation, be
it for arranging a visa or getting a day off work or whatever, write to
conference-plan@pgfoundry.org and we'll work it out.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

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choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
match

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Ühel kenal päeval, N, 2006-03-02 kell 15:35, kirjutas Marc G. Fournier:

Just curious, but what is involved in these "invitations"? For instance,
is there a limit on # of invitations any one person(?) or company can
issue? Are there any legal implications of issuing such an invitation?

Sure. The one who dares to invite anybody is called to an aeroport and
strip-searched as well, legal or not.

---------------
Hannu

On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 11:51 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

The PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit will take place on July 8 and 9, 2006, in
Toronto, Canada. We are planning for a gathering of about 50 hackers,
contributors, and other friends of the PostgreSQL project to celebrate the
project's 10th anniversary, reflect on the work accomplished, establish new
contacts, and plan for the future.

One thing I'd like to add: we're considering organizing a "code sprint"
for the days immediately following the conference. This would be an
opportunity for people interested in contributing to PostgreSQL to work
together in the same (large) room. I'm hoping that some of the major
contributors will be there, but anyone who's at the summit is welcome to
join us. We'll have a bunch of planned projects to work on, but I'd
encourage everyone to bring their own project ideas as well. You'll need
your own laptop, or have someone you can pair program with.

Before we go any farther organizing the sprint, I'd like to get an idea
how much interest there is. If you're likely to attend the summit and
would be interested in staying for the code sprint, please let me know.
You should include you how many days you'd be interested in sprinting
for (I'd like to do at least one day, and perhaps two).

Thanks,

Neil

Yea, sure I would like to attend.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neil Conway wrote:

On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 11:51 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

The PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit will take place on July 8 and 9, 2006, in
Toronto, Canada. We are planning for a gathering of about 50 hackers,
contributors, and other friends of the PostgreSQL project to celebrate the
project's 10th anniversary, reflect on the work accomplished, establish new
contacts, and plan for the future.

One thing I'd like to add: we're considering organizing a "code sprint"
for the days immediately following the conference. This would be an
opportunity for people interested in contributing to PostgreSQL to work
together in the same (large) room. I'm hoping that some of the major
contributors will be there, but anyone who's at the summit is welcome to
join us. We'll have a bunch of planned projects to work on, but I'd
encourage everyone to bring their own project ideas as well. You'll need
your own laptop, or have someone you can pair program with.

Before we go any farther organizing the sprint, I'd like to get an idea
how much interest there is. If you're likely to attend the summit and
would be interested in staying for the code sprint, please let me know.
You should include you how many days you'd be interested in sprinting
for (I'd like to do at least one day, and perhaps two).

Thanks,

Neil

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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--
Bruce Momjian http://candle.pha.pa.us
SRA OSS, Inc. http://www.sraoss.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

FOlks,

One thing I'd like to add: we're considering organizing a "code sprint"
for the days immediately following the conference.

To add further. There will probably be a "code sprint" AT the conference
as well. Then Monday and Tuesday for an "extended code sprint". We're
still discussing it.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

The world rejoiced as scrappy@postgresql.org ("Marc G. Fournier") wrote:

Just curious, but what is involved in these "invitations"? For
instance, is there a limit on # of invitations any one person(?) or
company can issue? Are there any legal implications of issuing such
an invitation? I could imagine some pretty hot water if "pre 9/11"
someone were to invite bin Laden to a conference, and had the twin
towers go down while he was here, for instance ...

Here should be the authoritative information:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/visas.html
Countries/Territories Requiring Visas

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/letter.html
Letter of Invitation for Countries Whose Citizens Require a
Temporary Resident Visa to Enter Canada

If an .se address implies Swedish citizenship, there's good news;
Swedes don't need a visa to come to Canada. Ditto for pretty well all
of Western Europe, all of North America (including Mexico), and Japan.

I expect that most of those likely to need visas (and letters) will
hearken from Eastern Europe or Asia.

It's worth noting that whomever is providing that letter of invitation
has to be prepared to send, to our foreign friends, a photocopy of our
own Canadian birth certificate or some equivalent thereof.

Not to say that this is *spectacularly* intimate information, but I
daresay people would Not Be Pleased if such material got misused.

There is some fairness there; the requirements are nicely laid out,
and the "intimacies" go in both directions.

The other "pointy bit" is that the letter of invitation needs to
indicate the inviter's relationship to the person being invited. I
expect that would need to be a tad more specific than merely "he's
some guy from Sweden that I heard about on the Internet"...

What this all implies is that these Letters of Invitation do indeed
impose a certain degree of legal burden (whether highly formalized or
not) such that I'm sure NOT going to be heading to the printers so I
can send them out by the gross...
--
(format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "cbbrowne.com")
http://linuxfinances.info/info/languages.html
"Once you accept that the world is a giant computer run by white mice,
all other movies fade into insignificance." -- Mutsumi Takahashi

Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes:

Letter of Invitation for Countries Whose Citizens Require a
Temporary Resident Visa to Enter Canada

I missed that this was happening up here in Canada. How exclusive is the guest
list for this? Like, are you only expecting 50 top contributors by invitation
only or is anyone who can make it welcome? What kind of costs are anticipated?

--
greg

gsstark@mit.edu (Greg Stark) writes:

Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes:

Letter of Invitation for Countries Whose Citizens Require a
Temporary Resident Visa to Enter Canada

I missed that this was happening up here in Canada. How exclusive is
the guest list for this? Like, are you only expecting 50 top
contributors by invitation only or is anyone who can make it
welcome? What kind of costs are anticipated?

It's not intended to be punitively high priced, so as to keep it
exclusive, but the more expensive you find it to travel to Toronto,
the more you'll find it costs, naturally... I'll probably grouse
about parking costs a bit, at some point, but I won't have a thousand
dollar plane ticket to pay for, to be sure... ;-)

I think there is some desire to have some amount of funding provided
for travel/accomodations based on what can be raised thru SPI; that's
certainly still a matter in flux. The answers aren't clear yet...
--
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http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/
Rules of the Evil Overlord #31. "All naive, busty tavern wenches in my
realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will
provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the
hero or his sidekick." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/&gt;

btw,

how expensive is to go to the Niagara waterfall from Toronto ?
I'd like to take an opportunity to see it.

Oleg

On Fri, 3 Mar 2006, Chris Browne wrote:

gsstark@mit.edu (Greg Stark) writes:

Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes:

Letter of Invitation for Countries Whose Citizens Require a
Temporary Resident Visa to Enter Canada

I missed that this was happening up here in Canada. How exclusive is
the guest list for this? Like, are you only expecting 50 top
contributors by invitation only or is anyone who can make it
welcome? What kind of costs are anticipated?

It's not intended to be punitively high priced, so as to keep it
exclusive, but the more expensive you find it to travel to Toronto,
the more you'll find it costs, naturally... I'll probably grouse
about parking costs a bit, at some point, but I won't have a thousand
dollar plane ticket to pay for, to be sure... ;-)

I think there is some desire to have some amount of funding provided
for travel/accomodations based on what can be raised thru SPI; that's
certainly still a matter in flux. The answers aren't clear yet...

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83

On Fri, 3 Mar 2006 09:07:06 +0300 (MSK)
Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su> wrote:

how expensive is to go to the Niagara waterfall from Toronto ?
I'd like to take an opportunity to see it.

If you are driving, Niagara Falls is about one hour from Toronto. Cost is a tank of gas and parking. Looking at the falls is free. There are special tours like the Maid of the Mist (a boat that goes to the base of the falls) and a tour through the tunnels behind the falls which have some cost. Not a particularly expensive side trip.

Those of us who live here should think about some entertainment possibilities.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net>         |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/                |  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212     (DoD#0082)    (eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.

Christopher Browne wrote:

Here should be the authoritative information:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/visas.html
Countries/Territories Requiring Visas

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/letter.html
Letter of Invitation for Countries Whose Citizens Require a
Temporary Resident Visa to Enter Canada

Wow, this is a great deal of burden that for sure I didn't have to do
last time :-( Not sure why, maybe the laws changed or something. It is
crystal clear that I have to do it this time however.

Thanks for the pointers. I'm looking forward to finding somebody who
wants to "sponsor" me on this issue ... or maybe get me a passport from
the Holy See.

The other "pointy bit" is that the letter of invitation needs to
indicate the inviter's relationship to the person being invited. I
expect that would need to be a tad more specific than merely "he's
some guy from Sweden that I heard about on the Internet"...

Rats :-(

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

Wow, this is a great deal of burden that for sure I didn't have to do
last time :-( Not sure why, maybe the laws changed or something. It is
crystal clear that I have to do it this time however.

I think you're overreacting guys... I would first try and go to the
nearest Canadian embassy and try to get the visa. I bet in most of the
cases they will just issue it without any invitation letter and the
like... if not, only then worry about it ;-)

I'm also citizen from one of the countries (Romania) which require visas
to most of the world (or it required, the situation's relaxing in this
respect), and I never had any problems getting one. Or maybe it changed
after 9/11 ?

Cheers,
Csaba.

Csaba Nagy wrote:

Wow, this is a great deal of burden that for sure I didn't have to do
last time :-( Not sure why, maybe the laws changed or something. It is
crystal clear that I have to do it this time however.

I think you're overreacting guys... I would first try and go to the
nearest Canadian embassy and try to get the visa. I bet in most of the
cases they will just issue it without any invitation letter and the
like... if not, only then worry about it ;-)

Yeah, you may be right, sorry. The .gc.ca page says "updated
2004-02-17" so it must be the same page that was in place when I
solicited the visa last year. However, the invitation letter was very
simple, didn't include any of the confidential information, and actually
it wasn't issued by a Canadian person at all! It was signed by the
EnterpriseDB guys.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

Peter,

I'm asking our performance lead, Ayush Parashar, to develop a talk proposal
that will discuss performance of Postgres, including enhancements like the
on-disk bitmap index, sort improvements, etc. We'd also like to discuss the
business intelligence use-cases and where parallelism is applicable.

Where would such a talk fit in the program?

- Luke

On 3/1/06 2:51 AM, "Peter Eisentraut" <petere@postgresql.org> wrote:

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

Christopher Browne wrote:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/letter.html
Letter of Invitation for Countries Whose Citizens Require a
Temporary Resident Visa to Enter Canada

Wow, this is a great deal of burden that for sure I didn't have to do
last time :-( Not sure why, maybe the laws changed or something. It is
crystal clear that I have to do it this time however.

Are you sure that "Temporary Resident Visa" is what you need?
Isn't the regular visa people get called just a "Guest Visa"?

--
greg

On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 07:50:51AM -0800, Luke Lonergan wrote:

Peter,

I'm asking our performance lead, Ayush Parashar, to develop a talk proposal
that will discuss performance of Postgres, including enhancements like the
on-disk bitmap index, sort improvements, etc. We'd also like to discuss the
business intelligence use-cases and where parallelism is applicable.

Where would such a talk fit in the program?

On a related note, I'm wondering if there's any non-technical
business-oriented things folks would be interested in hearing about,
perhaps stuff relating to corporate support and use of PostgreSQL.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461