Re: [Help-glpk] Any chance for a GLPK user group at a conference

[Meketon, Marc]

Thanks Robbie.  I've never been to Berlin, although I go to Frankfurt 
reasonably often (in fact, will be there all of next week).  My company has 
several offices in Germany including one in Berlin and a much larger one in 
Munich so I might be able to help somehow if we ever pull this together.  For 
example, depending on the number of people, maybe I could get a conference room 
for a couple of days.

However, several people responded privately to me saying they were not sure if 
such a conference would be accomplish a lot.  In fact, the dearth of any public 
response indicates that this concept is not being accepted.

Among items, having such a meeting depends on:
(1) Would Andrew be willing to go?  I like your idea of people pitching in to 
cover his costs.  Without him, there is no reason to meet.
(2) What topics are open for discussion?  For example, could we have a 
discussion of potential directions for GLPK and try to jointly work on a 
priority list?  Again, whether this occurs is up to Andrew.
(2a) Would it make sense to have a set of technical discussions about the guts 
of GLPK?  Would it be easier for others to contribute to it if such 
presentations were made?

Other topics?

-----Original Message-----
From: Robbie Morrison [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 3:21 PM
To: GLPK help
Cc: Meketon, Marc
Subject: re: [Help-glpk] Any chance for a GLPK user group at a conference


Hi Marc, all

------------------------------------------------------------
To:          "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
Subject:      [Help-glpk] Any chance for a GLPK user group at a conference
Message-ID:  <address@hidden>
From:        "Meketon, Marc" <address@hidden>
Date:         Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:14:38 -0600
------------------------------------------------------------

> I wonder if there should be some type of face-to-face user group
> meeting to discuss GLPK.
> Perhaps in Germany? Or perhaps associated with another conference such
> as an INFORMS conference.  We could have some interesting discussions
> about parallelization, source code control, various features, etc.

Germany would certainly have some appeal and Berlin offers some additional 
advantages.

Berlin is fast becoming an open-source hub of
sorts: LinuxDays [LinuxTage], Libre Office foundation, Chaos Computer Club, 
berliOS, and so.
There is arguably more acceptance for free and open source (FOSS) by state and 
federal public agencies in Germany than elsewhere.

---

The original suggestion would be to tack on to an academic conference.

ISMP 2012 (21st International Symposium on Mathematical Programming) was held 
in Berlin 19-24 August 2012.  But there was virtually nothing on FOSS projects. 
 FOSS doesn't seem to be a priority.  That could be related to either solver 
performance or to the fact that industry collaboration and 
patents-before-papers are now important academic drivers.

I looked at the INFORMS calendar to the end of 2104, but nothing particularly 
useful there:

  http://www.informs.org/Attend-a-Conference/Conference-Calendar

----

Another strategy would be to align with an academic institution.  No one in my 
world is remotely interested in application programming (although GAMS is 
widely used), so I cannot really help there.

---

Another strategy would be to try for a slot at the LinuxTag for May 2014:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxTag
  http://www.linuxtag.org/2013/en.html

One idea would be for Andrew Makhorin to make a presentation and for us 
collectively to cover Andrew's travel and accommodation.  There should be a 
GLPK meeting as well.  But success would not be so contingent on this meeting 
being especially complete or productive.

We could also try for 2013 but have only two weeks to react:

  "Candidates have until 20 January 2013 to submit
  their ideas for the programme of papers"

Personally, the LinuxTag 2014 option has merit.
I have been to quite a few past events, probably about five.  Just some 
thoughts, Robbie
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation Technical University of 
Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany University email (redirected) : address@hidden
Webmail (preferred)           : address@hidden
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