who is the audience, what are the goals?

[Masayuki Ida]

[I was in Washington DC last week, and seemed to have lost janis's mail.]

> Depending on the direction it goes and whether I get support from my
> management, I might be interested in helping to organize the GCC
> conference.  In the meantime, here are some thoughts about it.  Some of
> these are from people I talked to at USENIX last week.

Great!

> Before proceeding with specific arrangements we should understand the
> intended audiences for the conference and their goals and needs.
> 
> Who are the intended audiences?  These might include:
> 
>   -  people interested in becoming GCC developers (is this Professor
>      Ida's intended audience?)

Yes.

>    -  experienced GCC developers

Of cause.

>    -  GCC users who want a forum for discussing changes they'd like to
>      see in future versions of GCC

And, I feel the importance of getting attention of the users
on various platforms to unite.
I should say many of the users are quietly using the whole tools
to carry out their jobs. There was no way to bridge such users
and developers as far as I can observe.
This is the core idea of myself. 

> What are the goals of the conference?  These might include:
> 
>    -  basic information about GCC's structure and how to begin making
>       changes to it (is this Professor Ida's goal?)

Yes for new people.

>    -  allowing GCC developers to meet each other in person
>    -  in-depth information about GCC internals for people who have had
>       some experience contributing to GCC
>    -  in-depth information about work going on in branches

Yes for experienced people.

>    -  discussions about future directions for GCC

Yes for all.

> These goals might be served by different formats, including:
> 
>   -  formal tutorials; this is a good opportunity for those who have
>      done training on GCC internals, or who want to do that, to try out
>      their material

I think two or three tutorial courses might be good.
One for basic course to use, another for inviting people to the 
technology in-depth, and the other for advanced level.
May be you have better view.

>    -  formal presentations of papers

Yes. This is entirely for GCC developers as far as I can say.
No success stories in the applications are subject for technical papers.

>    -  invited talks by GCC users (e.g., from the embedded community or
>       other groups with specific needs)

I started already to gather the names for the candidates in Japan.
We had better to have several talks from several regions and
several different application fields to stimulate 
the entire GCC community to think about the real issues on the fields.

>    -  discussions of the GCC internals documentation, led by volunteers
>      who are not necessarily experts on the areas they cover, and
>       attended by some people who are experts and can answer questions;
>       a side benefit of this approach is an in-depth review and update
>       of the existing documentation

This is also important.

>   -  informal presentations of work in progress

This might be difficult to organize, I think.
Rather, if "the work in progress" has academic value and
is allowed to be a candidate for technical sessions,
it is fine to have such presentation.
For "informal presentaions' of various matters,
there are several ways to have them. Such as BOF...

>   -  hackathon; at USENIX I heard about a recent OpenBSD hackathon
>      consisting of between 20 and 40 developers hanging out together
>      for several days; this requires a good electrical system!
>
>   -  informal discussions during breaks (the most valuable part of any
>       conference or workshop)

We may ask all the participants to write one sentence
on why joining the conference. And the participants can 
utilize the info to find a must-talk person.
Unless there is a key/trigger, it is difficult to find a person 
to talk, especially for people from abroad and from different
fields.

> Any number of these formats could be done at a conference or workshop
> devoted only to GCC or at a separate track at a related conference.
>
> Requirements for the venue depend on who might want to attend and the
> expected number of participants.  One thing to keep in mind is that many
> GCC developers are volunteers who will need to pay their own way, so
> keeping costs down might be quite important.  Perhaps we could find a
> univerity that would let us use some space and even inexpensive housing,
> close to a nice hotel for those who can afford that.

You are right. And that is exactly I am hoping.
If we can find an university to get rooms or halls to use,
and if we can get housing from the university, it is a best.

San Francisco / Silicon Valley area might be a candidate
as an intersection from east coast, europe and asia.
There are several universities there.
Janis, do you have a sketch for the above in your mind?

> All of my lists are incomplete, and I'd like to see them expanded before
> any decisions are made that will shut out some of the possibilities.
> 
> Janis Johnson
> IBM Linux Technology Center
> Beaverton, Oregon  USA
> address@hidden



Masa Ida