At 3:16 PM -0500 3/24/2000, John Duncan wrote:
>Wow, this has really, truly gotten out of hand.  You know, everyone can have
>the most conveniently located Squeak meeting, provided only one person is
>expected to attend.  What I was hoping for was to aggregate, in a reasonably
>geographically-centered location, a large portion of the people who thought
>SqueakEnd was a really cool idea but for whom getting out to Santa Barbara
>was just not going to happen.
>
>You know, if there is consensus from the GATech people, for example, to
>drive up to Boston to have SqueakEast there, as well as our guy in Michigan,
>and the people in Florida, hey, great, let's have it there.  I just figured
>that Pittsburgh is a great place to do it for a few reasons:
>
>1. Relatively central location from Midwest, Canada, Northeast, southeast.
>2. I can get my hands on some university space
>3. Hotels are much cheaper than NY or Boston
>
>But, I'm sure you'll find that on the east coast we're not quite as densely
>packed into one area as they are out west.  We have no Silicon Valley,
>rather there is Boston, NYC, the Research Triangle, Atlanta, etc.  All of
>these places are significant in the high-tech industries.
>
>I just think that if this whole thing fragments into SqNY, BaySqueak, Squeak
>Triangle, Peach Squeak, etc., then the people who go to each individual
>place are people who could have simply called each other up and asked if
>they wanted to hang out at a coffee shop with their laptops.
>
>I've been in discussion with the people at Stage3, and Jeff Pierce said he'd
>be interested in dropping by to work with interested people on Squeak Alice.
>Of course, if the whole thing fragments, it'll be just Jeff and me, i.e.,
>not worth it because i'm not as sophisticated as other people who could show
>up.

The point here is this: the location shouldn't be determined by fiat. 
Let's just collect the names of interested folks, determine their 
geographic location, and plan on meeting somewhere near the center of 
gravity.  PA may be appropriate, and it may not be.  (By the way, 
centers of technical gravity do not necessarily equate to centers of 
Squeak gravity.)

My thinking was that the GATech folk are mostly students, for whom 
flights to the Northeast might be a greater burden than for we 
oldun's.  My suggestion of Orlando was mostly that it would be fun to 
be at or near Disney World, but I would defer, quite frankly, to the 
location that would generate the greatest interest and attendance, 
WHEREVER it was.