Spurned O'Reilly 'Foo' Camp Attendees Create 'Bar'

theodp writes "CNET reports on this weekend's Bar Camp, an open-source alternative to O'Reilly Media's A-List Foo Camp, which CEO Tim O'Reilly explains employs a "Bozo filter" to exclude undesirable attendees.

Alternatives

[gbulmash]

Why does this article make me think of the old saying: "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member"?

Then again, alternative events (not "alternative" in the sense of the label given to certain rock bands, but actually created as an alternative to a more exclusive event) sometimes do develop into something worthwhile. First one that comes to mind is the Sundance Film Festival alternative, Slamdance.

- Greg

Good for everyone, surely?

[Paul Crowley]

It's OK for Tim O'Reilly to invite who he likes, and it's a very difficult thing to do. Far from creating a rival camp being a bitter and evil thing to do, it's an extremely constructive and positive response, and it could mean that there are two creative geek hothouse conferences where before there was one. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

Its not a rival...

[MosesJones]

This is open source... its just a branch from the original idea, re-packaged by someone new for the problem that they want to solve.

Sure forks in the code/idea base aren't always good but I'm sure if Bar gets some good ideas that they will be incorporated back into the Foo release.

Re:Mr. T

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they say a foo and his money are soon parted.

What's the big deal about the bozo filter?

[Lijemo]

From TFA:

So how do we decide who to invite? ...
Then we put together a list of a thousand odd names that we have to winnow down as best we can...
Sixth cut: the bozo filter. Someone who has been at a previous FOO camp, and whom we had complaints about for some reason or another, or who has built that kind of reputation on the net. Unfortunately, you probably don't know who you are, but other people do.

Tim: Dude, no. Last time I invited you to a party, you broke into my parent's liquor cabinent, through half their furnature into the fireplace, had sex with the dog, and I was grounded for a month. You are most definitely not invited.

Bozo:ELITIST!!!

As it says in the article, this is an event that only works well if it is below a certain size, and where there are many more deserving poetential invities than there are spots for them. There IS NO PERFECT WAY to filter down a group like that. This is not high-school, where everyone but you got invited to the cool party, so now you're not talkint to your best friend anymore.

Also notice that this is "sixth cut"-- where they've already made five passes at trying to cut the guest list down to a managable size, but still need to cut it down further.

Creating the "Bar" camp is a cool idea. Bitching about not getting into the "Foo" camp is just childish.

Re:Alternatives

[laurensv]

Salon des Refusés [wikipedia.org], anyone?

Sheesh...

[Error27]

I don't really understand what the big deal is.

There are basically two types of people in the world, people who do stuff (coders) and people who talk about stuff (writers). And then somewhere below that there are people who make money off of writers (publishers).

I don't have anything against publishers per se but who really cares? I mean _really_ cares?

Re:Alternatives

[Johnboi Waltune]

Well, it makes me think of an incestuous and pretentious exercise in intellectual circle-jerkery.

I don't think you're wrong, though.

Re:It's FUBAR, not foobar

[jericho4.0]

From RFC 3092 [faqs.org], 'Etymology of "Foo"'

"Approximately 212 RFCs, or about 7% of RFCs issued so far, starting with [RFC269], contain the terms `foo', `bar', or `foobar' used as a metasyntactic variable..."

Re:Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the no Homer"s" club. One's OK!