Catching up geonews, I learned the sad news that earlier this week the FOSS4G conference in Beijing has been canceled. To learn more, see this reply from Jeff McKenna, former member of the OSGeo Board of Directors.
From the announcement: "With great regret, the FOSS4G Beijing Local Organizing Committee (LOC) has made the difficult decision of cancelling the event due to a lack of financial resources and the unexpected withdrawal of the Professional Conference Organizer. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. For those interested in FOSS4G events, the LOC suggests consider:
- FOSS4G, to be held in Nottingham, United Kingdom
- The Asian Geospatial Forum, September, Hanoi, Vietnam, which will have an OSGeo session:"
Slashgeo participated to several FOSS4G conferences in the past, including FOSS4G-NA (North America) a few months ago. There are plenty of other regional geospatial open source events to take place before we head to FOSS4G in Nottingham, United Kingdom, September 17-21.
Thanks to a current member of the OSGeo Board of Directors, I updated the summary to reflect the fact that Jeff isn't on the BoD since last February (I got mislead by an OSGeo wiki page…). Minor error fixed!
I've also been told that the OSGeo will soon provide an official reaction to the sad news.
That's really sad news. Events in Beijing have the ability catch a wide audience with its geographically important location. So this one could have shown a very beneficial contribution to the scene. Better luck next time! Luckily there are other events in Beijing worth a look.