JavaOne 2005

Well the CFP for JavaOne 2005 is out. A quick perusal over what they want this year shows that maybe they've started to listen to the attendees. I've been going to JavaOne for quite a few years and have presented at a couple. However, over the years I've noticed the attendance level drop and my own opinion is that there are a few reasons for this:

(i) at the start, it was almost impossible to get a presentation accepted unless you were a Sun employee or at least that's how it seemed. I remember looking through the agendas for early JavaOne's and playing "spot the non-Sun employee" - it was hard.

(ii) following on from (i), I think it became hard for people to get information that was truly for the community and from the community. OK, Sun brought us Java, but as a percentage of the people who actually use and develop the technology, are they really that influential? So, the early JavaOne's were hype-shows, with not a lot of content. I remember one friend commenting to me after one early show "This conference intentionally left blank." and he was pretty much on the mark. I suspect this kind of comment wasn't unique and had knock-on effects.

(iii) JavaOne became a "show" and not a conference/workshop. Even the BOFs started to suffer. Unfortunately the marketing still pushed "conference". Now when I attend a conference I have certain expectations for the types of presentation and their technical detail. Definitely a different expectation for a "show".

So it looks like Sun have finally started to listen to the people who attend these conferences and turn the tide away from a "show". Let's hope it works because JavaOne should be the place to go if you're into Java.