I've been pondering for a while now about the idea of an annual cruise/conference for free/open software hackers. No concrete plans yet, but I'm wondering how many people would attend, to judge if I should investigate what it would take to make it happen, and get some corporate sponsorship to help with attendance, and speakers. The cost per person should be about the same as staying in a hotel for a week, in any random city, that's not during the tourist season. As an annual event, the cruises could move about the world, much like other events that visit different cities every year. The cruise itself would disembark in the late afternoon, followed by the welcome ceremony, and then a party on the boat. The rest of the cruise would be filled with talks, hacking sessions, activities, and shore leave, with the final day ending with a return to the originating port.

I think to keep people sane, we would probably want to keep the cruise between 6 and 8 days. It would give plenty of time for the conference, as well as enjoying the ship's ammenities, and shore leave at the ports of call. The conference would be a general F/OSS conference, so talks would not be limited to a specific desktop, or open source operating system. Given the size of the ships, we could probably even have multiple sub-conferences going on as well. Having 2000 hackers on a boat might get a bit unwieldy. All in all though, I think the idea has a lot of potential, and I look forward to the possibility of such a conference and cruise.