Last week was a busy one! Lots of announcements and conversations about preDevCamp & Palm, between preDevCamp & Palm and within preDevCamp & Palm. It’s time to clear things up and talk about the future:

1. whurley and gio have stepped down from the organization team. I want to extend a personal ‘thank you’ to the both of them. preDevCamp would not exist without them and we wouldn’t be where we are without them. They’ve both expressed their good wishes to the event and interested to see how things pan out
2. With the departure of whurley and gio, Lisa Brewster and Greg Stevenson have joined the main team, to help ensure that preDevCamp goes well. Lisa and Greg bring a great amount of experience and excitement about Camps of varying kinds and we’ve had some great discussions, talking about where preDevCamp will go
3. Finally, we’ve had lengthy discussions about the timing of preDevCamp. A large number of cities have expressed concerns about the short notice for the preDevCamp date. In addition, the proximity of the WWDC event mean that many who intended to preDevCamp are going to miss out.
   To ensure that everybody is as ready as they can be, we’re in agreement that preDevCamp needs to be pushed out a little longer. We’ve taken a look at the conference schedule this summer as well as worked out how much time is needed to arrange a preDevCamp and we’ve selected August 8th as the date. This may feel a while out, but it means there’s plenty of time to get locations sorted out.
   We’ll be providing content on organization and also on the technical aspects of the Pre and WebOS between now and then. We’ll also be retooling the site to make communication easier between preDevCampers.

Palm are being very supportive and we’re working out the best ways for them to provide assistance to the numerous events. I’m confident that we’ll be seeing some material support coming our way soon.

Let me finish by re-iterating:

preDevCamp is on Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Greg Stevenson, organizer of preDevCamp OC wrote an open letter to the whole preDevCamp community. He makes some good points and follows the premise of open and frank communication, which is crucial to the success of a community.

I know it’s been a challenging week and I want to thank you all for your patience. I encourage you to read and to comment on Greg’s letter. It will help us make a successful preDevCamp

I was pleased to read the recent post on the Palm Developer Network blog from Pam Deziel, VP of Developer Marketing at Palm, presenting an optimistic outlook on the relationship between Palm and preDevCamp

I’m very excited at the prospect of support from Palm. I’ve spoken with Pam and we’ve exchanged emails and she’s promised Palm’s full support. I truly welcome this and we’ll be working together to determine what shape this support will take.

It’s been a bumpy week for all concerned, but we’ve turned a corner here. Kudos and gratitude for Palm for engaging with us in this way. Full steam ahead for preDevCamp!

Today’s the day you’ve all been waiting for! Today is the day that we announce preDevCamp! With the release of the Pre on June 6th, we figured we’d give you a week to compose yourselves. Therefore, preDevCamp will be on Saturday June 13th.

Unfortunately, this fantastic piece of news is tainted. We’ve fought an uphill struggle with Palm as they tried to make up their minds as to whether they wanted to support this community or not. Unfortunately, Palm doesn’t quite understand the value of a community like preDevCamp and, having cut back and forth for quite some time, have finally made it clear that they have no interest in actively supporting preDevCamp.

In the end communities are made of individuals, and everyone involved is entitled to their opinion. Rather than bring all of that here, we have all explained our individual views and positions in regard to Plam on our personal blogs:

Giovanni: “Palm doesn’t get it”
Whurley: “Exit Whurley Stage Left”
Dan: “preDevCamp – Palm’s missed opportunity”

Rest assured that the resources needed will be available to the community to ensure that it does not suffer due to Palm’s indifference. Just remember that regardless the various opinions of Palm, you are entitled to your own.

We’re excited to see what you guys come up with. There’s a lot of talent and enthusiasm out there and preDevCamp is still the largest development camp in history.

It’s official! The Palm Pre is being released by Sprint on June 6th. Start saving your pennies and honing your coding skills for some serious WebOS development! There’ll be an announcement from preDevCamp soon.

The preDevCamp team would like to welcome our friends in Abilene. You can join the local organizer at http://abilene.predevcamp.org.

The preDevCamp team would like to welcome Baku as the latest city to join what has become the largest global devCamp in history. You can join the local organizer at http://baku.predevcamp.org.