I received an email the other day from someone at MySQL AB. They are offering free Phorum booth space in the .org Pavilion at the 2007 MySQL Conference. The .org Pavilion is for Open Source projects that are somehow related to MySQL. Not only does Phorum use MySQL as its primary database (our PostgreSQL layer stays 99% done it seems) but MySQL.com also uses it for their support forums.

So, we had a problem. The Phorum team is not by any means wealthy. We all have jobs and work on Phorum in our spare time. So, getting everyone there is going to be problem number one. There are 3 primary team members. I am in the US. Thomas Seifert is in Germany and Maurcie Makaay is in the Netherlands. We decided to turn to our users for help.

I made a post in our forums discussing the situation. Our users have responded well. At this point, we have enough to cover one plane ticket. I should also mention that my company, dealnews.com, has agreed to pick up my travel. That is a big help there.

So, since I am not beyond begging and I am not begging for myself but for others, I ask that if you have ever used Phorum or just want to see a team of open source developers get together, in person, for the first time ever, please feel free to drop us a couple of bucks. =)

The scary part is that once we are all coming (for sure at least two are now) we have to come up with a booth. Anyone have any advice for how to run a booth, on a budget, and have it not suck?