[tlesher]

I came from the same world, Ed, but as an attendee, and it was a culture shock for me as well.

I was used to the "OK, I paid my shekels, now feed my belly and my brain and I'll go home" approach to attending Microsoft conferences. Instead, it's more like "Hi, welcome to PyCon. What cool thing are you going to talk about?" "But... I'm just an ATTENDEE..."

Compared to "industry" conferences, PyCon blurs the lines between attending, speaking, and volunteering. It's just a different way of thinking about a conference, and so it makes sense that the financial model be different as well.