I've organized two WordCamps and was part of one in 2010 (pre Foundation involvement). The Foundation does a lot for the organizers to try and make the experience of running a camp as smooth as possible. They don't really have a lot of hard rules in place but there are many "recommendations."

I've moved from Minnesota where I organized the event and I'm now organizing a conference called http://PrestigeConf.com which is outside of the WordCamp model. We are doing things a little differently than a WordCamp would do them and speaker travel is one of the things we strayed with. We're organizing a single track event based around business and wanted to have the best speakers we know at the event. We feel that paying for their travel was a great way to help facilitate getting those speakers.

There is room for many types of conferences built around a platform that powers 22% of the Internet. The Foundation took the reigns of the WordCamp brand and has brought with it some guidelines. There is room to have different types of conferences based around WordPress and still not impose on what WordCamps are or will be in the future.

I'll continue to support WordCamps but I also want to see these other conferences flourish. Competition is good for any ecosystem and I believe quality will always rise to the top. People get really worked up about a conference that isn't called WordCamp. Remember it is an Open Source community, to get upset about a competing model to WordCamp sort of flies in the face of how we all make our livings. To run a conference is really no different than starting a theme shop from a philosophical perspective. Non WordCamps can still be strong in community building. I'd argue in some ways it can be even stronger...