Re: [Debconf-team] Information gathered for travel sponsorship
On 03/09/12 08:33, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> I think that the sponsorship committee should:
> 1) verify that the funding asked for is adequate (given the expected
> travel costs from the originating country)
> 2) rank demands based on *benefit of attendance for Debian*.
> If you quantify, for each applicant, the added value of the
> attendance for Debian (not in $ or €, but in a "virtual currency"),
> it becomes a simple problem (maximize benefit for Debian) with a
> simple solution: order applicants using the "benefit/cost" ratio,
> sponsor as many as possible => maximize the total added value of
> Debconf for Debian.
How do you quantify `benefit' though? To give an example:
a) do you want the immediate benefit of someone fixing 100 bugs while at
DebConf?
b) or do you want the long term benefit of making the community grow, by
bringing in new members, for example?
These are two different types of `benefit', and they would not sponsor
the same set of people
> I don't think that the "economical effort" should be part of the
> ranking. First, it's very hard to quantify, because you need to consider
> at least: income, general cost of living, family & other recurring
> expenses, does attending debconf result in a loss of income (case if
> working freelance), in a loss of vacations (if attending debconf during
> vacations), or is the applicant attending debconf as part of your work,
> etc.
Actually, that is an interesting point
If somebody's employer gives them a week of work time to attend DebConf,
should that company be recognised as a sponsor?
If somebody is a freelancer, should they be able to promote their own
business alongside the sponsors?
> I also don't think that the "current/past contributions to Debian"
> should be ranked. Of course, they should be part of the form, to provide
> context for the "project" of the requester and make sure it is realistic
> (references are a good idea and help with that, too). But if you rank
> past contributions and use that to award sponsorship, you turn Debconf
> in a "thank you for your past work!" event. Someone who does fantastic
> work in Debian, but plan to attend Debconf as a base camp for visiting
> Switzerland, should not be sponsored.
This raises more options:
a) should sponsorship be ruthlessly linked to objectives? E.g.
objectives for the next release:
http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/
b) or a socialist approach, things like supporting people with a
disability, single parents, etc?
c) or a focus on young people/students, perhaps?
This last option stands out most for me, whether it is 100% sponsorship
or just 33% discount, the intention is to stimulate a future generation
rather than to pay for results now.
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