On Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 06:21:56PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Russ Allbery writes ("Re: [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):
> > The part that I'm missing here is what you felt should have been done
> > differently.
>
> This is a reasonable question.
>
> > Let's assume that Debian has no control over the offering of the donation
> > (or loan) in the first place. I think that's a reasonable assumption.
> > What I would then expect is for the team to discuss the offer (since no
> > decision is ever going to be made out of hand), and then reject the offer
> > as being insufficiently transparent and posing other problems with
> > oversight and possible undue influence.
>
> Indeed.
>
> > That seems to be exactly what happened.
>
> No. My reading of Moray's message is that some members of the Debconf
> teams used the existence of the donation as an argument in favour of
> selecting Le Camp as the site.
>
> > I'm not seeing any evidence on this thread (and, indeed, directly
> > contrary assertions from people I think we all have reason to trust) that
> > the withdrawn offer had any material effect on the choice of venue.
>
> Moray writes:
>
> Certainly at the time many people within the DebConf team were
> uncomfortable that this "anonymous donation" was used to argue
> that we didn't need to worry about the high prices at Le Camp, and
> to argue that we should definitely choose Le Camp since this money
> was only available if we went there.
>
> I read Moray's "used to argue" as referring to arguments from people
> within Debian or Debconf. Obviously it would be entirely
> inappropriate for anyone within Debian or Debconf's decisionmaking
> structures to argue that we should make a particular decision because
> an anonymous donor makes it a condition that we do so.
>
> In
> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121029.132401.59bef7b6.en.html
> Holger uses the "46k secured for Le Camp" as an argument in favour of
> Le Camp as a venue. This can surely only refer to conditional
> donations and AIUI this includes the anonymous "donation".
Look, I'm super into this stuff (really), so much so that my day job is
in government transparency. I care a lot about money's role in politics,
and this isn't too different.
Let's stop this thread, this horse is very (VERY) dead.
I feel like I'm reading a really tragic version of ancient aliens, with
all these conjectures and question marks.
Let's set up guidelines on what sort of donations we should accept and
be done with it. Personally, I think anything over 250 USD should never
be anonymous. We can bikeshead that mess later.
Let's lay off and let the team in charge do their job. No rules were
broken this time.
>
> Ian.
>
>
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>
Seriously, </thread>, please.
Cheers,
Paul
--
.''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org>
: :' : Proud Debian Developer
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