[Debconf-team] DebConf discussion: Purpose of DebConf
(See my other message on 'DebConf process discussions' for the
background to this one.)
What is DebConf for? Of course many of us think it's great, but what
are the highest priority elements to preserve, for example if we were
tight on money and had to consider costs/benefits more closely? This
posting is meant to be an invitation to discussion, but I'll post a
few initial thoughts of my own below for people to disagree with. :)
Talks and their video
Probably the most 'efficient' part of DebConf in terms of cost/benefit
is the video team work to provide streams and recordings of talks.
The recordings can be used as long as the talk subjects remain
relevant, by Debian contributors and others anywhere in the world,
without in principle requiring any additional costs for transporting
around non-speaker attendees.
Face-to-face interactions
However, humans are social, and many Debian contributors find
communication much easier face-to-face than online. Some of the
informal interactions at DebConf can actually be more important than
the scheduled conference events. I've certainly heard many stories
where face-to-face interactions at DebConf were a big help to
subsequent working relationships in Debian, and where they pushed
forwards projects that had been blocked in some way:
'In one hour of intense discussion we agreed what would have taken
weeks of discussions on a mailing list.'
'I thought <whoever> was unbearable from his mailing list posts, until
I met him at DebConf and understood his sense of humour.'
Time to work on Debian
Some attendees find it very valuable that DebConf gives them
uninterrupted time to work on their Debian contributions. This has
been a major purpose of the by-now-traditional DebCamp week. The work
we get from someone during this time is generally of far higher value
than the amount we're spending on their accommodation and food. It's
worth noting though that this purpose is somewhat orthogonal to those
above -- Debian already supports team hacking events outside DebConf
(such as the Extremadura work sessions), and could potentially do more
for individuals too, in events that could be more frequent, and that
could require travelling less far if more local events were
encouraged.
Reward to contributors
Many attendees see coming to DebConf as a nice reward from Debian for
all their hard work. Personally I'm happy if they enjoy DebConf, but
don't think we should view this as an explicit purpose of DebConf -- I
don't think it would be sufficient reason in itself to justify us
paying for someone to come, for example, if they just planned to treat
DebConf as a sightseeing holiday.
What other purposes does DebConf have, or what purposes should it have
that we haven't focused on in the past?
How should we order these purposes as priorities -- what's the most
important aspect of DebConf?
--
Moray
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