On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 04:35:21PM -0400, Richard Darst wrote:
> On a personal note, since the bosnian government is giving us so much
> money, we should be liberal in funding bosnians to come
FWIW, I think you should be liberal in funding bosnians to come *if* you
think that doing so would further DebConf goals, not just because the
government has given us a specific amount of money, no matter how large.
After all those money have been given to have a great conference and are
not earmarked for a more specific use than "having a great DebConf",
AFAIK.
> (within what is reasonable for keeping future DebConfs financially
> sound). This could probably should mean food, it could also mean
> hotels. I'm not proposing a specific plan, just expressing a general
> sentiment that we shouldn't just try to maximize surplus for future
> years.
Absolutely yes! ... although I'm compelled to emphasize your parenthesis
"what is reasonable for keeping future DebConfs financially sound" :-)
I've mentioned before the goal that DebConfs should be amortized zero
cost events over different editions. That goal, if accepted by the
DebConf global team, entails that if one DebConf edition gets
particularly expensive and erodes surplus (hello DebConf10), then
previous and subsequent editions should strive to build some surplus
again.
It's natural that each year the local team will have a short-term
perspective of one DebConf edition and that it will push to invest as
much money as possible, in the belief that "more money -> better
conference". But at the same time I do expect the global team to have a
longer term perspective of several DebConf editions and to ensure they
are *all* sustainable financially.
There is clearly a tension among the two goals, let's make it an healthy
one starting from day 1 to understand each other perspectives!
Just my 0.02€,
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, | . |. I've fans everywhere
ti resta John Fante -- V. Capossela .......| ..: |.......... -- C. Adams
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