[Debconf-team] Sponsorship wording and requirements (was: Re: Special sponsorship)
(Changed the subject to reflect the current topic.)
Hi Lucas,
On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 09:54:27AM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> I think that one of the problems is that people have different
> understandings of "travel assistance needed". What does "needed" mean?
> One could use a loan to pay the debconf trip, so even in this case, the
> travel assistance is not really "needed".
>
> For those of us who pay their debconf attendance using their personal
> money, attending debconf and paying themselves probably mean that they
> will spend less expensive vacations after debconf, not buy a new laptop
> or a new car, rent a smaller appartment, etc, etc. In fact, by paying
> themselves, they are (virtually) donating money to Debian, that is used
> to pay the trip for someone else. Except it's not really recognized as
> such.
>
> IMHO, the real question is: "how much would the project need to pay to
> have you at debconf?"
Thanks for trying to improve the wording further. Coming up with optimal
wording is very hard. I think your suggestion above can also be misinterpreted,
but keep trying - the more people do, the better next year's wording will be.
Your perspective as someone who speaks English well but not natively is a
useful one that I can't provide.
> Also, I'm surprised that there's no rule about what Debian will
> reimburse. We should probably have a set of rules on what is acceptable,
> such as "for flights, Debian will not reimburse more than 110% of the
> cheapest flight (in economy class) found for your trip on that date."
This would really be quite hard for volunteers to apply. However, the
reasonableness of the travel costs for a given set of circumstances is factored
in already. For example, there was someone traveling from central europe to
DebConf11 whose rating was hurt by asking for 800-1000 EUR (I'm being vague
since I don't remember the specifics). For someone coming to Bosnia from
Brazil, for example, that request is a lot more reasonable.
> Has it been considered to use a travel agency to book debconf flights?
> Canonical is doing that for UDS, and it's working quite well.
I think DebConf attendees would bristle at such a restriction if we were to
mandate it. However, one of the multi-airline alliance-based discount options
that I promised to explore for DebConf12+ would require those attendees who
wish to use it to book via a travel agency we select, and some other programs
might have people book through the airlines or the alliance directly.
I'd certainly be curious to hear more about the logistics of how Canonical does
that for UDS. Is Canonical's travel agency also used for attendees who are not
asking Canonical to pay for their travel? How does the process work for whoever
uses the designated agency, and what benefits come from that arrangement?
See you soon,
- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@debian.org
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