Re: [Debconf-team] DebConf travel sponsorship (was: Re: Budget status - travel sponsorship)

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 05:04:18PM -0400, Richard Darst wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 05:45:53PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 03:35:20AM -0400, Richard Darst wrote:
> > > [debconf-surplus] For readers of -project, here's what this means:
> > > Sponsors slowly pledge money over the spring, and we usually are in a
> > > panic about "oh no, we have no money to afford anything".  But as time
> > > goes on, things get together.  We get a few more sponsors.  We find
> > > local supporters who will sponsor things locally, or negotiate better
> > > discounts, or find cheaper venues.  A major source of extra money is
> > > when many people don't reconfirm, or don't show up, saving us a lot on
> > > accommodation costs.
> > 
> > It's probably not unreasonable to wonder why many people do not
> > reconfirm. Is it because they don't know yet whether they'll be
> > sponsored? If that's the case, then you're now basically saying "most of
> > the money we'll be using to ensure no sponsored attendee will cancel is
> > coming from the sponsored attendees who cancel"; that logic is somewhat
> > flawed.
> 
> Well...
> 
> Food+accom sponsorship is decided early, I think around the
> beginning of June this year.  It is generally pretty easy to get -
> unless you are not related to free software, you'll get it.  There is
> really no significant uncertainty about this.
> 
> Travel sponsorship is harder to get, and that is what was very
> last-minute this year.  But the team is aware of that, and keeps track
> of who hasn't reconfirmed and is waiting for it, who might be able to
> reconfirm if they got it.
> 
> However, the thing about getting lots of extra money from people who
> don't reconfirm is from accom-sponsored-people.

Right, that explains it. In that case, please just forget what I said :-)

-- 
The volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z can be described by
the following formula:

pi zz a