Re: [Debconf-team] Information gathered for travel sponsorship
On 03/09/12 at 15:33 +0200, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> On 03/09/12 08:33, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
>
> > I think that the sponsorship committee should:
> > 1) verify that the funding asked for is adequate (given the expected
> > travel costs from the originating country)
> > 2) rank demands based on *benefit of attendance for Debian*.
> > If you quantify, for each applicant, the added value of the
> > attendance for Debian (not in $ or €, but in a "virtual currency"),
> > it becomes a simple problem (maximize benefit for Debian) with a
> > simple solution: order applicants using the "benefit/cost" ratio,
> > sponsor as many as possible => maximize the total added value of
> > Debconf for Debian.
>
> How do you quantify `benefit' though? To give an example:
>
> a) do you want the immediate benefit of someone fixing 100 bugs while at
> DebConf?
>
> b) or do you want the long term benefit of making the community grow, by
> bringing in new members, for example?
>
> These are two different types of `benefit', and they would not sponsor
> the same set of people
Both have clear benefits for Debian, and I would hope that both kind of
applicants get sponsored. Regarding new members, that's the kind of
applicants where recommendations make a lot of sense (so people can
write: "X might not be very visible in Debian yet, but s/he has been
doing a great work in the Y team, and his/her contributions have been
steadily increasing in terms of quality. S/he is clearly identified as a
future core person for the Y team, and I would love to use Debconf to
work more directly with him/her.")
But in the end, it's up to the committee to balance both kinds of
benefits. There's a subjective part, and that's why we have such a
committee.
> a) should sponsorship be ruthlessly linked to objectives? E.g.
> objectives for the next release:
> http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/
Note that that's only a subset of the objectives for the next release,
because many objectives do not require a release goal.
> b) or a socialist approach, things like supporting people with a
> disability, single parents, etc?
>
> c) or a focus on young people/students, perhaps?
>
> This last option stands out most for me, whether it is 100% sponsorship
> or just 33% discount, the intention is to stimulate a future generation
> rather than to pay for results now.
You are making the assumption that the future generation of Debian
contributors is to be found amongst young people and students. This is
not necessarily true, and I can think of several recent
counter-examples.
I have the impression that it's much easier for the committee to judge
applicants based on their work plans' merits and benefits for Debian,
rather than judge on social/human aspects. But I'm not part of that
committee ;)
Lucas
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