Re: [Debconf-team] Information gathered for travel sponsorship
On 05/09/12 09:31, Holger Levsen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Dienstag, 4. September 2012, Daniel Pocock wrote:
>>> no. We only count money (or directly valuable ressources, usually things)
>>> into account for sponsoring.
>>>
>>> (I guesstimate) Half of the orgateam is freelancing, listing them as
>>> sponsors is... pointless or even totally besides the point.
>> Not completely pointless - it encourages more companies to follow the
>> example of sending people on work time.
>>
>> Of course, if every company did that, and no company sends cash, there
>> would be a problem: maybe just give 50% discount on sponsorship
>
> ok, to be clearer: its not just pointless or besides the point, its outright
> harmful. (Starting with this discussion even...)
If someone makes a contribution to Debian or DebConf, why is it harmful
to recognise them?
I'm not suggesting special privileges for anyone - did I ever suggest,
for example, that such sponsors (if that is what they are) could have
their bugs fixed faster?
> To illustrate my point: do you think holgerlevsen.de should have been a gold
> sponsor for debconf12? Given my monetary contributions (I paid 2 flights) plus
> my time involvement (and my rates) I definitly contributed 20k€ value.
> (And there are quite some people like me... working hard and paying to be able
> to do so.)
>
> And I don't think this should qualify as sponsorship at all. It (the money)
> could have been sponsorship if I gave the flight money to the sponsorsteam
> (for them to decide how to spend it) and not have bought tickets for myself.
>
> Having work rewarded as sponsorship creates (at least) two big problems:
>
> - is my work more valuable for DebConf, just because I happen to live in an
> area where the rates are higher? </rhetorical question> (Or taking this
> further: "If you value my work so little, why should I work for you?")
>
> - we need to make those companies who actually give *money* to stand out as
> sponsors. Having 50 other sponsors all contributing foo+bar blurries this
> *heavily* and makes aquiring sponsors even harder.
That is why I suggested there may simply be a sponsorship `discount' for
companies who give benefit-in-kind. 50% was not a recommendation, just
a number to encourage discussion - maybe just a 10% discount would be a
nice `thank you' to such companies. Does that imply we place a value on
the hours each company contributes?
While I understand all of your points, I also think we should look at it
from the other side:
- Company A chooses to hire DDs, let them attend DebConf on work time,
maybe even pay their travel bill
- Company B hires developers to work on Linux, doesn't share any code
with the community, gives the developers no travel allowances unless
they can prove the event is `unavoidable' or `essential' for the business
I've worked for both types of company A and company B. I've also worked
for a company B that was exploring the idea of becoming a company A.
Should it be encouraged? Should we give such companies a `nod', even if
it is just a little one?
On 05/09/12 08:24, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
>
> What we need is not "more professional people for less money", it's "more
> professional money to be able to bring more non-professional people" IMHO.
>
How does that conflict with my own suggestion? I was thinking that
those people who come to DebConf on company time are hopefully able to
get re-imbursed the professional rate and/or their own travel expenses.
At the end of the day, any attempt to offer such a discount should be
backed by some evidence that (a) more people overall and (b) nobody
`misses' a place at DebConf because someone else came with company help
Reply to: