On 2012-10-25 00:55, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
Just FWIW (and not as a explicit vote, just as an opinion): We have the tradition to have a two week long DebConf+DebCamp. I would preferhaving a shorter period (say, 3 days of DebCamp and 4 days of DebConf,no DebianDay nor daytrip) if we need to cut on expenses. Of course, I am talking without knowing the resulting savings this would achieve (predictably, half the time does not directly translate into 50% of the cost) than the two alternatives you suggest.
Already in the past couple of years I was worried at the proportion of money we spend on DebCamp, which can seem out of proportion to the additional benefit to Debian. (I am also been worried about the increasing proportion of people whose DebCamp work plan is to help organise DebConf. Even without a DebCamp, we would need some people there a couple of days early to arrange things, but not everyone there a week early.)
The current form of DebCamp is also less relevant due to the increasing number of sprints etc. Our best intention with DebCamp has still been to encourage group work on projects, which is what can justify paying for the facilities for those days (rather than just telling people to find somewhere quiet to hack at home/in a library/etc.), but groups who want such meetings have increasingly arranged separately to hold them at other times of year.
Therefore, quite apart from this year's budget questions, I would be happy with a plan to shorten the overall DebConf+DebCamp period. Despite my concerns above, our sponsors do want to know that hacking happens during DebConf(+DebCamp), and I would tentatively suggest that recently we didn't really have enough strong talks to justify a week long talks period, so I agree that even with a week-long DebConf(+DebCamp) allowing for some "no official events" hacking period would make sense.
-- Moray