Re: [Debconf-team] Regarding DebConf13 planned location
On Tue, 2012-11-27 at 12:39 +0100, Holger Levsen wrote:
> 4.) Le Camp has luxury options (if you manage to share a car)
>
> Plenty of hotels are in 20km range of Le Camp, which amounts to 30min driving
> at most. Considering most people (who dont work at home) have a longer daily
> communte to work, I believe it's feasable for those who like a private room to
> take their share of effort and do car sharing with some likely minded
> people.
In the (Swiss) company where I do a lot of work at present, a recent
conversation showed that out of the (approximately 10) core people, most
do not even have a driving licence. That may be unusual for the general
population, but I don't think it's so unusual among technical people.
(In Scotland overall, where I can find statistics easily, around a third
of households have no access to a car, and far more among people who
live in cities -- in Glasgow it seems to be about 60% of households that
don't have access to a car.)
As a non-driver I am uncomfortable with the idea of relying on another
attendee for taxi service morning and evening for up to two weeks. The
40 minute bus ride to Yverdon would avoid that issue, but with walking
time at each end that seems to mean an hour's commute twice a day, and
missing the late-night discussions/hacking that are part of the point of
having the conference in the first place.
I stayed a relatively long way from the venue/hacklab in Oslo, but there
when I missed the last tram it was still possible to walk back to my
hostel.
> > - We're close together. Searching for somebody? He's only 5 minutes away!
That seems contradictory with the idea of some people staying half an
hour away by car. It's quite likely that those people end up only
attending for "core hours", and they will be unobtainable outside those.
> IMO we have decided on Le Camp in announced DebConf team meetings three times
> already, thus I'm reluctant to decide again, esp. as I cannot really see much
> / any new input, just a loud minority.
I am unhappy that new concerns are being raised at this stage.
However, unfortunately I *did* see new information from these latest
discussions.
For example, I had no idea before that the majority of beds at Le Camp
are the sleeping bag type.
And I had simply assumed that there was a bathroom per one or two
(larger) rooms, whereas I am now told that there are a few shared
toilets and showers per building, and many showers only have a curtain
for privacy during the shower itself, and no private changing area.
And it was only drawn to my attention yesterday that the current budget
does not include paying anyone to clean these limited numbers of
toilets/showers at all during the period of DebConf/DebCamp, though it
is hoped that some attendees might volunteer, or somehow be forced as a
condition of coming.
You refer to standards above this as "luxury", but it's really
irrelevant whether or not these things are luxury in a global sense.
The DebConf-provided accommodation of course needs to stay within our
means, but this is the *first* DebConf plan where I don't see a good
solution for the attendees who want something better.
> Maybe this is more important than having a good DebConf. Maybe we need a bad
> DebConf to learn.
I agree that outcome may happen, but unfortunately in my mind the worry
about a "bad DebConf" is the poor accommodation, lack of checklist-
demanded things nearby, etc., and also this: making a decision now will
not shut down the demoralising questions/circular discussion, we will
still have a constant flow of potential attendees coming to ask the same
questions in surprise until August next year.
--
Moray
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