Re: [Debconf-team] [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 06:44:50PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> 1. Is it true that there was a proposal that anyone should make an
> anonymous donation or loan to Debconf 13 ?
yes
> If so:
>
> 2. Exactly what was proposed, and when was it proposed ?
During the le camp visit/BSP, it was presented to the team as "we have
already gotten a lot of sponsorship".
In debconf-team IRC, it was stated as "sponsorship", a few lines in
debconf-sponsors (private) made me wonder if it really was sponsorship
and could really be counted as part of our income. See below for what
happened next.
The debconf-sponsors IRC bit was something like "2 x 20 kCHF, which we
can use only if we go to le camp, to be paid back after we have
fundraised enough, but before we paid any travel sponsorship."
> 3. Were any conditions attached ? If so what were the conditions ?
The condition was that we had to go to le camp. Conversely, for a few
days, this was used as part of the reason to go to le camp and avoid
considering anything else.
The story of le camp is long and varied. Around that time, the
biggest concern was the budget. Instead of just trying to find faults
in le camp, we were trying to make it work somehow. This money was
used as part of a justification to shut down consideration of other
venues (and thus, the benefits of le camp), or any other consideration
of the budget. (It took weeks more of arguing to switch to a plan of
signing for only one week now, and then adding another week after
money was raised.) So, formally, this money hasn't had any effect on
any decisions or the venue selection. But people continue to be
unhappy because a lot of different factors have made it so that the
venue wasn't externally examined on its merits relative to other
options.
> 4. How far did the discussions progress (so far) ?
> Has the proposal now been abandoned and if so, when ?
As there were no public discussions, I don't know.
I asked hug about this money, expressing concerns that they thought
they were making a loan, but there was a high chance that we would end
up keeping the money, leading to feelings of misrepresentation. hug
contacted these donors, explained the risk of us spending more money
than we had, and within a few days of this BSP, hug sent an email
saying this was no longer to be considered. I never knew of a
decision where the debconf-team actually decided to decline this.
So, as I understand it, the offer wasn't rejected, it was retracted by
the people who offered it.
> 5. Were the proposed donors individuals (if so how many?),
> a company, a government, or an NGO ?
I don't know.
> 6. Were the proposed donors in positions of authority or governance in
> relation to Debconf ? Examples of people in positions of authority
> or governance in relation to Debconf include the DPL, the DPL
> helpers tasked with Debconf-related tasks, people involved with
> Debconf accounting on behalf of SPI or FFIS, and of course members
> of the Debconf global or local teams.
I don't know.
> 7. Who initiated the proposal ? Was it
> (a) the prospective donor; or
> (b) a member of the DC global team; or
> (c) a member of the DC13 local team; or
> (d) some third party ?
> If (b) or (c), which individual member(s) of the team ?
I don't know, but probably people at the le camp BSP were initiators.
At the least, that is where it was arranged.
> 8. Was the existence of this proposal made formally known to the full
> DC team (eg on the internal private mailing list) ?
The conditions were certainly never made clear, and were misunderstood
or misrepresented by a lot of people. To the public team, it was just
presented as "we have lots of sponsorship already". It was only one
line hidden in private IRC that implied it was more complicated than
that. It was retracted before it existed long enough to be
peer-reviewed, which I think is a acceptable outcome. In terms of
sponsorship, there isn't anything to worry about. The effect on the
decision is debatable.
- Richard
--
| Richard Darst - rkd@ - pyke: up 33 days, 16:59
| http://rkd.zgib.net - pgp 0xBD356740
| "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free"
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