Re: [Debconf-team] [Debconf-discuss] Information about accommodation at le camp (photos and plans) ·
On 01/12/12 01:22, Moray Allan wrote:
> On 2012-11-30 22:25, Moray Allan wrote:
>> Personally I find this a strong negative
>
> I have been asked on IRC to clarify my position/thinking:
>
> Personally I think Le Camp is a bad choice of venue. I am influenced in
> that by how unattractive it is to me personally in the context of a
> technical conference to stay in an "indoor camping" setup, and the lack
> of any alternative accommodation for a non-driver who wants to be around
> late in the evenings. However, I already thought this at the time of
> the venue decision meeting for DebConf13, and yet Le Camp won when votes
> were cast by the DebConf Committee after a lack of consensus from the
> preceding discussion. Because I had pushed the creation of the venue
> decision process including that vote, even if I have also felt it
> appropriate to voice my own concerns again as part of discussion when
> the topics have come up, I feel a duty to respect the decision of that
> meeting.
I too feel a duty to respect things that were discussed before I was
even involved in this process. That is why I've focused on things like
the budget rather than the venue itself.
One of the main goals of the Interlaken proposal was to demonstrate that
a more flexible and less risky budget is feasible in Switzerland.
Things like mountains and direct TGV service are not core to the
argument (although many people appreciate those benefits when spending a
lot of money to come to Switzerland). It is the budget flexibility that
I have been aiming for.
> In the last few months I raised additional concerns about money, when
> the full costs of Le Camp became apparent (or rather, when the costs
> didn't reduce with negotiation as it been suggested that they would, and
> when fundraising started later than planned). However, the financial
> risk is mitigated if we will now only commit to an 8-day rather than
> 15-day DebConf period. The costs are still extremely high, but as the
> locals have pointed out, that would mostly be true anywhere Switzerland.
This is quite an interesting point
For many months, we were told that cutting the length was absolutely
impossible
We also heard stories about legal action and anonymous sponsors,
virtually every story you can imagine was tried to get an unsuitable and
very risky contract approved
I had a lot more respect for the principled arguments about the fact
that Vaumarcus was endorsed in March than for these later tactics
Yet when Philipp took over negotiations, things started moving much more
quickly and 7 days were cut off the proposed contract, the budget became
less risky to Debian.
Had I not proposed an option with a more flexible budget (Interlaken),
maybe the negotiations wouldn't have changed at all
Furthermore, considering that this part of the contract was not really
impossible to change, maybe it is not impossible to insist on other
changes that people scoffed at? E.g. we could pay EUR for part of the
contract (based on professional fees and sponsorship collected in the
eurozone)?
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