also sprach Aigars Mahinovs <aigarius@debian.org> [2014-03-06 09:36 +0100]: > Actually what is being asked is to develop all proposed options by > all teams to such a level that a valid and final decision can be > made between all proposed venue options. You cannot make a valid and final decision at this point anyway, since there are no contracts in place yet. You can only decide for which of the bid teams you'd like to pursue the organisation of DebConf. > > B) The team develops Munich further to the point where it trumps > > Heidelberg, and then choses Munich, because it is the best > > proposal; > > → everyone happy (and DebConf gets even better)! > > This takes the final venue decision from Debconf team to local > team, which has so far happened only in exceptional cases. The local teams are the ones that know the venues, so they *should* make this decision, obviously with guidance from and in cooperation with the committee. > > C) Heidelberg's venue burns down, so the team falls back to > > using Munich; > > → everyone happy, for a lesser DebConf is better than no DebConf. > > Actually - no, not everyone is happy, because a different venue > outside Germany would have then been a better choice. If by that time, the other team is still ready to go, then yes, this could happen. I consider it much more likely that post-bid-decision, one team disintegrates and the other starts working together more. So if the first choice burns down, I think the existing and active team will be much better off at finding a solution than an inactive team would, especially if the active team has worked with a backup plan from the start. > If the chosen option fails after the decision is made, that is an > extraordinary situation that should not influence the decision as > such. Sure, there's no point in considering this unlikely case at this time. However, being prepared and having a backup solution *should* be considered, and it is in fact part of the LocationChecklist (under 10.)… > There is *more* competition before the venue decision, so > negotiations should be made now, not some time later when options > have already become more limited. We may have a differing understanding of what a negotiation entails. When I say negotiation, I am talking about a process of discussing conditions, formalising an agreement and signing it to form a binding contract. You are talking about preliminary assessments. Those are important, and we have done them, as evidenced by the wiki pages. But we feel like there's room for improvement in the pricing. However, no venue is going to offer a lower price if they sense that they've already been chosen. Just remember: lower prices means more travel sponsorship. > IMHO if both Germany bids are still so much in flux that even the > local team can not decide now between them, There is only one German bid, and the primary proposal of the German bid (Heidelberg) has been "out of flux" for months. We're ready to sign. And this leaves us ample time and energy to work on an alternative, Munich, which looks promising, but we're well aware that it's not there yet. > In my eyes the combined German bid would rank lower than either of > them individually. This is because of the worst case scenario > - German team wins the bid, spends a lot of time and effort > developing both bids, mostly the preferred one and then the > preferred bid fails and all that time spent on it is wasted and we > have a weaker location with far less time spent on developing it. I think you are suggesting that if the first option fails, having a second option available on which you have not spent as much time is worse than having no second option available. If you look at past DebConfs, I think you will conclude that it would have been *really* *good* in some cases, had a team already started developing a backup solution — even at low power — before the preferred option fell over. I find it quite demotivating for you to insinuate that we are working on any other agenda than to deliver the best possible DebConf. In fact, if you think that is the case, please don't vote for us. All this "a lot of time and effort developing both bids" has already happened. We were ready for a decision by the time we submitted our bid in December. What followed were almost two months of silence, and we used that to further improve our proposals. We found a solution for networking in Heidelberg and made much progress in Munich. When there was still no decision made on 2014-02-20, we didn't just twiddle our thumbs and wait two weeks, but we kept working on Munich (Heidelberg needing no more work at this time). We were just trying to make good use of the time, while the other teams and the committee were getting ready. On behalf of the team, -- .''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org> : :' : DebConf orga team `. `'` `- DebConf14: Portland, OR, USA: http://debconf14.debconf.org
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