also sprach Lucas Nussbaum <leader@debian.org> [2015-03-12 16:14 +0100]:
> My main interest is to ensure that DC15 is the most successful for
> the Debian project.
Noted, and agreed. But this is not the main interest of everyone
involved, and it's also not my only interest. Especially the people
who've been working 24 months towards "their" conference do not want
to feel like their only purpose is to organise a venue and then get
out of the way, as the global teams take over and roll out their own
DebConf into the space provided. Much rather, conference orga also
involves dreams and ideas and for some of us, that is part of why we
got involved. I won't go off on a tangent of how I think this should
translate to DebConf orga, you're all aware of my point of view on
this.
And so while travel and room&board sponsorship is important and
receives almost half of the budget (!),¹ the truly optional, social
fun stuff in the current budget make up a low one-digit percentage.
I scratch my head about why there's even a debate.
> Before we commit to expenses that I see as optional from the point
> of view of the "success for the Debian project" metric, I would
> like to make sure that the sponsorship budget is covered.
What's "the sponsorship budget"? What needs to be covered? Are we
talking about a budget of e.g. 50k and need to ensure we have this
money? Or are we talking about a percentage of people we should
fund?
My offer to you was: we'll aim for a 45k budget including a 15k
Debian commitment, and if that is not enough to bring as many people
as possible to DebConf, then Debian can commit more funds. We would
have an approved budget, and when bursaries come in, you can work
towards
Given the conservative nature of my budget, after the conference,
Debian will probably have *more* money (again) than you committed.
> We have already seen in this discussion that the 30k€ planned for
> travel sponsorship is quite low compared to previous years.
No it's not. As Philipp said, DC13 had claims of 9k CHF and DC14 had
claims amounting to 34k USD, so if anything, 30k € is upper limit
compared to the last two years.
> I also have a question about the number of people sponsored for
> food+accomodation. In the 35% scenario, how does it compare to
> previous years? (both in terms of absolute number of attendees,
> and in terms of cost for self-paying attendees)
When I designed the budget, I had a good look around the past.
I failed to take notes on how I arrived at those 35%, but I can tell
you that the 35% are not just a random number.
Anyway, David just looked those up (thanks bremner):
DC12: 118 food, 128 accom
DC13: 137 food, 125 accom
DC14: 107 food, 103 accom
I hope you can see these reflected in my budget. I didn't just take
the highest numbers (DC13) because our food+accom prices are lower.
But yes, I chose to work with percentages early on to facilitate
things. These are assumptions. In the end it'll take their own
course and I'll be proud if we land within 10%.
But part of my goal for DC15 was also meticulous accounts so that
next year's budget can actually contain two additional columns: last
year's budget and last year's actual spending. At this point,
I cannot tell you if I feel motivated to do that though.
> Now, even if we are still 5 months away from DebConf, I understand
> that some specific expenses cannot wait until sufficient
> sponsorship money has been raised. I am open to discussing them on
> a case-by-case basis when necessary.
One major point of a budget is so that these discussions need not
take place on a case-by-case basis, but one discusses the large
picture once and as a whole and then leaves the individual people
working on conference tasks the freedom to do their work within
set limits.
I cannot tell you deadlines of when things need to be decided by
because a search for options on e.g. a day trip, the conference
dinner, or optional entertainment depends a lot on what has been
allocated. But I know we need a signature for the conference dinner
by the end of March. And I can also tell you that I believe our
projected expenses for this event are comparable to the last years.
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org> @martinkrafft
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany: http://debconf15.debconf.org
DebConf16: Cape Town: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16
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