Richard Darst wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 01:19:57AM +0100, Martin Schulze wrote:
>
> > No. You (leader@, auditor@) will need to do this on their own.
> >
> > If you want to keep track of the money separately, you'd better keep
> > it marked Debconf<n> and give leader@, auditor@ authority over it as
> > well.
>
> That is what I thought, and why I asked. Of course, the way
> to keep balances separate is to put them is separate accounts.
It seems that with regards to Zack the question is rather if money
should be tracked separately - as it has been in the past.
> Thus, I encourage you all to think about how the DebConf share of
> Debian money will be tracked. My first reaction is "I don't want to
> be the one doing it". I was going to try to make better money
> management my goal this year, but if the safest tool for it is taken
> away, I'm not sure if I want to be the one attempting this anymore.
You can always open your favourite spreasheet (sc, lscs, ocalc,
gnumeric etc.) and track incoming and outgoing money. That's how we
did this in the past before organisations like ffis were able to
earmark money and provide a digital view to the money.
> How do you all imagine the DebConf/Debian money separation would work
> if accounts are merged?
It seems that for Zack there should be no separation at all. Maybe
you all should first discuss whether Debian and Debconf money should
be tracked differently or whether Debian organises Debconf donations
for Debconf are just donations for Debian.
Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> The basic principle which is at stake here is that DebConf/Debian money
> should *not* be separated.
>
> There are two reasons for that: 1) sponsors donate money to DebConf
> because it's the Debian conference; 2) in past years Debian has poured
> into DebConf something like 70'000$ (very approximate number,
> reconstructed by others in the past on this list), if you want a sharp
> distinction, one might imagine Debian claiming back that money, which
> would be very unpleasant for everybody.
At least a large part of it could be moved back to Debian...
> Getting back to your question, I believe that DebConf should be an event
> which, in an *amortized* way, costs no money. To cover up for the years
> in which the costs are higher than raised money, Debian money should be
> used as a "bank" for DebConf organization.
To me this sounds more like it would would be helpful for you all if
the money would continue to be earmarked differently in the future but
that the Debian project leader and accountant should get a view to
that money as well.
In case that the conference doesn't end up with a sum of zero surplus
money would be moved to the Debian pool. I case of a negative sum the
leader approves to move money from the Debian pool to the conference
pool.
> Keeping track of the cost year after year is up to the conference
> budget, which already exists and should allow everybody (including
> people outside Debian, for transparency) to see the income/outcome money
> year after year. Considering all this, I fail to see why merging
> accounts *at FFIS* makes thing any worse.
It seems to me that it'll be easier for you to keep the accounts
separate.
The problem that you (leader@) doesn't have an overview on what's going
on at the conference part can be solved quite easily by extending your
account.
There's one more thing that might help you in this discussion. Let's
assume the accounts are merged. How do the Debconf organisers get to
know the actual balance and can track incoming money? Either they get
a view over the entire Debian money as well, or they query leader@ or
auditor@ .
Regards,
Joey
--
The MS-DOS filesystem is nice for removable media. -- H. Peter Anvin
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