On 05/03/13 18:53, Gunnar Wolf wrote: > Hi bidders! > > I know Moray asked while opening up the discussion for the bidding > process to try to address our questions to both bids, but this is > meant for the Venezuelan bid - No way to make it more inclusive. > > Some people have approached me with questions regarding the stability > of the Venezuelan government and the outlook for a 18 month period. We > have recently seen a strong devaluation of the formal exchange rate,
Taking away the Chávez factor (which is obviously not to be understated), all these other issues could be raised for just about any other country these days: 25% of Italians just voted for what some people describe as a non-Government, and there is speculation their problems will overflow into the rest of Europe. The US even lost their AAA credit rating last year, Britain lost AAA a few weeks ago. Japan had Fukushima. Australia has a horrible immigration system that has scuttled many conferences (unless we only invite young white males with 6 figure salaries that match a `trustworthy' economic profile), so if it was my choice, I'd be choosing Venezuela or back to Managua over my own country any day. Looking specifically at Venezuala, the currency valuation itself doesn't mean so much when you consider the fact that their underlying source of wealth is oil exports (and don't forget all those gold reserves Mr Chávez recently repatriated). Given the Government commitment to free software, isn't this the model of an independent and therefore stable Government that we all aspire to see in our own countries? Neither the Venezuelan team nor the wider Debian community should be deterred by short term factors, and if anything, now is the time when the DebConf committee could well choose to place a big vote of confidence - and solidarity - with the Venezuelan local team, their country, and their free software strategy. _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
