Re: [Debconf-discuss] [Debconf-team] Travel sponsorship BoF: minutes
On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 5:19 PM, Richard Darst r...@zgib.net wrote: On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 04:16:08PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: There's a lot of work to be done to flesh out such a plan, obviously. If there's support for this in principle, I would be willing to put some effort in to help turn this into something viable. I'd say start filling out this page: http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/TravelSponsorship The page is empty. Any hopes in restarting that discussion? (Apologies if this has already been discussed, I'm going through a huge debconf e-mail backlog right now.) P. ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
Re: [Debconf-discuss] DC10 final report help
On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 3:11 AM, Richard Darst r...@zgib.net wrote: Greetings debconf-discuss, Every year, the DebConf team prepares a final report. This allows future years to learn from us, and is critical in securing repeat sponsors. *You* can help with this report, too. Your perspective are very helpful in this report. In fact, we'd love to have articles from your perspective. Some concrete ideas for contributions are: - Personal impressions - excepts from your blog posts. It would help us to have someone search for old Planet Debian posts to quote (with permission). - A day trip article - An article on other social activities - Write-up on describing some interesting talks - Anything else you can think of. You can see much more and claim articles here: http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/FinalReport If you have any questions about how to help, just let any of us know. Let me elaborate on the urgency of this: * The DebConf report is not only a mere formality. We use it to show our sponsors all the impact of their donations, all the hard work the Debian community achieved through DebConf. It helps us wrap up the conference and keep our collective memory alive. * If you enjoyed DebConf and want to give back, we *really* need your help with this report. Previous reports feature day impressions from attendees ranging from first time attendees to seasoned DDs. You can take a look at the past year's reports here: http://media.debconf.org/reports/ (they curiously make for a very entertaining reading, really!) Miles de gracias! P. ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
[Debconf-discuss] Travel sponsorship BoF: minutes
Hi, We had a well-attended (and well-behaved :-) BoF chaired by Zack (I'm cc: directly, but I remembered you saying you'll joing debconf-team, so let us know and we can drop the explicit CC:). Thanks to everybody that participated and contributed ideas and solutions! I scribed the following notes during the meeting, while projecting them on the big screen (my apologies for not sending them earlier, I was moving). We couldn't use gobby as there were no internet in the room. The question is of course how to follow on from here. Ideas? (maybe discussing this in -project?) Note: segments with (...) were not transcribed due to some DrDub's lapse-of-memories during the BoF. If you remember, please add them. Also, as with any transcription, this is imperfect so feel free to reply with edits, clarifications, etc. -- (drdub) Following a discussion with Ana, the project might save quite a bit of money if buys the tickets for key contributors very early on the year. Following this idea, I propose we split the people we fund into two categories: Debian award attendees, which are selected by the project in, say, November/December and the project decides how much money they'll need to travel to the location. The process for selection is similar to the current herb process. The recipient can opt for not receiving the award and it will then go to the next person in the list. The project can use $10,000 to fund this, for example (or separate DC(N-1) money specifically for that, pending the result of Friday's BoF). If the money assigned to the person is considered insufficient, the Debian contributor can then ask for extra money in the second round, which is similar to how we have conducted it this year (i.e., contributions / money requested? / need? weighted). * people should be nominated (even self nominated) (drdub) I feel this year we discounted too much for people the herb team felt were asking too much money. If we go for a similar process, people shouldn't be discounted, their amounts should be adjusted. * ana: done other years (drdub) I think we can easily fundraise for specific people if they are willing to go on the record in a suitable Web page. We discussed it before but people felt it was too close to the conference for it to make sense. So we can talk about it for next year... * won't work, too dunc-tanc-ish. (moray) try to consider the location for distributing the money. * Sometimes it can be that getting money in one year reduces your changes in next years? * allocation of money based on maximazing the number of people in the conference? (ana) how did we do in previous years? - schmultc: last two years we have a ranking interface and we ranked people based in a number of issues: speaker, known Debian contributor, relative expense of their ticket. (-2 to 2 rankings.) - micah: agreed, prices were considered too much for the metrics. - ana: the metric is OK, but we're using it wrong. Initially the idea was to find who gets sponsorship and who doesn't, and then everybody should be considered (every contributor). - faw: problems, the herb team is never the same and the focus keep changing. The dichotomy of prize vs. need. Some people can put more money but try to game the system. (from here on, the discussion wasn't focused, here's a list of comments, person by person) - zack: we don't need talks 6mo. in advance if sponsorship is the only reason for it (moray: it was not, but it is now). Zack: I did the DebConf newbies (...). - krose: don't get too build up about the conference...the most important thing is to have a good way to fix mistakes rather than avoiding them. Also, all tricks to fundraise should be always welcomed. - phil: it is important to make the metrics very clear at the time of the request. - moray: people don't interpret need in the same way. We should define the expectations better. - ralf: the 6mo. submission of papers help to get attendees payed by their employers / PhD-supervisors. (moray: that's more the original reason.) - clint: do not consider talk proposals as part of the criteria and problem solved. - gwolf: (...) - ana: free food and accommodation should be the 'reward' for working on Debian. - molly: consider the food + accommodation + ticket as a full travel grant continuum. - drdub: why I'm asking for money? Ans: because it is offered as valid as I choose to be poor. - gaudenz: (...) - micah: there're a lot of people who submit talks because they think they will have more chances of getting the travel sponsorship. (drdub: seriously!? audience: yeah!). Is that good or bad? It can be seen both ways. Jonah (a local volunteer) had said a couple of times that he is so amazed to see a conference where the organization committee takes so much care of their attendees (signs, food, accommodations). That's part of our money woes. By
[Debconf-discuss] Brought some slightly unusual gear if you want to take a look
Hi, I hauled to DebConf a few gadgets related to wearable computers and the like, I'll be in the CS (Carleton) hacklab after 1700 if you want to take a look at them (in case you're considering buying them at some moment but you don't want to buy without seeing in person). Among the items I brought: * a vuzix head mounted display * a USB2VGA adapter * a 3M mpro110 pico-projector * a wireless keyboard / touchpad * a usb flexible keyboard I'd be interested in meeting other people in Debian with an interest in this type of gadgetry. In the past I have also used gyroscopic mice and chorded keyboards. Some of these gadgets have subpar support under GNU/Linux than in proprietary operation systems, so it would be nice to join efforts in improving their support. P. ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
[Debconf-discuss] Travel sponsorship BoF topics/attendance request
Hi, Sorry for the late notice, but there's a BoF about travel sponsorship under my name which is really more a full travel sponsorship team kind of thing. It is scheduled in 414 Schapiro at 1600 today. If you were part of Herb and/or received sponsored money for traveling and want to find a way to improve the system for next year, please stop by. I set up a gobby document on gobby.debiant.net under 414 Schapiro. The name is dc10-bof-travel-sponsorship. I'm kicking it off with the following: (DrDub) Following a discussion with Ana, the project might save quite a bit of money if buys the tickets for key contributors very early on the year. Following this idea, I propose we split the people we fund into two categories: Debian award attendees, which are selected by the project in, say, November/December and the project decides how much money they'll need to travel to the location. The process for selection is similar to the current herb process. The recipient can opt for not receiving the award and it will then go to the next person in the list. The project can use $10,000 to fund this, for example (or separate DC(N-1) money specifically for that, pending the result of Saturday's BoF). If the money assigned to the person is considered insufficient, the Debian contributor can then ask for extra money in the second round, which is similar to how we have conducted it this year (i.e., contributions / money requested? / need? weighted). (DrDub) I feel this year we discounted too much for people the herb team felt were asking too much money. If we go for a similar process, people shouldn't be discounted, their amounts should be adjusted. (DrDub) I think we can easily fundraise for specific people if they are willing to go on the record in a suitable Web page. We discussed it before but people felt it was too close to the conference for it to make sense. So we can talk about it for next year... If you don't like gobby, just send whatever you want to have there to me privately and I'll add it. If you'd like to discuss by e-mail, maybe reply just to debconf-discuss? I leave to you to determine which list is most appropriate given the nature of your reply, of course. Thanks and see you at 1600! P. ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
Re: [Debconf-discuss] Debian Java meetup @ NYC Saturday 31
WORKSFORME ;-) ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
[Debconf-discuss] Won't need to bother you for storage, thx! eom
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Re: [Debconf-discuss] Debconf runners: how about participate to a local 5K race during DebConf?
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 12:51 PM, Christian PERRIER bubu...@debian.org wrote: The running group is the Van Cortland Track Club, and happen to have their running headquarters in Van Cortland Park, in Bronx. The race is called the XC Summer Series. Start is at 7pm and a participation of UDS5 is asked to participate. More details can be found at http://vctconline.ning.com/page/xc-summer-series-2 I have attended a cross-country race at Cortland Park and I can vouch they are a lot of fun... but it is *cross-country* (the XC bit) racing. It doesn't get canceled by rain and it can be quite different than your usual street running jog. Those sneakers will take a day or two to dry before using 'em again at DebConf! ;-) Let's go! P. ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
Re: [Debconf-discuss] [Debconf-team] DebConf in NYC
On Wednesday, June 30, 2010, Matt Simmons wrote: Hi, I hope everything is going well. My name is Matt Simmons, and one of my blog readers just let me know about DebConf in NYC, and that it was happening immediately following System Administrator Appreciation Day (the last Friday of July, the 30th in this case). As it turns out, I am organizing a SysAdmin Day celebration at a pub in midtown Manhattan that Friday evening. Details are available here: http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/sysadmin-day-get-together/ I realize that DebConf is developer-centric, but I know that there is a lot of crossover between system administrators and developers, and I was curious if you thought your attendees would be interested in knowing. I'll be happy to mention DebConf on my blog as well, and maybe we can get some crossover. What do you think? --Matt PS - I'm adding DebConf to the SysAdmin Event Calendar here: http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/sysadmin-calendar/ Hi Matt, I have added an entry in our internal list of activities (penta ID 657). Please note DebConf proper would have not started yet (only the hands-on programming week before DebConf, DebCamp), but there might be already plenty of attendees in the area. We have an outreach day planned for August 1st, it would be great if you can help us spread the word. We will contact you when we have the line up for the day finalized. Also, I have cc: debconf-discuss, our attendee opt-in mailing list for open discussion of related activities, etc. Matt, if there's anything you want to add to a wider attendee audience, feel free to reply. I have also set reply-to for this message to debconf-discuss as any remainder discussion most probably is outside the organization team realm. Good choice for venue for the meet-up, by the way :-) I don't know yet if I'll be able to attend myself, but hopefully we'll be seeing you on Debian Day at Columbia! Pablo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
[Debconf-discuss] Thanking our sponsors
A long while somebody in #debconf-team asked if we can have plain t-shirts available for sale without sponsor logos. That is of course a valid question and I would like to share my feelings about it: it would be a very bad idea ;-) But thanks for bringing up the question, in reality this is not something the Orga Team can really control, as we are releasing the designs for the t-shirt under a DFSG-free license. I am sending this e-mail in the hopes we can coalesce an Orga Team view on the matter and see if we can convince our attendees to care about the underlining issue, that is, of course, to thank our sponsors. DebConf is a very unusual conference in many aspects. Among them, it is the case that our sponsors do not really buy advertisement in the conference. They carry a huge financial burden as they shoulder more than half of the total expenses. Instead of silent bystanders, holding signs with the names of their brands, they are a key participant in DebConf. Even if you do not rely on sponsored food, accommodation or have some of your travel expenses covered, all attendees benefit greatly from a much diverse (and numerous) crowd. Showing our sponsor logos in key places within DebConf is just a way to thank them for their support. For them, there is plenty of value in helping DebConf happen, but that value is really in the Debian itself. In that respect, they share our committement and appreciation towards the project. And that of course deserves to be thanked, in the same way the project shows appreciation to many other parts of the project that make it thrive. Of course, it would be difficult to say that companies employing hundreds of thousands of people care for the project. In reality, there are people within those companies and organizations that appreciate the value that Debian bring to their employers. It is to these people we owe our deeper thanks. Now, if we have people, for example, willingly wearing t-shirts without their logos, I would be afraid that can be used to undermine the credibility of our contacts within each company. And by doing so, we will be hurting future DebConfs (as more than half of our donations come from recurring sponsors). I would like to conclude saying that I appreciate the idea of having a DebConf where we do not need to rely on sponsors so heavily (our sponsors in general contribute to the project in many other ways, too). We can organize a camp-site, for example. I have attended such events and while they are incredibly uncomfortable, it helps to have a very focused set of attendees. If we rather prioritize having a more comfortable, productive setting, we need the help of our sponsors... which deserve to be thanked ;-) Gracias! Pablo ___ Debconf-discuss mailing list Debconf-discuss@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
