Re: DebConf19 expense: projector for main auditorium
I don't have any ethical problem with the solution proposed by the DebConf19 local team. With my videoteam hat on, I'm also glad we'll have a reliable projector :p On 19-05-16 13 h 19, Antonio Terceiro wrote: > On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 12:05:23PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote: >> So, my question to SPI is whether they believe that donating the >> projector is something Debian can legally do. > > Well, it doesn't need to be SPI. ICTL is already receiving the > sponsorships from Brazilian companies directly, we could as well not > involve SPI at all in this. I don't really see why this is a problem at all. Even if the money goes through SPI, it's not as if SPI was directly buying the projector for UTFPR. SPI can buy it for the Debian project, and then the Debian project can do whatever it wants with it. As Hector puts it, we can 'forget' the projector there and never claim it back if that really causes a legal problem. -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Louis-Philippe Véronneau ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ po...@debian.org / veronneau.org ⠈⠳⣄ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: DebConf19 expense: projector for main auditorium
I don't have any ethical problems with the solution proposed by the DebConf19 local team. With my videoteam hat on, I'm also glad we'll have a reliable projector :p On 19-05-16 13 h 19, Antonio Terceiro wrote: > On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 12:05:23PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote: >> So, my question to SPI is whether they believe that donating the >> projector is something Debian can legally do. > > Well, it doesn't need to be SPI. ICTL is already receiving the > sponsorships from Brazilian companies directly, we could as well not > involve SPI at all in this. I don't really see why this is a problem at all. Even if the money goes through SPI, it's not as if SPI was directly buying the projector for UTFPR. SPI can buy it for the Debian project, and then the Debian project can do whatever it wants with it. As Hector puts it, we can 'forget' the projector there and never claim it back if that really causes a legal problem. -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Louis-Philippe Véronneau ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ po...@debian.org / veronneau.org ⠈⠳⣄ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: DebConf19 expense: projector for main auditorium
On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 12:05:23PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote: > So, my question to SPI is whether they believe that donating the > projector is something Debian can legally do. Well, it doesn't need to be SPI. ICTL is already receiving the sponsorships from Brazilian companies directly, we could as well not involve SPI at all in this. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: DebConf19 expense: projector for main auditorium
Hello, Missatge de Sam Hartman del dia dj., 16 de maig 2019 a les 18:05: > > Copying debian and SPI treasurer. > > My biggest question is whether this is even legally possible. SPI can > only transfer assets to effectively the same kind of organization with a > compatible purpose. So, if we were talking within the US, SPI could > only transfer a projector to a non-profit with a compatible purpose. I > have no idea how the legalities work when a US non-profit is > transferring an asset to a Brazilian public entity. > > So, my question to SPI is whether they believe that donating the > projector is something Debian can legally do. We should also consider the long long term loan scenario, if donation is not feasible. Regards, -- Héctor Orón -.. . -... .. .- -. -.. . ...- . .-.. --- .--. . .-.
Re: DebConf19 expense: projector for main auditorium
Copying debian and SPI treasurer. My biggest question is whether this is even legally possible. SPI can only transfer assets to effectively the same kind of organization with a compatible purpose. So, if we were talking within the US, SPI could only transfer a projector to a non-profit with a compatible purpose. I have no idea how the legalities work when a US non-profit is transferring an asset to a Brazilian public entity. So, my question to SPI is whether they believe that donating the projector is something Debian can legally do.
DebConf19 expense: projector for main auditorium
Hello, TL;DR: we would like to buy a projector for the main DebConf19 talk room, and donate it to UTFPR. It will cost ~ USD 7,800, and the budget currently has room for it. At the beginning of April we were called by the board of UTFPR to talk about the assignment of the space to DebConf19. There was the promise that we could use all the space for free, as has always happened in the MiniDebConfs we had there. But the board expressed concern about the participation of companies as sponsors of the event and if this could cause some future legal problem for us and for the board. Providing us the space for free would legally imply that the University is co-organizing the conference, and then a few rules would have to apply: - the University would have to open a public call so that any company can participate; but companies can only participate in this type of call by presenting some documents that only companies based in Brazil have, such as certificates that they do not have any tax-related debts with the government. - The sponsorships would have to be paid to the University account, and then using the resources would have been pretty bureaucratic. This would make it impossible to have international sponsors for DebConf. In fact, this would make DebConf19 unfeasible at UTFPR. Therefore it was proposed to charge a rent for the space, with a symbolic value, smaller than the value usually charged to private companies that hold events there. Collecting a rent, the University assumes a role of "just" providing the space, and they no longer have a direct relation with it. We were then waiting for them to provide us with the amount. Last week we were called again to talk and the board had not yet defined the value of this rent. At this meeting it was said that the auditorium projector is at its end-of-life and that the image is very bad, which we confirmed by crashing an event that was happening there that day. But the university has no budget available to replace it now and there is no prediction of when that is gonna to happen. This will certainly hurt DebConf19 talks. It was then asked if we can buy a projector and donate it to the University, with this donation working as the rent payment. For the university, it is much better to receive the donation of an equipment than to receive the payment in cash because then they would have to deal with the bureaucracy to use that money. We are sensitive to this situation because most of us on the local team have graduated from public universities, and we are seeing this situation very sadly. UTFPR has hosted 2 editions of MiniDebConf (2017 and 2018), 2 editions of Debian Day (2014 and 2017), and editions of Free Software events such as Software Freedom Day (2008 and 2014), Education Freedom Day (2014) and FTSL (since 2013). It is also worth mentioning that they said that they would be open for any future free software events that we would organize, which means they would be happy to continue hosting any other free software events at the University, which is located in a very central area of the city. UTFPR is a free public university, and like all federal universities, students do not pay tuition. Federal universities are maintained with federal government resources and are the main Brazilian research centers. At the last meeting of the video team in 2018, we thought that the current projector only had VGA port, and the possibility of renting or buying a projector and donating it to the University had already been brought up. The idea was that the price of renting the projector for 10 days could be the same as of a new one. In the following meetings this idea did not go ahead because I confirmed that the projector also had HDMI port. However we now know that the projector has reached its limit. They also raised the possibility of just buying a new lamp for the projector, what would cost us ~USD 1,000.00. But then the projector is already pretty old, and this would be only a palliative solution. We would be very happy if we could donate this projector and use it on DebConf19. The projector requested by the university is of the model Panasonic PT-RZ570, with an approximate cost of ~ USD 7,800.00. We did some budget updates recently, and this new expense would still fit in the budget. Thoughts? signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Expense approval request: Video team hardware shipping for MiniDebConf Marseille and Hamburg
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 > "Nicolas" == Nicolas Dandrimont writes: Approved. Thanks for giving me nice simple easy to review approval requests; this is a change from things running through my mail lately! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEE9Li3nMNy++OFgPTCQe7SUh/WssoFAlzdcIsACgkQQe7SUh/W ssqiZwf/dz914eILQa0pV2NjUyovetn091e/EFkTHkBjvLxxe27qkyTo4OSqROyf yE6ql3wUu60uUMRLj+mnEqL8jg1RBHrbncFkBRaTvjiR6o4nUpcBc3KtUf72MYJt 9hTWLZEoLdCbvyFgshVvpe87C065oLWwC5W7xB8u4qKBeVXkxCfly/TodY/MiKE+ KNrGiX2nERn8PU/Ow2vu7XGIyM7mSTh49LLuF/Oyt8HE3O13DsF/+R8g5HvRjEs7 n0xszDKLi3TXXtvohztqvPiLVpU9pPpkaWcytxwNkzSb0WL5yqs3P6KFXcypzISP I1s1vZg9tTcXQSnxMd9Auja8I1MZ/w== =f4sf -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Expense approval request: Video team hardware shipping for MiniDebConf Marseille and Hamburg
Dear DPL,
I would like to request approval for the following expenses to ship the video
team's hardware to the two MiniDebConfs that will be happening in the following
month.
TL;DR: total budget request: 1700 EUR for three shipments and 150 EUR for a few
hardware adjustments
1/ Hardware shipping
Contrary to previous MiniConfs, I won't be driving there, which means we need
to ship the hardware. We're using UPS as Debian France has an account with a
(small) discount over list price and direct billing (no need for someone to use
their credit card then get reimbursed).
There's six items in the shipment (three flight cases: one for cameras, one for
audio, one for accessories, as well as a computer case and two tripods), for a
total weight of 100kgs.
An estimated cost for these shipments would be:
Paris -> Marseille ~350 EUR VAT incl.
Marseille -> Hamburg ~600 EUR VAT incl.
Hamburg -> Paris ~400 EUR VAT excl.
Total: 1350 EUR.
I'd like to request approval of a padded budget of 1700 EUR which will cover
VAT for the shipment from Germany as well as possible readjustments by UPS
according to the actual weight of the packages (which was estimated with a
bathroom scale, but might be off by a few kg).
2/ Encoding Cube "repackaging"
The main computer we use to record conferences (a.k.a. "the encoding cube"),
owned by Debian since 2016, is currently using a somewhat large cubic case, as
well as a huge cooling solution (which was pretty much the cheapest silent
solution we could find). This makes shipping the computer more expensive and
riskier than we'd like, as the case is very empty and the cooler is heavy and
large, putting a lot of strain on the motherboard when moving.
We would like to buy a smaller PC case ("low profile Micro-ATX"), and to be
able to fit the hardware inside this case we also need a new low-profile CPU
cooler.
The expense for the new case and the new cooler would be less than 150 EUR (80
EUR for the case, 40 EUR for the cooler, plus shipping).
Thanks for considering!
--
Nicolas Dandrimont
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