Re: [Debconf-team] Getting DebConf attendees reimbursed quickly for travel costs

[Marcelo Gutierrez]

2011/6/27 Stefano Zacchiroli 

> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 06:49:44PM -0400, Richard Darst wrote:
> > - Getting money in from sponsors to be able to have money to send out
> >   again.  This can sometimes take months after DebConf, though we
> >   should be in a better than normal position this year.
> >
> > One possibility to work around the second problem is to use general
> > Debian funds as a buffer.  We could reimburse attendees from Debian
> > general funds, and then in a month or two, replenish Debian funds from
> > our sponsor money.
>
> From a principle point of view, I see no problem with that. We---as in
> DPL + DebConf team---have agreed that DebConf budget is, year after
> year, temporary. It gets "forked off" Debian budget at the first
> expenditure for a specific DebConf and then "merged back" into Debian
> budget ASAP after the end of the conference. As long as the money used
> for reimbursements will be accounted for in the DebConf budget---which
> has ambition of being "amortized 0 costs" across several DebConf
> editions---Debian's / not DebConf money can easily be used to anticipate
> reimbursements.
>
> An annoyance in doing that would be that such an expenditure will need
> to be approved by the DPL, whereas during the time window of existence
> of the DebConf budget, the DebConf chairs are autonomous in approving
> expenses. In some sense, that would reduce some of the advantages of the
> delegation and induce a bit more work on the DPL (and auditors). That's
> not a blocker per se, as long as the goal you are proposing is worth
> pursuing.
>
> > I am watching DebConf finances closely enough that I think that we
> > could track and manage such an arrangement.  Thus, my question to you
> > all is:
> >
> > --> Is this worth pursuing?
>
> I've been dealing with reimbursements, as a scholar waiting for those
> reimbursements, for several years now. IME there are two major classes
> of needs wrt when ones get reimbursed. Either you need the money
> *before* a specific event, because otherwise you simply won't be able to
> attend (e.g. you cannot afford the ticket costs). Or you can anticipate
> the money yourself and be reimbursed later.
>
> I've been in both categories depending on the occasion. But when I've
> been in the latter category (i.e. able to afford anticipating ticket
> costs); it didn't matter much to me whether the delay was 1, 2, or 3
> months. This is, of course, just personal experience, not necessarily
> representative of the needs of others. But *if* it is representative,
> I'm not sure this part of your proposal is worth pursuing (while I think
> the other one, collecting receipts earlier/more easily, is totally worth
> pursuing).
>
> Hi there! IMHO:

If someone knowstaht he/she cannot affford the ticket cost and there is a
possibility of getting money before the event, first of all this person will
be able to attend the event.

Everyday you wait to buy a ticket it gets more expensive, if a person
receives money early and buys a cheaper ticket more money is saved and can
be allocated faster.

Regards


 > I do *not* know what Debian's non-DebConf assets are, and where they
> > are.  Before anyone agrees to this idea, of course we must know the
> > details of where money is money is and how much buffer we have (of
> > Debian funds, but also sure enough that we will get sufficient sponsor
> > money) that this is fiscally responsible.
>
> The auditors (Cc:-ed) have been working on producing periodic, public,
> and comprehensive reports since a while now. While I know they are
> proceeding, as of now there is no visible outcome yet (do I need to add
> here that the auditors would probably welcome your help? :-)).
>
> As of now, most part of Debian's money are held by SPI and are reported
> monthly in the reports you've already found (they are linked starting
> from ). The other big chunk is
> held by FFIS, whose reports are accessible only by the auditors and the
> DPL. At the time of writing, Debian balance at FFIS is 33912.56 EUR.
>
> Note, however, that bank balances are not enough to understand the state
> of Debian finances. Most notably, recent cash flow might be missing, as
> well as already approved expenses which have not been paid yet.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Cheers.
> --
> Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
> zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
> Quando anche i santi ti voltano le spalle, |  .  |. I've fans everywhere
> ti resta John Fante -- V. Capossela ...| ..: |.. -- C. Adams
>
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>


-- 
Marcelo Gutierrez
Team POSOL http://podcast.softwarelibre.org.ni
Linux User: 448194
Ubuntu User: 26821
http://mmgc84.taygon.com

Re: relationships with GNU as an upstream - call for feedback

[Josselin Mouette]

Le mardi 21 juin 2011 à 17:26 +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit : 
> I'll be glad to talk about that. But I would also like to take the
> chance to present how we feel about GNU as an upstream, in case we have
> anything more to say about GNU than what we have to say about other
> upstreams (see for example initiatives like [1,2,3]).

I’m not a GNU package maintainer (unless you still consider GNOME a GNU
project), so I’m not saying anything about GNU as upstream developers,
but if you want to discuss frankly our issues with them, I hope you can
talk about RMS and the handful of holier-than-thou followers who always
find something that is “not free enough”. 
There’s the topic of non-free firmwares of course (which suddenly become
free when they are shipped as EPROMs), and there’s the insanity that is
said every other day about Mono and anything loosely related to
Microsoft.

These people still represent the voice of the community in the minds of
journalists. They should consider it a great responsibility on their
shoulders, and I think they are abusing it; instead of promoting the
actual voice of the community, they are scaring people away by extremist
views based on incorrect claims.

I’d also join the crowd on the topic of non-free documentation which is
still extremely cumbersome for us, and forces people to add non-free APT
lines to install documentation for their free software.

Cheers,
-- 
 .''`.  Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'
  `-


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