Re: What does Israel/Local Authorities say about DC20?
Hi there, As a member of the local DC20 team, I thought I might weight in on where we stand. On 22/05/2020 19:43, Sam Hartman wrote: [I hope someone on the DebConf team side is willing to summarize the results of this discussion to debian-vote] I've read the debian-vote discussion, and I wanted to make sure our voice is heard. Not because I think our opinion is drastically different than opinions already voiced, but because I get the feeling some people think it might be. I'm speaking for myself here, but the matter was, in fact, discussed, both inside the local team and with the rest of the organizers. First, the situation in Israel: The ministry of Health has a Telegram channel where they publish, twice a day, statistics about the pandemic. These include, among other things, the number of tests done, number of people tested positive, and the number of people who have recovered from the disease. Due to my own background health issues, I follow those numbers closely. The information posted on the conference Wiki's FAQ was produced by me, and I have been producing this graph for almost two months now. I have also been socially isolating for two weeks by the time that was the official instruction. Please rest assured: if it will not be safe to attend the conference, *I* will not attend it, despite helping to organize it. I will also not want to have a conference in Israel and not attend it (I am a DD for over a decade and have not been able to attend a single conference so far). As such, if the conference is likely to not be able to move forward, or not be able to do so safely, I'll be first in line to call for its postponement. As of now, the Pandemic seems to be under control in Israel. Maybe due to the weekend the MoH has not released numbers tonight, but over the past three nights before daily new infections were 16, 6 and 18. 98 new infections over the whole last week. If you'll look at the graph posted at the Wiki FAQ[1], the downward trend is clearly visible. 1: https://wiki.debian.org/DebConf/20/Faq Now these numbers might change. At the beginning of the week (Israel work week is Sunday-Thursday) schools came back into almost normal operating mode. This means that a completely plausible scenario is that infection rate will start to rise again. We will know that to a fairly high degree of certainty two weeks after that, or about a week from today. There was a question about reaching out to the authorities. Our main contacts were with the Ministry of Interior, in charge of handling Visa requests, and not the Ministry of Health. We did reach out to them, and so far have not heard back. It seems that the "preparing an international conference" handbook completely neglected to mention the possibility of a global pandemic, and we did not prepare MoH contacts. A few unofficial talks I've had leads me to conclude what I would have guessed anyways: No one who knows anything about this virus is willing to predict anything three months ahead. Some people mentioned a quarantine requirement. At least as far as I, personally, see the conference planning, I see no difference between not allowing residents of a certain country into Israel and requiring a two weeks quarantine. If we foresee that to remain the requirement, I would consider an international conference to be impossible. Which leads us where the local team stands on this issue. The consensus with the local team is that our decision of choice *at this point in time* is to postpone the conference, and accordingly also the 2021 and 2022 conferences, by one year. Obviously, this is a solution that requires a buy in from the general Debian leadership, as well as from the local teams for those years. While this is the consensus, there is really no point in making a final call on the matter before the absolute deadline arrives. It is much easier to cancel late than to restart a conference once it is cancelled. New infections reactions to re-opening the schools is one example of datum that will be available to us in two weeks, but is not available now. So we hold off with making a final call. I understand that, from the outside, this might look like we are trying to push forward with organizing a conference that simply cannot come to pass. This long email was my humble attempt at trying to convince you that is not the way things are. So I would like to add my voice to what Jonathan and others have said: Martin and everyone else: Please wait with putting up a GR asking to override our judgement call until _after_ we've actually made that call. Thank you, Shachar
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 On 2020/05/22 20:08, Jonathan Carter wrote: > (and besides, the India team has already won for next year). If > they get Correction: I mean of course, Kosovo. - -Jonathan - -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org ⠈⠳⣄ Debian, the universal operating system. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQIzBAEBCgAdFiEExyA8CpIGcL+U8AuxsB0acqyNyaEFAl7IG34ACgkQsB0acqyN yaENpg/+MIEtpRIar0s4IiSPPTmY5Sk7vCy/dATZrcTBS9iNWoIwtbNUcFPObk3O H5vytjaEicKeFV9PAU4KN0DplUyZWsq9LvKf9mqrTjWHy5qJ1+xcaZkR0u4AUf20 /X3SzRNge3vKo/Tw/k4vyU1Ewx+r6X2ylBJOgq8M2GJu0zDHYpLTW5YbN9Dhz6iK NDIWC3GzDne+84X//9VZWUicoppd4c4V8R7ybiSb9dVgcnWy5UEXKCw6DYXCCrw5 yo6/B0AJFDGXlTMVKhAiq0THPRZKmNCGTbiY2nY2OXs/ACxUZwLsOKo1ehWM32Td AYmZTEQdO45lNmASBlbF+3N/zbSm1X5k2T3IwdQBrl4TS1Yhdilqxzvt6Xn/AhGi yIR9IdBRSKjceRlRfClPiiZ5xz3N5uW3jrB0PdemY9BGfMy4WRced6LzGh4dko+h wAYA+551gQmcIHFginzC3RrhHkO3Y6gEEd0Bl2xWTghUxZnCW5P5LvMfMTkkRjg2 e4R6wg81UlkgXap2Ob16CSEeMm05BA01J9kbgH3KAzMttSYWXkCJoXHXqlMfcBRl Lhv3NqLqujycqJP8SDfQC4s4djVl+dsIrxsYv3anH6aO3nJ2RcGj6pjY9xJd9sl/ aRSyT2lS+88FrWroQ1DXQL9Zp0LM04EaixHy7DA4V8ecf9IhG4s= =0qIz -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi zobel On 2020/05/22 14:40, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote: > This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. I can't block you from doing a GR (and I certainly wouldn't want to!), but I'd like you to consider the variables and consequences one last time before posting such a GR. First, the Isreal local team are made up of highly competent Debian members. I trust them, and believe that they are able to make a good decision based on the available information. Yesterday in the DC20 announcement, they made it clear that they're putting feelers out there to gauge how many people feel confident that they'd actually be attending in person. As far as I understand, they intend to make a final decision on whether (or to which extent) DC20 will be an in-person event in about two weeks from now. I believe that this GR is putting the cart before the horse, and while I 100% understand (and to large extents agree) with its content, I do think that the DC team will end up making a good decision and that using such a GR to take that decision away from will just cause unnecessary anguish. Secondly, so far this month they're infection rate has been really low. Low enough so that they can still effectively do contact tracing and cluster control (which is basically a lost cause in most countries at the moment). They have a very good chance of having this virus under control very soon. There are other countries that are doing well too, for example New Zealand who are in the single digits with new infections, and China, which was the original epicenter, has learned to deal with this virus quite well too. I acknowledge that it's too soon to tell, but there is still a possibility that at least people from countries like that might be able to travel, and maybe DC20 ends up being really small, maybe just a few dozen people in person with mostly locals, but is that so bad? We're planning an online minidebconf for the end of the month, there might be another before DC20 is supposed to happen. This gives us a good oppertunity to hammer away at our online participation tools so that those who can't or do not wish to travel can still participate remotes. And I realise that this experience will never be the 1st class experience that a full in-person DebConf is, but at least we can have some form of annual event together, and forcing us to improve remote participation will help future DebConfs be better like that. It's currently a sore issue and more and more people choose not to travel for environmental reasons, so it's something we'll have to be better at in the future. *Phew*, I'm just going to take a breath and say sorry for all the text so far... but there's more... Thirdly, if the specific event is totally cancelled, do you feel that the DC20 team should just lose their slot? Even if you move it to next year, the situation might still be somewhat similar to this year by then (and besides, the India team has already won for next year). If they get postponed (to 2022) instead of cancelled, do you realise that the political debates surrounding a DebConf in Israel will start afresh and that many people really don't want to be dragged through that again? I want to state again that I 100% agree with your sentiment regarding physical meetings, but DC20 was initially planned before the epidemic started. If they can manage to do a nano-scale DebConf and do it safely, why not let them? Or if they decide to let them do it online only, let it be their choice and responsibility to make. I think the chances of people from Africa, Europe, India, South America or North America being able to travel to Israel before the end of the year is super slim anyway, so I'd ask you to reconsider this GR and at least see what the DebConf team comes up with first. If they manage to either figure out the details to do either a tiny scale DebConf or an online DebConf, then we might still preserve most of the secured sponsorship, enjoy some level of interaction and problem solving online, and be able to wrap up DebConf in Israel this year and start to worry about the situation in India instead. So again, I'd ask you to consider the above at least one more time before posting that GR. - -Jonathan - -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org ⠈⠳⣄ Debian, the universal operating system. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQIzBAEBCgAdFiEExyA8CpIGcL+U8AuxsB0acqyNyaEFAl7IFR4ACgkQsB0acqyN yaHGnRAAsPab6v9gCgo2YK4UtmPztIpdSuGZkMSSBENNCZjCZo1fVsr1tPSllDQd MleamsrIGCI7+6ZUq4NH1LAm+9lx1UDzkvzH748d2r0LiV8BncXeHo2nWkBeWCKY /hUrhYdhSKtFuNOp3yDwFB8rB5xIdyBLDCudS8Us5sOAzpI3+cvlbmo86Qzq/KMG A877e8Ef/W/MzvGkE+sQaW5eMdD2KdDfqOxMZ0sPEK4i8pQzfHrZJoWiwj1roprc WWbdEb4n0/5ayLhrd+3ojsTrimGOq+KVdZZoFwN5fJnW54SlvBbzXWRrHQx2ODwm NDx+ALxbIJlrf6+G2RdIuESMtBx3dP3aP0uGD2/ZWBpiNBtJKFJnf3z5tAAPdC1t
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
Hello Martin, Martin Zobel-Helas dijo [Fri, May 22, 2020 at 02:40:55PM +0200]: > This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. > > Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20 As a member of the DebConf Committee, as a very-long-time organizer of DebConf, and just as yet another fellow Debian Developer, I feel this GR is out of line. No decision has been made, even though the call for registration is open. A date for the decision to be held (June 8) has been announced, and we are all weighting in many factors. We have been discussing this quite a bit within the team. The decision should not be unifactorial --- Do we want to protect DDs from infecting one another? From being vectors that bring an infection back to their countries? Are we worried about the use of Debian funds? Are we trying to protect the local organizing team from burning out for "too little"? Do we want to protect the local organizing team from burning out due to having to walk what they have already done, but again for next year? Do we know if they are able (and willing) to repeat their work commitment for next year? There are many aspects to this decision, and we are gathering information to be able to better decide. Rest assured, we will announce this explaining as much as possible our reasoning. If you disagree fundamentally with our reasoning, of course, you can proceed with the GR. But presenting a GR before we even discuss it with the people doing the work sounds somewhat entering the room and kicking the table. Please, don't. Cordially, - Gunnar Wolf. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
On Fri, 22 May 2020 at 18:08, Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana < p...@debian.org> wrote: > In my opinion, the best solution would be postpone DC20 in Israel to 2021. > And push Kosovo to 2022 and India to 2023. > I believe this choice should be on the table when DC20 team takes the decision on the conference. Naturally it is not up to the local team to decide such a thing, but with the blessing of the global Debconf team and the DPL (and with Kosovo and India team consent) that should be a possibility. It would also not preclude holding a virtual online Debconf this year as well where volunteers from any place in the world could take up responsibilities. In fact, if we do it the maximum fun way we could even involve volunteers and speakers from around the world to have a week long 24/7 Debconf that just never stops (until we run out of topics for talks). So instead of multiple talk streams in parallel we would have them in succession. And also have a party stream / chillout lounge running the whole time in parallel as well. We can take this challenge and come up with something new that Debconf as such could have never been. :) -- Best regards, Aigars Mahinovsmailto:aigar...@debian.org #--# | .''`.Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org)| | : :' : Latvian Open Source Assoc. (http://www.laka.lv) | | `. `'Linux Administration and Free Software Consulting | | `- (http://www.aiteki.com) | #--#
Re: What does Israel/Local Authorities say about DC20?
On Friday, May 22, 2020 12:43:56 PM EDT Sam Hartman wrote: > [I hope someone on the DebConf team side is willing to summarize the > results of this discussion to debian-vote] > > > "Stefano" == Stefano Rivera writes: > Stefano> Hi Sam (2020.05.22_14:51:42_+) > > >> The interesting thing is what the WHO says about travel and > >> minimizing international travel. > > Stefano> I was surprised that it doesn't try to dissuade the events > Stefano> entirely. What it does say is: 1. Work with your local > Stefano> authorities. 2. Have a plan for dealing with an outbreak > Stefano> at your event. > > In the mail opening registration, there wasn't any discussion of having > talked to Israel/the local authorities about the conference. > There was only an assertion that it looked like things might be okay. > > 1) To the extent that we have contacted the local authorities it seems > like it would be good to write up the advice we have gotten. > > 2) It sounds like the advice from the WHO is to work with local > authorities. > It seems like we really ought to follow that advice and reach out. > I'd go so far as to say that holding a conference without good contacts > to local health authorities and good lines of communication/support > would be irresponsible. > Now, for all I know that's in progress or has already happened. > > > 3) Once we do get advice (or now if we already have that advice) I think > that would be valuable input to the debian-vote discussion. Or we might even want to step back and let the delegated team for this effort do their job. Personally, I'll vote against any such GR that is proposed before the team makes an actual decision. I think the idea of a GR to override a decision that a delegate hasn't made yet is horrible as a general precedent for how Debian works. Scott K signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
What does Israel/Local Authorities say about DC20?
[I hope someone on the DebConf team side is willing to summarize the results of this discussion to debian-vote] > "Stefano" == Stefano Rivera writes: Stefano> Hi Sam (2020.05.22_14:51:42_+) >> The interesting thing is what the WHO says about travel and >> minimizing international travel. Stefano> I was surprised that it doesn't try to dissuade the events Stefano> entirely. What it does say is: 1. Work with your local Stefano> authorities. 2. Have a plan for dealing with an outbreak Stefano> at your event. In the mail opening registration, there wasn't any discussion of having talked to Israel/the local authorities about the conference. There was only an assertion that it looked like things might be okay. 1) To the extent that we have contacted the local authorities it seems like it would be good to write up the advice we have gotten. 2) It sounds like the advice from the WHO is to work with local authorities. It seems like we really ought to follow that advice and reach out. I'd go so far as to say that holding a conference without good contacts to local health authorities and good lines of communication/support would be irresponsible. Now, for all I know that's in progress or has already happened. 3) Once we do get advice (or now if we already have that advice) I think that would be valuable input to the debian-vote discussion. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
Hi, In my opinion, the best solution would be postpone DC20 in Israel to 2021. And push Kosovo to 2022 and India to 2023. Best regards, -- Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls) Curitiba - Brasil Debian Developer Diretor do Instituto para Conservação de Tecnologias Livres Site: http://www.phls.com.br GNU/Linux user: 228719 GPG ID: 0443C450 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
Hi Sam (2020.05.22_14:51:42_+) > The interesting thing is what the WHO says about travel and minimizing > international travel. FWIW: https://www.who.int/publications-detail/key-planning-recommendations-for-mass-gatherings-in-the-context-of-the-current-covid-19-outbreak A couple of months old now, but doesn't seem to have been superseded. I was surprised that it doesn't try to dissuade the events entirely. What it does say is: 1. Work with your local authorities. 2. Have a plan for dealing with an outbreak at your event. SR -- Stefano Rivera http://tumbleweed.org.za/ +1 415 683 3272
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
Why we need this GR? Can't we just wait the DebConf team decided? If they decide to have in-person conference, and you are not able (don't want or can't) to go. Just don't do that. Em 22/05/2020 09:40, Martin Zobel-Helas escreveu: > This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. > > Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20 > -- > Best Regards! -- Daniel Lenharo de Souza Curitiba - Brasil signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
Hi. I think there is a lack of precision in the text of your GR that I find highly problematic. I suspect it will be fairly easy for you to correct this and possibly even gain my support, so I'd ask you to look for ways to do so. You say that the WHO has declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic, and has not lifted that declaration. I doubt they ever will. I think that covid-19 will always have been a pandemic. The interesting thing is what the WHO says about travel and minimizing international travel. so, I'd ask you to 1) focus on recommendations about travel rather than focusing on whether Covid-19 is or is not a pandemic. 2) cite specific recommendations on travel as reasons not to have a conference. 3) If you cannot easily find specific recommendations against travel to conferences, then do significantly more leg work justifying your position. Thanks, --Sam
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 07:29:39AM -0600, Bdale Garbee wrote: > They have until the GR is ready for a vote to do the right thing. Then why make a GR to override the decision? Everyone is already able to vote with their legs: no one of us can force another to come. So if you're not going to go, why would you deny others? Meow! -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ in the beginning was the boot and root floppies and they were good. ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ -- on #linux-sunxi ⠈⠳⣄
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
They have until the GR is ready for a vote to do the right thing. Bdale On May 22, 2020 7:23:08 AM MDT, Antonio Terceiro wrote: >On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 02:40:55PM +0200, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote: >> This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. >> >> Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20 >> -- > >As said in the DebConf website, the decision of holding DebConf20 >in-person is yet to be made, and going online is one of the >possibilities. This decision is going to be made at the beginning of >June. > >Maybe you should wait until after that decision before launching a GR >to >override the team. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 02:40:55PM +0200, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote: > This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. > > Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20 > -- As said in the DebConf website, the decision of holding DebConf20 in-person is yet to be made, and going online is one of the possibilities. This decision is going to be made at the beginning of June. Maybe you should wait until after that decision before launching a GR to override the team. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 02:40:55PM +0200, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote: > This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. > > Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20 [...] I'd second that, thanks. However, I would prefer if the DebConf organizers cancel themselves. (And I would also prefer we would wake up soon and this nightmare is over. I just don't think that this will happen anytime soon.) -- cheers, Holger --- holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[draft] Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20
This is a draft for a GR I would like to propose. Cancel this year's in-person Debian Developers Conference DebConf20 -- ### Whereas 1. the World Health organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic [1] as of March 11th and has not yet lifted this. 2. the Debian Project has planned its annual Developer's conference DebConf20 [2] to take place in Hafia, Israel during August 23rd to 29th. 3. the DebConf organizers have opened the registration for this year's conference[3]. ### The Debian Project resolves 1. that organizing DebConf as an in-person event in August 2020 is endangering it's participants **and** others. 2. it persuades the conference organizers to cancel this years conference as on-site in-person conference. 3. it encourages all conference organizers to postpone any on-site developer gatherings organized in the name of the Debian Project until the WHO has declared this global pandemic as being over. 4. that it has the technical expertise to hold such an event on-line. ### Rational 1. During Debian's Developers Conference participants from all over the world will gather together from different health systems and different cultures. 2. Debian Developers of all ages and with different health conditions will travel to this conference. 3. Debian as a project wants to ensure the wellbeing of all of its Developers and of other participants of such an event, as well as all later contact persons of all participants. 4. The Debian project should be an archetype for technical conferences of this kind, both technically and socially. [1] https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020 [2] https://debconf20.debconf.org/ [3] https://lists.debian.org/debconf-announce/2020/05/msg1.html -- Martin Zobel-Helas Debian System Administrator Debian & GNU/Linux Developer Debian Listmaster http://about.me/zobel Debian Webmaster GPG Fingerprint: 6B18 5642 8E41 EC89 3D5D BDBB 53B1 AC6D B11B 627B signature.asc Description: PGP signature
