Hi all, After a long meeting on #debconf-team last night, it has been decided by consensus that DebConf7 will be held in Edinburgh, UK.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank both teams for their hard work, and exceptional presentation of the venues, and to thank all those who participated in the meeting. The minutes of the meeting are attached or also available with the log of the meeting (plain and formatted) at http://www.halon.org.uk/debian/dc7/ Many thanks, Neil McGovern -- A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion Q. Why is top posting bad? gpg key - http://www.halon.org.uk/pubkey.txt ; the.earth.li B345BDD3
Meeting opens 18:52 UTC Agenda at http://wiki.debian.org/DebConf7Meetings In this text, SJJ = Sarajevo, EDI = Edinburgh. vedran_sjj was recognised as the Sarajevo delegate, moray as the Edinburgh delegate. 1. Priority list There was some discussion on the priority that various items should take when deciding on a venue. The final version is at http://wiki.debian.org/DebConfPriorityList 2. Venue weaknesses and other venue strengths AJ stated: so, what I thought (back when I was last awake...) would be interesting, would be seeing what the SJJ thought EDI's strengths were (the areas in which they'd have the most problems matching or beating) that matter for debian, and vice-versa; and seeing what SJJ and EDI thought there own weaknesses were? Sarajevo: 1. SJJ has no budget flights, while EDI has a lot of budget flights. This, obviously presents a problem for non-sponsored attendees, making it more expensive and complicated to visit SJJ 2. EDI has a well-known debian community They have several DDs on their team while our team is a strong general Linux community but less involved with Debian 3. SJJ might be less interesting to corporate sponsorship We had that problem when talking about another prospective FOSS conference 4. The cultural issues We tried to remove such issues, but some people don't seem responsive to this 5. We have a four star hotel as a venue 6. Everything is under one roof, and available 24/7 7. We have an already established Internet link + prospective donors for wireless, with internet available in rooms. 8. We have server & video rooms available 9. There's lots of breakout space in the venue as well as outside 10. The venues are flexible about network rearranging 11. We have a minibus for transportation of disabled people Edinburgh: 1. The main advantage for Sarajevo over Edinburgh is that it's a cheaper city for food/accommodation. 2. The Bosnians hope that they'll create some more interest in free software by having the conference there 3. It's probably a more 'exotic' location 4. A lot of people prefer the 'self-contained' venue they're proposing. 5. The bid team has a lot of experience of past debconfs, as well as other free software events and academic conferences, so I think we have a lot of experience between us to work to organise a good event. 6. We're proposing debconf in a very central location, so we have all the amenities of the city right on our doorstep 7. The city as a whole is accessible, with e.g. the taxis required to be able to transport wheelchairs, as well as wheelchair accessible buses. 8. The venues are flexible about network rearranging/mess etc. 9. There's lots of breakout space in the venue as well as outside 10. Edinburgh's a major network hub, we *might* be able to negotiate 1Gb/s from the venue, but it's certainly easy to get a nice (if slower than that) connection from one of our sponsor ISPs --- Weaknesses of Edinburgh: 1. We're competing with a lot of other events in Edinburgh to get venues/accommodation, especially since we're proposing a venue right in the middle of the city 2. Edinburgh is a more expensive city than Sarajevo, though this is mitigated because we'd be right in the centre (zero travel costs once you're there), and all the city-run tourist things are free 3. Weather - when I visited Sarajevo, it was consistently bright and mid-30s. While I've already explained that Edinburgh isn't wet compared to Glasgow, people *are* likely to see some rain while they're here ;) 2a. If DebConf7 was held in the other venue, would you still attend? SJJ: I would go. EDI: I'm sure that there will be a good representation from our UK bid team, wherever it is. 3. Questions Q. For SJJ (from marga): If DC7 is in SJJ, who will be the local-team leader and how will that work? A. Sapphire will be the leader, but our team works on democratic principles. There will be at least three deputies, Amar, Amila and myself Q. For SJJ (from marga): Who would be communicating with the orga team? A. All four of us Q. Both teams (from Maulkin): Why do you want to host DebConf? A. [EDI] 'to make Debian better' - or, more specifically, because we're really enjoyed previous debconfs and want to contribute something back. A. [SJJ] We have a strong Linux community, with this I believe that we would push that community towards Debian. Q. For EDI (from -discuss): What options did you explore for budget food? Did you investigate different places like the mosque, to combine both price and variety? A. The mosque kitchen is still an available option. The catering option at Teviot (for example) is a flexible canteen, and is much cheaper than other external caterers we've investigated. Really the best solution depends on how much money the organising team overall decides to devote to food. The precise details on food can be organised much closer to the event than the main venue booking Q. Both teams (from marga): After the experience in MEX we've learned to distrust things that are promised. So it would be nice that whenever stating a situation you would state if it's an actual fact, a fact that is confirmed to happen, or just an informal promise... So, both teams, do you have a 'Plan B' for things that were promised but haven't happened yet? A. [SJJ] For networking, if switches were not available, we'd provide them ourselves. Most other stuff I can think of is promised to be free, but at worst we will pay for it. A. [EDI] I don't think we're relying on anything that isn't already in place. There's still the question of negotiations on facilities falling through before contracts are signed, etc. - I don't think our venues are fly-by-night like that, but this is also why we've been keeping a number of venue options open to get the best deal while we negotiate. Nothing we've asked for from the venues is 'unusual' for them, so I don't foresee problems. Q. For EDI (from stockholm): What about if the rooms are not 24/7 in edi? A. We now have both the ECA and Teviot offering 24/7. If we didn't have that, we do also have a backup option of another space we could use at night nearby Q. Both teams (from -discuss): will you bid for 2009 if you don't win? A. [SJJ] We will bid on 2009 but I doubt that we will get the same prices A. [EDI] I think some people will be 'burnt out' for another DebConf bid after the length of time that's led up to this one; also at points in this process it's been implied that the UK is simply too expensive a country, and if prices are unlikely to fall significantly. However, we do have people on the team who would be expect to be interested in bidding again in 2009 if it doesn't happen this year Q. Both teams (from -discuss): Can we get food at 3am in both sjj and edi after a long night hacking / is there food or restaurants generally around the place? A. [SJJ] We can get food 24/7 A. [EDI] Yes, we're right in the middle of the city Q. Both teams (from aj): If the other team hosts the conference, what will your team end up doing? Helping out remotely as part of the orga team; running something else? What ideas do people have? A. EDI: Maulkin stated that he would carry on working as part of the orga team no matter who gets the conference. From Edinburgh, we have various people who are happy to attend and help. <aj> One possibility I see for Sarajevo is having a regional mini-conference, or a regional "free software" conference -- both those have been quite successful in Australia. Both teams: Are there other local conferences you can go to if DC isn't local? SJJ: there are no other confs EDI: I think that depends what you mean by 'local'; there do tend to be Debian *social* events in the UK, though mostly down in the south of England, while it's quite easy to get from Edinburgh to events on the continent (e.g. KDE, GNOME conferences). <aj> okay, so this requires a little background <aj> in Australia, we have an annual Linux conference; it started in '99, missed a year, continued in 2001 and has been annual since then <aj> I was on the organising team for it in 2002 (we had about 250-300 people), and have been more or less involved in most of them since then <aj> the focus of the conference is basically "it's too hard to travel to Europe for most of us to see all their cool talks, ditto America, so let's bring them out here" <aj> in 2002 we also started running a debian Miniconf, which attracted about 100 people, mostly debian users rather than developers, and has continued ever year since too <aj> it's different to debconf, since it's more about talks and users than hacking and developers, but is quite interesting <aj> it just strikes me that Bosnia/the Balkans are in a similar situation, and maybe a similar solution would be interesting; I know a few people I've talked to who are in favour of edi for dc7, also think that a "linux.conf.balkans" every year would be a fascinating event <vedran_sjj> aj: interesting idea, but it's a bit hard to think about that when we don't know if we will host DebConf or not 4. Orga team comments stockholm commented: I asked sponsors if they would sponsor either debconf or Sarajevo when asking for sponsorship last time around. And they consider both "Europe" and would sponsor. e.g. the big providers in Germany etc. gwolf commented: As for the local teams, the EDI team looks more responsible/grown-up, and I must acknowledge their balance - even on looking on Sarajevo information when the other team could not answer something The SJJ team looks very enthusiastic, and they (claim to - should we believe them? I do at least :) ) have experience on other non-Debconf conferences - Now, as for my experience here, no conference gets you ready for Debconf... But still :) Both venues have great installations, but I think the Terme hotel provides a more comfortable setting where we will be able to sit and work mooch commented: nokia will probably not have a problem with the venue, in terms of sponsorship marga commented: It is the opinion of several people (mooch is the one raising it at this moment), that should the conference happen in SJJ, Safir might not be the best person to lead the group since it needs a lot of cold blood and controlled spirit not to break apart, and he has demonstrated to be too influenced by personal feelings and attacking attitude during the process. aj followed up: The term "impulsive" maybe have appeared too; I'd just like to say that I've been very impressed by the excitement and enthusiasm of the sjj team, and while I think that has boiled over into taking offence unnecessarily now and then, it's that sort of passion that makes these sorts of conferences great otoh, actually running them tends to teach you hot to deal with those sorts of reactions, because you get so stressed out you have to learn one way or another amar responded: The Bosnian team consists of 27 people. Safir initiated everything but the DebConf will be handled by the TEAM. 5. Weigh up bids against priorities It was decided to rate the venues against the priority list above, with venues having a strong or slight advantage. The final list is as follows: 1. Equal 2. EDI strong(ish) advantage 3. Equal 4. EDI slight advantage 5. EDI slight advantage 6. SJJ strong advantage 7. Equal 8. EDI strong advantage 9. Equal 6. Decision DebConf 2007 will be held in Edinburgh Meeting closes 22:40 UTC
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