Hi!
It would be nice having definitive dates for DebConf9 for the sake of everybody wanting to plan the holidays. So far we have this: http://debconf9.debconf.org/dates.xhtml Thursday 16 - start DebCamp ... Wednesday 22 - Arrival day Thursday 23 - 1st Day of DebConf Friday 24 - 2nd Day of DebConf Saturday 25 - Open DebConf day (formerly known as Debian Day) Sunday 26 - Day trip Monday 27 - 3rd Day of DebcConf Tuesday 28 - 4th idem Wednesday 29 - 5th idem Thursday 30 - 6th idem Friday 31 - Departure day We can not have the venue in August, so we are forced to end DebConf on the 31th (departure day). Usually we had DebConf from Sunday to Saturday, minimizing the days people have to ask for vacation in their paid jobs [1] and the money spent in lodging/food. Both are very important points. [1] This works better for people coming from the same continent, but it also can mean at least 1 day less from people coming from other continents. Where I see a problem here is in having the Open Day in the middle of Debconf, it makes DebConf one day longer than usual. I understand the goal of having the Open Day in Saturday is having more attends, but I am not completely sure this will be the case: - it is summer, and given the temperature people in the weekend go to a colder place, you might be a geek, but you have friends/partnerts that are not. - in july some people is in holidays, and if they stay in extremadura, they do not care if the open day is in workday or weekend. - if it is a normal work day for you, and your work is free software-related, you might get at least half-day paid off to go to some talks. - maybe better transportation to the place in a workday (we should remember it is summer and usually there is less transport) Also and we should study if it is worth it in the extra money it will cost us (food+lodging) and having some contributors show up in saturday 25th because they can not afford take so many days off from work. I think by now my proposal is quite clear: Thursday 16 - start DebCamp ... Thursday 23 - Open Debconf day / Arrival day Friday 24 - 1st Day of DebConf Saturday 25 - 2nd Day of DebConf Sunday 26 - Day trip Monday 27 - 3rd Day of DebcConf Tuesday 28 - 4th idem Wednesday 29 - 5th idem Thursday 30 - 6th idem Friday 31 - Departure day And I am sure we'll still have people missing the beginning of DebConf, but nothing can be done against that. At least, they will miss a day less of talks. Alternatives are: - kill Day trip - kill day trip, Open Day in thursday 23 (interesting in case of budget problems). - Day trip in the same day than Open Day. But i am not sure we want any of these. Extra point: minimizing the days can be also important in case some people does not stand well the high temperatures. I mean here people getting slight health problems. High temperatures will be annoying for everybody but they can be tolerated with some care (we already had this in Mexico and we survived). All this is very conditioned to the opinion of the localteam, and if they have/need do DebConf day in a certain day. Just my thoughts. Ana _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
