On Thu, Jul 08, 2010 at 02:51:27AM -0400, Pablo Duboue wrote: > Sorry nobody has answered your e-mail and even more sorry I'll attempt > to answer it myself.
Ditto :-) Also, it seems to me that the budget situation of dc10 got a
lot better, so having this exchange is probably no longer needed, but
I'd like to clarify a couple of things. Thanks for your reply!
> First, from where I stand, the DC9 money were earmarked donations to
> the Debian project, so sure, it is Debian money. But it was money the
<snip>
> Now, to the point of whether we consider funds in general as DebConf's
> vs. Debian's, I think the key issue here is continuity. Sadly, the
I appreciate your reasoning, but I'd like to re-iterate that I don't
think it's appropriate to have this discussion right now, mixing it with
the stress we all are under and with the pressure of the deadline of
dc10 coming soon. Nor I see the urgency of having this discussion. So
I'm really happy that Holger submitted an appropriate event in Penta (to
be discussed at the very end of the conference, when we'll all be
hopefully :) way more relaxed).
> the time-frame for organizing DebConf doesn't blend itself very well
> with the DPL time-frame.
That's true and we can do very little to change that. Still, I'm a big
fan of documentation and I believe that if we manage to clarify the
relationships and write it down somewhere, it will make the problem of
period mismatch very much irrelevant.
> It is then a great (unpleasant) surprise to receive an e-mail from you
> wanting to discuss these topics. This is a (possible) reason why it
> makes sense to consider the pools of money as separate as possible...
> to reduce "surprises".
Well, I'm very sorry about that, because I realize only now that my mail
might have induced some additional pressure to the DC10 team, but again
I didn't want to discussed that point with that mail, as written in it.
It's clear that from this mail of yours that you (at least, but I guess
others in DC10 team too) did not get that I *didn't* want to have that
discussion. I wonder what more I could have done, in addition to saying
that explicitly, to avoid letting that message pass through.
> Moreover, our finances for DC10 have improved quite a bit (with plenty
> of help from you, thanks!) so at this stage all we are asking from
> Debian is to help some key contributors make it to the conference. At
> this time, I personally do not think that is too much to ask and it is
> in line with other investments the project usually makes.
As I believe it was clear from further messages of mine (both on this
list and on IRC), for me getting people to the conference is *the* top
priority. Please understand however that I couldn't have lightly added
more Debian money to the table, without having some kind of reassurement
that the DC10 team was doing whatever possible to cut costs elsewhere;
in fact that was precisely one of the main question of my mail. I didn't
asked you to cut a specific amount or impose any other specific decision
(because I believe it is inappropriate for the DPL to interfere in such
a way, IMHO), I just asked to be reassured on the fact that the team was
doing its best to cut costs elsewhere, not a lot more than that.
In that respect, I kudos the DC10 team, because the meeting I attended
(in spite of all the criticisms it got) has shown a lot of
responsibility in cutting costs, not only to fund queues A/B, but only
to increase the overheads for future conferences.
> I welcome the idea of having a clear, firm, stated policy about what
> to expect with respect to DebConf/Debian funds, but if you want to
> have that discussion right now, it gives the impression you are just
> using the fact that there are Debian contributors awaiting for travel
> funding as a way to have an upper hand in the negotiation table.
A final comment on this. I like to think of myself as a transparent
person: I usually think what I say (or write); when I negotiate I'm very
clear on the fact that I'm negotiating and vocal on which are the
conditions I start from. In this case, it was not my intention to
negotiate at all; I believe the relationships with DebConf teams to be
good enough to decide together. Still it is (unfortunately) my call to
decide when to use Debian money and it's just normal for me to ask for
explanations before giving money. Bottom line: I didn't want to have
that discussion now in the first place, therefore (vacuously) I didn't
want to have that discussion to raise the bar.
I took the time to write all this because from your mail I got the
impression that you perceived my initial mail as somehow adversarial,
while I did not write it that way. I'm very sorry about that and I
apologize if the tone of my mail was inappropriate. My intention was
just to share some concerns/fears and gathering the opinion of the DC10
team on the matter. Nothing more than that.
So, Pablo, thanks for this exchange, I believe it's important to share
this kind of feelings to avoid leaving behind bad feelings and,
ultimately, working more productively together to have a wonderful
DebConf10. See you in NYC really soon now!
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...........| ..: |.... Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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