Hi, People are denied travel sponsorship every year. This year, it included a very active Debian community member, Clint Adams. I am further disappointed in this decision as Clint was key to DebConf10. I don't think Clint should be left out like this. The argument from the travel sponsorship team will be "excluded on a technicality", but I (and others) do not care: If the team can not manage to give money to the most deserving people, regardless of technicalities, I think the team isn't doing its job.
I am not alone in thinking this. I know of at least five people (myself, at least one sponsor, and some attendees) whom are willing to give our own money to DebConf in order to fund Clint's travel cost. I think this sufficiently negates the "technicality" argument: if we are willing to give our own money because we believe something is right, then that special-use money doesn't need to care about technicalities, it is outside of that process. Thus, I don't want this to turn into a debate about the function of the travel sponsorship team (that is later, during the BOF on the topic). Some of us would just like to make a donation, additional sponsorship, or donate some of our travel sponsorship in order to fund Clint's travel. All we are asking is that we be able to funnel this money through DebConf, since attendees paying other attendees directly is rather sketchy. There is more than enough money already to fund this scheme, but I will ask the broader DebConf community if anyone else would like to donate to reduce the impact on each of us. It is possible there could be other groups of people who would like to join this scheme, to fund other attendees whom have been denied DebConf money. So my question: Will DebConf authorize this transaction? There will be no extra expense to DebConf, this is money donated for a specific purpose, not much different than getting a sponsor to fund a day trip or something like that. (Aside: Clearly, I will be the one tracking this money movement. I am obviously more than happy to do this, but I need outside approval, as the same person should not track money and approve it.) The fact that I am even writing this email indicates serious breakdown in the system. These breakdown have been complained about for years. As a positive solution to this problem, Phil Hands and I are hoping to revamp the travel sponsorship team next year, based on the desires expressed by the DebConf community at the BOF we have proposed, and being as transparent and communicative about our team as possible. At the very least, if we do not change the process, we can be more transparent. We can't take over a team ourselves, but we hope our proposal, whatever it is, is well received. Thank you for your consideration, - Richard -- | Richard Darst - rkd@ - boltzmann: up 729 days, 2:29 | http://rkd.zgib.net - pgp 0xBD356740 | "Ye shall know the truth and -- the truth shall make you free" _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
