On 05/09/12 09:31, Holger Levsen wrote: > Hi, > > On Dienstag, 4. September 2012, Daniel Pocock wrote: >>> no. We only count money (or directly valuable ressources, usually things) >>> into account for sponsoring. >>> >>> (I guesstimate) Half of the orgateam is freelancing, listing them as >>> sponsors is... pointless or even totally besides the point. >> Not completely pointless - it encourages more companies to follow the >> example of sending people on work time. >> >> Of course, if every company did that, and no company sends cash, there >> would be a problem: maybe just give 50% discount on sponsorship > > ok, to be clearer: its not just pointless or besides the point, its outright > harmful. (Starting with this discussion even...)
If someone makes a contribution to Debian or DebConf, why is it harmful to recognise them? I'm not suggesting special privileges for anyone - did I ever suggest, for example, that such sponsors (if that is what they are) could have their bugs fixed faster? > To illustrate my point: do you think holgerlevsen.de should have been a gold > sponsor for debconf12? Given my monetary contributions (I paid 2 flights) > plus > my time involvement (and my rates) I definitly contributed 20k€ value. > (And there are quite some people like me... working hard and paying to be > able > to do so.) > > And I don't think this should qualify as sponsorship at all. It (the money) > could have been sponsorship if I gave the flight money to the sponsorsteam > (for them to decide how to spend it) and not have bought tickets for myself. > > Having work rewarded as sponsorship creates (at least) two big problems: > > - is my work more valuable for DebConf, just because I happen to live in an > area where the rates are higher? </rhetorical question> (Or taking this > further: "If you value my work so little, why should I work for you?") > > - we need to make those companies who actually give *money* to stand out as > sponsors. Having 50 other sponsors all contributing foo+bar blurries this > *heavily* and makes aquiring sponsors even harder. That is why I suggested there may simply be a sponsorship `discount' for companies who give benefit-in-kind. 50% was not a recommendation, just a number to encourage discussion - maybe just a 10% discount would be a nice `thank you' to such companies. Does that imply we place a value on the hours each company contributes? While I understand all of your points, I also think we should look at it from the other side: - Company A chooses to hire DDs, let them attend DebConf on work time, maybe even pay their travel bill - Company B hires developers to work on Linux, doesn't share any code with the community, gives the developers no travel allowances unless they can prove the event is `unavoidable' or `essential' for the business I've worked for both types of company A and company B. I've also worked for a company B that was exploring the idea of becoming a company A. Should it be encouraged? Should we give such companies a `nod', even if it is just a little one? On 05/09/12 08:24, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote: > > What we need is not "more professional people for less money", it's "more > professional money to be able to bring more non-professional people" IMHO. > How does that conflict with my own suggestion? I was thinking that those people who come to DebConf on company time are hopefully able to get re-imbursed the professional rate and/or their own travel expenses. At the end of the day, any attempt to offer such a discount should be backed by some evidence that (a) more people overall and (b) nobody `misses' a place at DebConf because someone else came with company help _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
