(Please CC me on responses - I'm not subscribed to debian-devel currently.)
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 06:55:22PM +0100, Vincent Bernat wrote: > OoO Pendant le temps de midi du mercredi 25 février 2009, vers 12:45, > martin f krafft <madd...@debconf.org> disait : > > > In eleven years of DebConf history, this will be the first time > > that the Debian developer conference takes place in the United > > States of America, which had been avoided in previous years due to > > visa and other immigration issues. The NYC team had addressed those > > issues from the very start and submitted a very convincing bid. > > Out of curiosity, how those issues will be handled? Martin may have left the wrong impression. We don't have the issues fully solved, and of course can no more make guarantees that there won't be visa or border hassles than the Mexico local team was able to for DebConf6 (the first year where visas became an issue). What he meant was that we've started discussing, researching, and explaining the issues; building connections with people who can help us navigate the bureaucracy and figure out the real truth; and planning ways to reduce the hassles and ease the paperwork of getting any necessary visa and then entering the US. We have some information from during the bid process here: http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/NewYork/VisaAndBorderIssues The Boston bid, which also would have been in the US, has a few additional thoughts on their bid page: http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/Boston#Visa.2FImmigration.2FLocale_Issues Further, we're definitely going to be giving people invitation letters and other advice to make sure they present themselves in the best (accurate) light they can to the visa or border officials, as well as separate exaggeration from fact with regard to border search and other privacy concerns so that people can make rational decisions based on reality instead of sensationalism. More details will be provided at the DebConf10 presentation in Caceres at DebConf9, if not sooner. - Jimmy Kaplowitz ji...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
