On 27.06.22 17:34, Jonathan Carter wrote:
This had mixed results, for one, people who had their visa's covered in the past may have been surprised to learn that this time round they suddenly had to pay $100-200 that they thought would have been covered. Furthermore, visa requirements tend to affect people from less privileged countries the most. If we're serious about diversity, I think that we should include covering the visa fee if we offer travel+accommodation by default, and that this should be the default for DebConf going forward, and ideally for all Debian events.
A conference is about rendering us all mostly equal - some location, same food, same discussions. Diversity would also include those who cannot travel, or who cannot travel alone. I am fine with paying all travel-associated costs, but not because of diversity, please. Just call if "fairness" or "equal opportunity" or whatever.
I realise I have some bias here, I myself come from a country where I need a visa nearly everywhere I want to travel to, but I do think that including visa fees by default will help making Debian easier to contribute to for people who come from such countries, and ultimately have a small role in helping us expand to more areas and improve our diversity.
You mean global coverage. I agree that it would help the project to have direct contacts to many regions in the world. Best, Steffen
