Re: [Debconf-team] [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA
On 16/03/13 04:07, micah anderson wrote: > Gunnar Wolf writes: >> USA, the eternal debate >> === > >> There is also this tradition we have of not repeating countries. Of >> course, being the USA such a large country, and being its Debian >> population so large, I would not give much weight to the argument, but >> I have seen it mentioned on IRC. > > The west coast of the USA is basically a different country, the only But the visa nightmare is still the same - if the bid team are willing to pay for the 0900 calls, I will be happy to set up a WebRTC web-app that allows people to call the embassy 0900 numbers indirectly (via the DebConf-team phone account) so participants don't have to lose their own money on this. I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but on my last visit to the US, authorities were systematically fingerprinting everybody who got off the plane. I've seen the US problems from both sides of the equation, I am personally eligible for the Visa Waiver Program and the E-3 working visa should I ever want to live in the US. On the other hand, I've worked with people who have been completely unable to get to the US for business matters representing their European employers, simply because they were born in a non-VWP country before coming to Europe. My own observation in such cases is that the embassy officials ask them to call an expensive 0900 number, then ask for money in the bank account, then the person has to take time off work to travel to a US embassy, they have to pay for a locker at the train station to leave their mobile phone (because mobile phones are now banned in US embassies) and then when they finally do go inside for their appointment, it is like a lottery. The US visa rejection statistics are quoted in the DC10 wiki, but I think those statistics are misleading, because many people who feel they are not rich enough to qualify don't even bother to apply. It would be very interesting to know if the bid includes a provision to fully compensate people for all costs involved in this process, regardless of outcome. Even after people get a visa, they can be refused at the border. Technically, the US law says that border agents must assume all visitors are intending to stay and rejecting them is therefore the `default' decision. Europe, for example, says that the border guard can only refuse somebody if there is evidence of an `imminent threat to security', and the default is to admit them. This distinction in the default action is a very fundamental difference. The bid itself doesn't specify anything about the above, it just gives a link to DC10, which leaves me feeling that the bid team has underestimated the seriousness of these issues. https://www.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/VisaAndBorderIssues Just to put another angle on this: people who want to travel with a spouse, etc, may have further complications if one person is eligible for VWP and the other person is not. My own feeling: countries like the US and Australia shouldn't bother holding major events like DebConf, it would be better to run a big local event that takes place in addition to the annual DebConf, e.g. a super-size-mini-DebConf, possibly between DC13 and DC14, but with the global focus remaining on a destination that welcomes people indiscriminately. ___ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
Re: [Debconf-team] [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA
On 03/16/2013 10:27 AM, Daniel Pocock wrote: > > The bid itself doesn't specify anything about the above, it just gives a > link to DC10, which leaves me feeling that the bid team has > underestimated the seriousness of these issues. > https://www.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/VisaAndBorderIssues The DebConf10 wiki page covered it thoroughly (including commentary from different perspectives), so linking to that page seemed more sensible than repeating all the info in the DebConf14 proposal. I ran a 3000 attendee free software conference in the US from 2005-2010, and have helped organize other smaller US-based free software conferences for over a decade, and visas have never been a statistically significant factor. There are a few odd cases, it's true, but they're rare. It helps to have a letter of invitation from the conference, and I'm happy to put in the extra hours to draft those for anyone who wants them. Allison ___ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
Re: [Debconf-team] [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA
On 16/03/13 19:56, Allison Randal wrote: > On 03/16/2013 10:27 AM, Daniel Pocock wrote: >> >> The bid itself doesn't specify anything about the above, it just gives a >> link to DC10, which leaves me feeling that the bid team has >> underestimated the seriousness of these issues. >> https://www.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/VisaAndBorderIssues > > The DebConf10 wiki page covered it thoroughly (including commentary from > different perspectives), so linking to that page seemed more sensible > than repeating all the info in the DebConf14 proposal. > > I ran a 3000 attendee free software conference in the US from 2005-2010, > and have helped organize other smaller US-based free software > conferences for over a decade, and visas have never been a statistically > significant factor. There are a few odd cases, it's true, but they're rare. Every member of the Debian community, and their contribution to the project, is valued. That `odd case' is, in Europe, treated like a human being, because that is what they are. I agree that a lot of events do run successfully in the US with a large attendance and I suspect a Portland DebConf would be quite large and successful too, but please excuse me for taking a moment to reflect on the plight of those people who wouldn't be there to share in it. ___ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
Re: [Debconf-team] [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA
On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 06:27:30PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote: > My own feeling: countries like the US and Australia shouldn't bother > holding major events like DebConf ... The visas and border problems are not limited to US and Australia and what we have to check every year is we have the resources to help the people in the best way possible. This also means sometimes sponsoring visas processes when they're expensive. Back in DC6, IIRC brazilians had a bad time to get their visas. Moray spent a quite amount of time helping people when DC7. I don't remember anything about DC8, but that doesn't mean nothing happened. In Dc9, I know government invitations were issued and sent by post mail. In DC10, there was an email alias with a lawyer specialized on this reading behind. Ask to our taiwanese contributors about DC11... etc ___ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
Re: [Debconf-team] [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA
On 16/03/13 20:21, Ana Guerrero wrote: > On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 06:27:30PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote: >> My own feeling: countries like the US and Australia shouldn't bother >> holding major events like DebConf ... > > The visas and border problems are not limited to US and Australia And sometimes even the US and Australia hassle each others' citizens[1]. > and what we have to check every year is we have the resources to > help the people in the best way possible. This also means sometimes > sponsoring visas processes when they're expensive. If the local team could more thoroughly acknowledge those efforts+expenses and document that in the bid it would probably give some reassurance. However, if DebConf were to apply the same principles that inspire the DFSG, then it would never be able to go to the US or Australia, because of things like the fingerprinting and all that other nonsense. The complications of the US system are always growing too, e.g. they do a lot of data sharing with the UK now. Anybody wrongly arrested in the UK (see [2] and [3] to see just how common this is) is on a database and risks being denied access to the VWP or denied entry at the US border. No other country has such intricate data sharing/snooping arrangements in place, it is in areas like this that the US visa process really is unique. > Back in DC6, IIRC brazilians had a bad time to get their visas. Moray spent > a quite amount of time helping people when DC7. I don't remember anything > about DC8, but that doesn't mean nothing happened. In Dc9, I know government > invitations were issued and sent by post mail. In DC10, there was an email > alias with a lawyer specialized on this reading behind. Ask to our taiwanese > contributors about DC11... etc 1. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/blow-to-whaling-campaign-sea-shepherd-pilot-denied-visa-20111206-1ogh9.html 2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/7940486.stm 3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/08/olympics-spectator-parkinsons-arrest-smiling ___ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
[Debconf-team] brave new world (Re: [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA)
Hi Daniel, please don't "freak out" too much about this border/visa/database issue and be assured that we - as a team - are very well aware of those issues, also because we discussed them at length for debconf10, and not much has changed since them. And like every year, each bid and each choosen bid will alienate some people and as such will also prevent some from coming. Sometimes more, sometimes less people, but there will always be some. "Remember" dc13? ;) (or 12, 11, 10, 9...0) (And surely, we need to consider these facts and effects, but unless they prevent a really big group from coming, we shouldn't consider such issues as blocker.) On Samstag, 16. März 2013, Daniel Pocock wrote: > On 16/03/13 20:21, Ana Guerrero wrote: > > On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 06:27:30PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote: > >> My own feeling: countries like the US and Australia shouldn't bother > >> holding major events like DebConf ... > > > > The visas and border problems are not limited to US and Australia Ana is totally right here. The EU is really not much better in this regard (eg happily sharing inner-european flight data with the US - Germany has just proposed to establish the same online visa system the US uses), China, Singapure and other asian countries are also storing data electronically, (very probably, havent checked, including fingerprints). This is a (IMO sad) world wide trend, which we cannot escape: even if we'd choose to hold DebConfs in some last-free country most people would need to travel there _from_ these "surveilance states" and thus deliver their fingerprints (and/or other biometric data) to get passports issued needed for traveling. > However, if DebConf were to apply the same principles that inspire the > DFSG, then it would never be able to go to the US or Australia, because > of things like the fingerprinting and all that other nonsense. I don't see how the DFSG is in the way of collecting fingerprints. It's perfectly acceptable (according to the letters of the DFSG) to create a 1984 like survailance state with free software - actually we consider software to be non-free if it's licence doesnt allow it to be used to build such a survailance state. So, to summarize: these problems aint new, but rather well known and we will need to life with them, unless we'd want to turn DebConf into a virtual conference (which I dont.) cheers from "the land of the free", Holger P.S.: please also see http://www.tinychan.org/img/1328489021478010.jpg if you are worried about 1984... ___ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
Re: [Debconf-team] [DC14] Portland team: DebConf in the USA
Hi Gunnar, On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 07:26:26PM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote: > And as the mails I just sent, some salient questions for you: > USA, the eternal debate > === > First, there's the obvious issue of going to the USA. Several European > DebConf usual attendees voiced their opposition (and some didn't > travel) to DebConf10, and several non-first-world will probably have a > hard time getting the visa. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to address this question. I am aware that there are Europeans involved in Debian who were conscientious objectors to DC10 being held in the US; and I applaud their opposition to modern oppressive travel regimes and respect their personal choice to not travel to conferences in the US. However, making this a DebConf-level issue is a deplorable double-standard: - Governments and airlines of EU nations are complicit in the enforcement of the US's invasive security rules. - The EU is not more friendly to visitors from (arbitrary) developing countries than the US is. - The (logistical and monetary) costs for getting a visa to the EU if you must apply for one are not substantially different from those for getting a visa to the US. - While the US immigration regime differs in some relevant details from that in the EU, such as the fingerprinting requirement, the broad strokes of the policies are the same. The only thing unique about DebConf in the US has been the vocalness of objections. I'm sure there were people who chose not to attend DebConf11 in Bosnia, who chose not to attend DebConf12 in Nicaragua, and who would choose not to attend a DebConf14 in Venezuela because they disapprove of one aspect or another of these countries' government/policies. However, any such boycotts did not prevent us from holding a successful DebConf in Bosnia, in Nicaragua, or in New York; they would not prevent DebConf from being a success in Venezuela if that's what the DebConf committee chooses; and they would not prevent the success of a DebConf in Portland. None of this is meant to downplay the significance of visa difficulties for those affected. But we should address these challenges pragmatically, not polemically, as part of the broader question of making DebConf a success. When weighed against the cost of gathering people in one place from all over the world, the visa expenses are very small, and there are certainly things that DebConf could do to level the playing field: in addition to the local team providing visa assistance (as Allison has already commented, and which I would consider a normal part of any DebConf bid), we could also consider visa application fees a sponsorable travel expense just like plane tickets are. When you consider the map of Debian developer locations[1], I think it's obvious that we can be more cost-effective with our travel budget by sponsoring visas for developers to come into the US from Latin America, than by sponsoring plane tickets for developers in Canada and the US down to Venezuela. [1] http://www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc Oh, and just to throw in some numbers: according to [2], 825 of 920 active Debian developers (90%) live in countries whose citizens are eligible for travel to the US without a visa. That includes the 37 visa waiver program countries listed on [3], as well as the US and Canada. It does not include Mexico, for which (as you know) the US has its own particular system of visas valid for 10 years. [2] http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2012/06/06 [3] http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html > There is also this tradition we have of not repeating countries. Of > course, being the USA such a large country, and being its Debian > population so large, I would not give much weight to the argument, but > I have seen it mentioned on IRC. There are many good reasons to move the conference around from year to year: it removes the risk of burning out a local team, it gives us an opportunity to reach out to different local sponsors (avoiding to bleed any of them dry), and it lets us make the conference geographically fair to attendees in the aggregate. But these are factors we should consider because *they make for a better DebConf*, and not out of blind adherence to a "tradition" to never repeat a country. A policy to never repeat a country couldn't work indefinitely; sooner or later we would run out of unique countries with credible hosting bids. While we should still try to vary the hosting location, we should certainly not try to to enforce a "once per country" rule. As for Portland in particular, it's been 4 years since the last DebConf in the US. Taken altogether, we've had two DebConfs in South America (Porto Alegre, Mar del Plata); two in "Central" America (Oaxtepec, Managua); and two in "North" America (Toronto, New York). In terms of geographic equality, I think there's no clear reason to prefer one bid over the other. And Portland is over 3,0
