Re: Call for hosts for GUADEC 2009

[Hubert Figuiere <hub figuiere net>]

On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 15:12 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 14:43 -0400, Hubert Figuiere wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-04-22 at 14:03 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> > > 
> > > Except that we have been advertising it as "GUADEC, The GNOME
> > > Conference" for the past couple of years.  Maybe we should make that
> > > official.
> > > 
> > > About GUADEC out of Europe, that's fine as long as the place is Ok for
> > > travel.  Bangalore has the same problem that US has.  Too far...  That
> > > said, I love to see GUADEC '11 in Morocco for example...
> > 
> > The thing is that so far, having it in Europe makes it more for European
> > people given the price of airfare. Note also that Summer is probably the
> > worst period to get cheaper travel, so all in all it seems to be made to
> > prevent people out of Europe from attending en masse [1].
> 
> Not true.  Travel finances should not be a decision factor for any
> regular GNOME contributor.

But it is. Including with sponsorship is it currently mean advancing an
uncertain amount of money of an uncertain amount of month (like until 2
month after the conference). It may be easy for some, less easy for
other. FYI, today flying to Instanbul from the closest major airport
(YUL in my case) would cost me $1500. It is likely to be in a similar
ball-park for others in North America, at least on the eastern side.

Also the price of airfare also impact the involvement of corporate
entities that tend to have a somewhat fixed budget for this kind of
things, the more is the airfare, the less people are likely to come on
these grounds.

It is just the reality. The sponsorship mechanism is great but it is not
the golden hammer that makes everything go away.


Hub