Re: GNOME Travel Committee & Travel Policy: A proposal for consideration and feedback

[Sven Herzberg <herzi gnome-de org>]

Am Dienstag, den 17.02.2009, 21:35 -0300 schrieb Bruno Boaventura:
> Hey Stormy, Dave and Claudio!
> 
> >> Seriously, I don't like this. Telling a student who's been contributing
> >> on his free time to the project that he needs to request special
> >> consideration if he can't afford those 200 € could even cause him not to
> >> apply at all.
> >>
> >> I think GUADEC is a special kind of conference in the sense it needs to
> >> be inclusive, specially for people who is not so integrated in the
> >> community and for whom attending may have a huge impact on their
> >> involvement. Maybe hackfests and other local conferences may suit better
> >> for the approach you propose, but definitively not GUADEC.
> 
> I'm with Claudio on this issue. Last year I could not go to GUADEC if
> I had to pay 200 € (wait to be reimbursed has been difficult). GUADEC
> should be a special case.

I totally agree here: I got an invitation of Tim Ney in 2003 to get to
GUADEC Dublin, the foundation covered all of my expences for GUADEC in
Kristiansand, they paid all but the fuel for my Stuttgart trip and they
paid the accomodation and flight for my Vilanova trip.

None of these 4 trips would have been possible with having to pay 200
EUR for each trip. Especially students are _very_ short on money, so
maybe we should separate students from other people regarding the way
the y are treated, but I'm all with Claudio and Bruno in this
argumentation. I prefer to have 30 students who cannot affort to pay
anything at GUADEC than 90 who can pay 200 EUR (making up numbers here
to show how I think).

Regards,
  Sven