Re: Minutes of the Foundation Board, 1st May

[Allan Day <aday gnome org>]

Hey Germán,

Sorry for not replying sooner.

Germán Poo-Caamaño <gpoo gnome org> wrote:
> On Thu, 2018-05-03 at 12:54 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> > Germán Poo-Caamaño <gpoo gnome org> wrote:
> > ...
> > > FWIW, processing times for events like GUADEC are not usually
> > > processed before the talks have been accepted. They cannot, as the
> > > speakers have preference, and budget is limited.
> >
> > That's a good point. Maybe we could look into how the budgets are
> > allocated for this.
>
> I do not follow. I would expect to have the CfP and the results
> earlier.
>
> That said, there has been coordination between the Travel Committee,
> and the Papers Committee before, to save some days.
>
> The issue usually is: budget for GUADEC sponsorship used to be $30,000
> for many years, and the amount requested was always over $40,000 or
> $50,000. So, you have to decide how to allocate it.

I don't particularly want to get into the fine detail here, and I'd
sooner defer to others regarding how the schedules and logistics stack
up. My point was that, if the budget for travel is a limiting factor,
that's something that the board could look at.

...
> "Twice as long" might depend on the context. If the flight usually
> takes 1 hour, an extra hour is twice the time but not the end of the
> world. But for a flight that usually takes 8 to 10 hours, 16 to 20
> hours may be way too much, or a connecting flight that require to stay
> overnight in an airport... unless there is no other reasonable option.

A lot of those considerations are covered by the Foundation's staff
travel policy, I think.

> > Regarding applicants not doing their homework, the Foundation staff
> > travel policy also specifies that the traveller should do a price
> > comparison search and save the results. Maybe this could be a way to
> > check whether the homework has been done or not...
>
> Usually it is easy to spot them (it is just like any bug report :-)
> That just add burden to the Travel Committee. The less precise the
> information entered, the more communication is needed.

What I had in mind was a procedure where the applicant would be
required to provide evidence of the searches they've done. For
example, the applicant could provide a screenshot of their Kayak
search. This could potentially speed up the process. Either way, it's
something for the Travel Committee to decide on.

Allan