Re: [guadec-list] Registration fees

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad cs toronto edu>]

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006, Danilo Šegan wrote:

> Hi Behdad,
>
> Yesterday at 22:26, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
>
> > So, no, GUADEC is not expensive.  It's just not a free trade
> > show.  If somebody is hesitant to pay like $50 to attend GUADEC,
> > I'm not sure it's the best show^wconference for them to go to.
> >
> > Same thing about accomodation...
>
> You're way over your head now.  Average salary in Serbia is around
> €150/month, and it's not about whether I am hesistant to pay that,
> it's whether I'll be able to earn 250 for the flight, 200 for the
> accomodation, 50 for registration and a couple hundred for beer, food
> and other expenses while there.

That may be true about Serbia, or Iran, but I doubt it holds for
say UK, France, Germany, or US and Canada.  If I was in Iran and
going to GUADEC, I would have been happy way over my head
already, but no I didn't really think about taking a couple of
friends.  And of course it would be a year-long project to sort
the thing (flight, visa, payment, ...) sorted out.

Maybe we can subsidize the registration fee.  I'm almost sure
most of the people coming from countries with a more expensive
currenty are willing to pay the 30 euros.  By reducing it, we may
help the %20 that appreciate the reduction, but lose the
difference from the other %80.  It's the wrong thing to optimize
for anyway, as it hardly would be %10 of your total cost, so you
cannot save more than %10 by cutting it :).  A good deal on
accomodation can completely offset the registration fee.


> Granted, I make a bit more than €150/month as a programmer, but I'd be
> glad to take a couple of friends with me to GUADEC as well: they would
> probably become much more interested in Gnome, but giving out 600
> euros is not common for people I hang out with.

Well, it's not like I'm getting thousands of dollars every month,
for the past few years I've hardly got more than enough to pay
for rent and regular living expenses, but that doesn't mean I
agree reg. fee should be reduced to 20 euros instead of 30
euros :).  That cuts %33 of the registration fee income for
GUADEC.  I can ask for a half-price registration instead
personally.



> Cheers,
> Danilo

--behdad
http://behdad.org/

"Commandment Three says Do Not Kill, Amendment Two says Blood Will Spill"
	-- Dan Bern, "New American Language"