Re: [guadec-list] Registration Fees for GUADEC 2007

[Paul Cooper <pgc openadvantage org>]

Hi Benjamin,

----- "Benjamin Otte" <otte gnome org> wrote:
> On 5/17/07, David Schlesinger <lefty access-company com> wrote:
> >
> >  This bothers me on several levels. First, it's a conference, as
> near as I
> > can tell. It says it is, first of all, it's GUADEC rather than
> GUADEP.
> > Second, it clearly does very conference-like things. Third, I
> couldn't
> > possibly justify taking a week's vacation on my employer's dime to
> go to "a
> > party".
> >
> It says "meet, plan, party" on the GUADEC web page. So I've been
> under
> the impression that "partying" was a big part of why I go there

OK, so now I'm confused. Are you objecting to the semasiology of the word 'party' in our marketing (as it would seem now) or a foundational principle of GUADEC, whether registration is mandatory, regardless of exactly what type of event it is (what I understood previously). Put another way, if we simply removed the work party from the GUADEC site would it be ok to have mandatory payment?

> I've actually just spent a while looking through Wikipedia and
> reading
> about what it thinks conferences, parties, summits or conventions and
> reflected GUADEC and other Free Software meetings, in particular the
> Ubuntu Developer Summit I recently attended.

Now this isn't fair - upto this point you had quite precise and narrow meanings and expectations linked to particular words; party & conference. You're now comparing a Summit to something that's either a conference or a party - in my understanding the correct comparisons would be GUADEC <-> Ubuntu Live ($645.00 minimum reg btw) and UDS <-> Boston Summit (both free AFAIK - I haven't been to either).

> I think (and this is going to be very subjective now) that all other
> conferences have been a lot more focused on results than GUADECs. UDS
> for example is focused on producing "blueprints" [1] that specify
> further progress in Ubuntu. Other conferences focused on presenting
> various products.

The productivity of GUADEC is a separate discussion from whether we should have a mandatory charge. Feel free to start a separate thread on foundation-list (because it's too late for this year; format, speakers, keynotes, etc already organised). Again I don't think you're being fair - what is the productive outcome of Ubuntu Live likely be? Also I can absolutely guarantee that there will be parties at Ubuntu Live - but their tripleverb - Listen. Discuss. Learn. - is aurguably better than ours.

[snip]
> I have no clue about the financial situation of GUADEC, but I don't
> think me or even 100 people paying 10 pounds or not will make a huge
> difference in the budget of the conference. In the original
> announcement it was hinted that the money was only necessary because
> you "simply cannot afford to have people register, pay nothing and
> then not turn up". [2]

You're not accounting properly for no shows. If someone registers and then doesn't show up then it costs us around 50 pounds (ok I haven't spent long working this out but it's probably about right) not to mention the wasted organisational overhead. So yes we tried to choose the minimum charge that was still psychologically significant enough that people would think twice before booking on a whim and then not showing up on a whim.

> >  GUADEC is an event for the whole GNOME community. If making it
> possible for
> > the whole GNOME community to attend leads to a compromise where
> those who
> > can afford to contribute are asked to, and stipends are made
> available to
> > those who can't afford to contribute (but who should be there
> anyway) that
> > seems reasonably fair to me.
> >
> I think this is a big point where we two differ. You seem to want to
> make it mandatory to pay. I don't like that. I'd much prefer the old
> way of paying the conference via sponsoring and donations.

We did think about simply having an empty text box with; how much would you like to contribute to GUADEC, but ultimately we made the choice we (Myself, Thomas, and Bastien) did for the reasons already listed. I still think it's the right decision (although now you've prompted me to look at Ubuntu Live again I'm worried we're not charging enough ;-),

Paul

> Cheers,
> Benjamin
> 
> 
> [1] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/sprints/uds-sevilla/
> [2] http://blogs.gnome.org/view/thos/2007/05/15/0
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-- 
Paul Cooper                    |  Tel: 0121 634 1620
Assistant Director             |  Fax: 0121 634 1630
OpenAdvantage                  |  http://www.openadvantage.org