On Fri, 2010-04-09 at 14:17 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: > Hi, > > Koen Martens wrote: > > Changing the registration levels is really not an option anymore. If we > > keep second guessing discussions we concluded months ago, we'll never > > move forward. It's EUR 0, EUR 100, EUR 250. > > Agreed. > > > The motivation to pay > > EUR 100 or EUR 250 is that you can miss it or get someone to pay it for > > you, and that you want to do this to help make the conference possible > > and help people who cannot afford it to be there, etc.. Not some > > materialistic trinket. The trinket is a bonus. > > No-one likes to think that they're paying more for the same thing - you > need some kind of value-proposition for people to pay €100 or €250 - > "helping GNOME" may be enough, and it may not. I have my doubts. > > Anyway - this discussion comes up every year when registration opens, > please make sure that the €0 option is an exception, and not the rule. When the board discussed the bid, it was stated that the fee must not act as a financial barrier to participation. If there is any message to say, that would be the right one. > >>> These are just ideas, but the core principle is that if you're coming to > >>> the conference, you shouldn't get something for nothing - we should make > >>> an effort to have some kind of value proposition for attendees to > >>> encourage the higher levels where they're appropriate. > > > > One last note, we want to avoid that people think of it as a 'two class > > society' or something as such: you pay nothing, you get in. You pay 250, > > you get pampered and VIP'ed. Even though maybe the non-payer has contributed > > 30.000 lines of code, and the payer none. > > I'm OK with a two-class society where people who pay more get a little > more and people who pay nothing get a little less. Events cost money, > and we have to pay for them somehow. I don't want to encourage people to > think of the code they write or time they spend as payment for stuff > they get off the foundation. This would be a Very Bad Thing. It is wrong to assume that somebody goes for free if he or she does not pay a registration fee. Any person must spend at least €300-€400 to attend to GUADEC. If you add people outside of EU, that must have an extra insurance (€100), some of them requires visa (€100-€200), several contributors are students and does not have any income, some of them works as volunteers in their extra time, so some of them or have to ask for vacation in their jobs or permission without earn any salary. If you still think they want a fee pass because they "only" write code, then think about the cost of living in non West-European countries, and how these extra costs have a big impact in their income. And even tough, they want to attend and participate of the community, some of them donates money to GNOME Foundation and even some of them even will pay the fee, some of them will be willing to spend some extra money to buy anything is on sale related to GNOME or some them will become Friend of GNOME is they are encourage to do it there. I do prefer a more positive message for those contributors who can pay the fee instead speaking about two-class society which sound negative for those who can not afford it. Regards, -- Germán Póo-Caamaño Concepción - Chile http://www.gnome.org/~gpoo/
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