The discussion was about the registration fee, not the travel sponsorships. So, this is the last thing I will answer. On Sun, 2010-04-11 at 20:43 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: > [...] > In fact, this is one of the things which has, in the past, gotten me > angry - when I hear that there are unofficial instructions to certain > employees to register for the €0 rate because "we already support the > GNOME Foundation, and why should we pay twice" (yes, I have heard this), > or when I hear that there are hackers who take holidays and pay their > own way or apply for sponsorship without ever asking their manager to > attend as part of their work, because they assume the request would be > denied... I have heard other versions as well, such as, people who do not work in the desktop, hence there is not budget for them to attend to GUADEC, but they are GNOME contributors in their spare time. Also, I have heard that some companies have a number of slots available for hackers to attend to GUADEC (limited funds), so, it is not possible to pay all of them. So, you can not extrapolate that comment to the whole community. Personally, I do not like your idea of banning people (directly or indirectly) for sponsorship because they work for a company who develop GNOME. Simply it does not makes sense. > I would just remind these people that attending GUADEC provides enormous > value to your employers, that the work you do during the week is work, > even if you enjoy it, and that the results of GUADEC make themselves > felt right up to the Semptember release (and I have data to back this > up) - so you should have no qualms asking your employer to pay your way, > or register you for the conference at the appropriate level, rather than > cheating the foundation of a few euros on the grounds that you're > sponsoring. Nobody is cheating and nobody from the community should feel that for requesting sponsorship to attend to GUADEC or a hackfest. > Maybe I'm being a bit hard - I know that companies have travel budgets > to respect, and that those budgets have been cut drastically over the > past two years, but at some stage, like I said, the conference costs > money & needs to be paid for, and I don't want to see some companies > taking advantage of the generosity of others, or reducing our travel > budget for people who couldn't afford to come otherwise. What are you talking about? Nobody is taking advantage of the generosity of other. You can not treat as cheaters the companies who sponsor hackfests and GNOME events because they can not send all their employees who want to attend to GUADEC. The employees that are not send by their employers are not less contributors because they work for a company. Everybody who need sponsorship is welcomed to apply for it. It is up to the Travel Committee to decide who and how will get sponsored at the end. The process is clear. You must learn to trust people. GNOME is people. Regards, -- Germán Póo-Caamaño Concepción - Chile http://www.gnome.org/~gpoo/
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