20:01:05 #startmeeting 20:01:05 Meeting started Thu Oct 20 20:01:05 2016 UTC. The chair is pollo. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 20:01:05 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic. 20:01:54 you can find the agenda here: http://deb.li/il9wc 20:02:08 anything we should change before starting? 20:03:29 #topic Welcome to new locals! 20:03:47 3 new local people joined us since last meeting! 20:04:01 soli, abdelq and bibit 20:04:05 \o/ 20:04:09 welcome! 20:04:16 (and sorry) 20:04:18 Thanks you everyone for the welcome and I hopes I won't annoy you too much with all my poking around but you can expect a little bit of that for the coming days! 20:04:38 o/ 20:04:42 Welcome! 20:05:08 soli has started to work on fundraising, abdelq on immigration & visa and bibit will be dealing with non-technical stuff like talking to beer people and tourisme montreal, etc. 20:05:26 hm, beer people. 20:06:03 #topic Conference program ("content team") 20:06:09 tvaz: ? 20:06:35 tvaz: any news on contacting speakers? 20:06:54 or azeem ^^ 20:07:54 well I guess madduck's been following this too 20:07:55 if neither is here, I can attempt an update, but I am just a few days old on the team. 20:08:30 so far we have one decline, and two great potentials lined up 20:08:38 i mean, lined up to be contacted. 20:08:48 we're still welcoming further proposals 20:09:01 in case anyone has any ideas. 20:09:13 madduck: last time tvaz told us you had around 9 ppl on your list 20:09:21 so we are down to 8? 20:09:29 yeah, that's true too. We are obviously not contacting them all at once. 20:09:40 how much people are you aiming for? 20:09:46 we were down to 8 and have a new proposal, so back to 9, but there is some overlap between speakers and topics 20:10:16 I think we're looking at 3. 20:10:33 6 conference days, 3 plenaries… or somesuch 20:10:50 have you had the chance to talk about budget needs? I guess 8k CAD is enough for 3 ppl 20:10:59 8k CAD sounds great. 20:11:19 we did not talk about budget. does this include room&board? 20:11:46 yes, it includes all the fees related to th speakes 20:12:26 ok. I'll run it by the team and make sure we can give an update in the next few days on budget, and if it's only a thumbs-up 20:12:43 can we talk about "conference theme" briefly? 20:12:51 that'd be great 20:13:28 hi 20:13:34 tvaz: 0/ 20:13:45 tvaz: want to take over? 20:14:03 nope, go ahead 20:14:47 well, the idea's afloat to theme dc17 along the lines of "the future of debian" 20:15:04 specifically as relates to containers and the "dark ages" of the cloud and walled gardens. 20:15:16 having a theme does *not* mean that all talks have to be along those lines 20:15:42 but it could mean that we select some plenaries accordingly, and we'd probably also hint at it in the cfp 20:15:54 o/, not 100% here tho 20:15:56 maybe getting people thinking and providing ideas. 20:16:05 madduck: what's the link between cloud & containers? 20:17:00 oh my. I am not the best to talk about this, but to me, the "cloud" is a lot about containers that spin up pre-configured just as needed, and no longer about an operating system as such. 20:17:31 there is also the angle of federated services, which zack talked about in his dc14 keynote 20:17:57 hmm ok 20:18:12 it's mostly about the question: if the world continues down the current path, what'll be debian's role a few years from now, I think. 20:18:18 madduck, tvaz: is there some consensus on this in the content team? 20:18:35 btw, we had a short conversation (locals irc channel) about 'theming' dc17 and afaik we ended up agreeing to not push a theme 20:18:37 aren't you theoretically part of the content team? ;) 20:19:16 pollo, we've never discussed that i think 20:19:41 we mostly wanted to get dc17 locals on board and not "push" this. 20:20:00 tvaz: what were the reasons for not theming? 20:20:03 tvaz: I think I missed the local discussion on this then, since I don't remember it 20:20:10 lavamind: ^^ ? 20:20:45 to me, theming is mostly additional sugar that doesn't actually change the way we're doing the things we'd be doing anyway. But there is also no point if the team's not behind it. 20:21:52 in the interest of this meeting, might I suggest that we take this back to the content team with the task to figure out whether this is something that the dc17 team wants to do? 20:22:00 pollo, tvaz I don't remember but that doesn't mean I wasn't involved 20:22:17 pollo, you were there, as h01ger was, a short conversation, I can find the backlog later 20:22:18 madduck: agreed. Please discuss it some more and we'll talk about it next meeting 20:22:36 let's move on 20:22:39 tvaz: please share the backlog with us. 20:22:41 #topic Catering 20:22:49 tvaz: how's that going? 20:23:26 we were supposed to go and eat some food from your picks :D 20:23:36 pollo, no news, besides lack of communication with chartwells. I've been busy last weeks with moving and other stuff 20:23:49 pollo, I'll have news for next meeting, sorry 20:23:54 ok! 20:23:55 someone is spamming the kanboard and generating a bunch of notifications 20:24:05 #topic website 20:24:21 valessio has proposed a skin for the website 20:24:26 I quite like it 20:24:29 it looks great 20:24:48 It does! 20:24:49 https://s13.postimg.org/4nrtsl3s7/dc17_web.png 20:25:26 he said he would start css coding shortly. 20:25:35 I guess that,s all for website since LeLutin is on vacation 20:26:02 #topic Accommodation 20:26:32 well if you have been following, we have discussed 2 solutions for accomodation 20:26:41 ok I got several replies with the hotel contact 20:27:09 pollo, valessio confirmed he'll start coding this week 20:27:16 #1 "classroom" option is 80% of sponsored ppl in classrooms (5 per room) 20:27:23 20% in hotel 20:27:24 one is that after asking for a better e=rate they came back with a pricing scheme with higher price on weekends and lower on weeknights 20:27:43 arf, it's 2/3 - 1/3 20:27:56 pollo: oh well go ahead then 20:28:13 lavamind: that sounds potentially beneficial to us, as most people not staying the whole time will thus not stay both weekends. 20:28:16 and #2 is 80% hotel for sponsored, 20% classrooms 20:28:48 pollo: that is not the important distinction to make 20:29:07 lavamind: ... what is it then? 20:29:26 the important distinction is whether we switch our focus to offer every sponsored attendee a hotel room and under which circumstances 20:30:08 our present estimates brings up the accomodation expense to about 40-50 usd per night per person 20:30:34 lavamind: I was just explaining stuff since it's quite complicated 20:30:56 lavamind: what is "our present estimate" ? hotel option? 20:31:04 how much cheaper is classroom (per person) vs. hotel? 20:31:08 yes, scenario b 20:31:29 DLange: there is a ~20K CAD diff 20:31:44 DLange: the data is here https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debconf-data/dc17.git/tree/accomodation/scenario_comparison.txt 20:31:53 can we sponsor everybody the classroom acc. and people who want the hotel pay the delta (possibly invited speakers excluded from such a scheme)? 20:32:58 DLange: we could, but I see complications in managing this 20:33:08 DLange, pollo I'm totally against that 20:33:12 I'd be fine with that, although there has been pushback against such a solution in the past. 20:33:24 I don't think thats a good idea 20:33:44 it,s indeed pretty weird since it's creates a money barrier where we are trying to take it down 20:34:17 pollo, that's it 20:34:47 well, I think most people think accomodation sponsorship is pretty divorced from financial need 20:35:00 that could be discussed of course. 20:35:02 it is weird, but it's easier for us. We often come back to the question of what our purpose is. All other conferences basically don't go as far as we do, and while I think it's great what we do, I also think we must be cautious not to over-complicate orga… 20:35:21 bremner: well put; I was struggling to phrase this. 20:35:50 what bremner says and I'd argue that $100 CAD won't be the issue if people even from third world countries get travel, food and acc sponsored but 20:36:03 madduck: I don,t feel giving that option would simplify anything though 20:36:04 this is for the Canadian people to decide 20:36:22 pollo: it would mean we could get accomodation sorted quicker. 20:36:52 DLange: $100 CAD is a lot for some, but you'd only need it if you won't sleep in sponsored accom, which arguably is acceptable. 20:37:04 it would, pollo, fixed sponsorship sum for everybody and allocation of rooms completely decoupled. Hotel gets the money from everybody and the "base fee" from DebConf. 20:37:15 people who can't afford also have special needs and may be uncomfortable in sharing rooms. That's quite frequently in our community. Managing each case will be much more complicated. 20:37:31 tvaz: we could set aside budget for such special needs, for sure. 20:37:43 I'm talking about managing each case 20:37:46 tvaz: yes, but we'll have the special cases no matter what. 20:37:48 yes, and the special cases need to be catered for regardless of how everybody else is housed 20:38:06 tvaz: room allocation already includes this. 20:38:19 people having to expose their personal problems to have us permitting them staying in the hotel 20:38:23 that's just too weird 20:38:31 they already expose all of that to room allocation. 20:38:39 another problem is that this "delta" is actually an elusive value 20:38:42 nope, we'll be increasing this issue a lot 20:38:59 because both options include different levels of onsite/hotel accomodation 20:39:07 tvaz: having the classrooms as an option at all increases this problem, no? 20:39:11 lavamind: so we'd need a third option. 20:39:39 tvaz: have you done room allocation? seriously, there's everything you'd need to know in there. 20:39:44 tvaz: the "classroom" option indeed means we have to decide who will be the 1/3 in hotel 20:40:08 Or maybe we could see Hostel options nearby. 20:40:21 bremner, hard to have a choice here, because we need that (class rooms) to fit the budget, but let's propose and offer them for those who are comfortable with it, not for those who can't afford a hotel, that's simple 20:40:32 also, this approach means that anyone uncomfortable just pays up and won't have to say anything. The issue is reduced to those who are incomfortable and can't afford to do anything about that. And we just need to make sure it feels normal to them to make their concerns privately known to room allocation. 20:41:04 tvaz: what if more people than we can accomodate opt for the hotel, given the choice? 20:41:26 pollo said it's so big that it can acc everybody 20:41:28 we ask everybody to reconsider 20:41:28 I do think what tvaz is saying is possible in that we could advertise individual 5 people rooms to those parties who act fast. 20:41:44 tvaz: what if not enough do? 20:42:11 but there remains a chance that we'd end up having to "downgrade" people as orga, and I'd really like to avoid this. 20:42:17 the thing is: we have to work to provide a nice environment in the class room arrangement, make people confident that it'll be fine, 20:42:32 and NOT put money as barrier between hotel and that arrangement 20:42:38 I think "hotel" option fixes this problem 100%. The thing is, is 250K CAD too much to raise from sponsorship? 20:42:39 that's my word for that, 20:42:52 I agree with tvaz on this one 20:43:05 pollo: given the current pace? yes. But not in general, no. 20:43:20 What about offering only the classrooms to sponsored people 20:43:21 ? 20:43:27 then I agree with lavamind and tvaz 20:43:35 madduck: it's already the case 20:43:35 if you don't want that, get sponsored for food only and pay the hotel yoruself? 20:43:45 madduck: what ? that was the initial idea all along :/ 20:43:59 uh, but what are we then arguing about? 20:44:08 hm? tvaz just objected to that? 20:44:08 madduck: no no no that is not remotely being considered 20:44:28 and my proposal was just that people pay the delta not even the hotel cost in full... 20:44:29 I am sorry if I appear thick on this. :/ 20:44:48 DLange: the "pay delta" approach has been contentious in past years. I don't think we'll resolve it tonight. 20:45:07 nah, that's fine. As I said, the local team needs to decide that. 20:45:34 so we agree that the option of people paying delta is a no go then? 20:45:41 lavamind: so we're putting sponsored people into the classrooms, and we'll also set aside a special budget for special cases that need to go to the hotel, and trust it all to not be abused. Am I right thus far? 20:45:42 I don't like this "delta" option, just deciding what value to assign to that would be a challenge in itself 20:46:05 pollo: yeah, I think so. 20:46:05 madduck: that's option "classrooms" 20:46:17 madduck: see scenario A 20:46:31 #agreed We won,t consided asking sponsored people to pay a delta to get a hotel room 20:46:41 okay, but I see 80/20 in there and that's not the same ratios as sponsored to non-sponsored. 20:46:53 can I (try to) propose scenario C? 20:47:16 madduck: that's beacuse that ratio is applied to sponsored people 20:47:23 oh. 20:47:25 50% get sponsored 20:47:36 in option "hotel", 80% of them go to hotel 20:47:42 20% go in classrooms 20:47:53 so 80% of 50% go to one place, 20% of 50% to the other, and the other 50% go to the hotel? 20:47:57 all 100% willingly :p 20:48:14 madduck: yes 20:48:39 pollo: we can host more people both onsite and at the hotel 20:48:44 and charge them 20:49:10 wut? 20:49:12 in that case the 20% hotel option should be our default, while we also reserve tons more at the hotel until we can't cancel without charge anymore 20:49:12 Ideally we'd ask people for their choice of acc. and then realize based on data and not on guesses 20:49:30 and then in march we re-evaluate based on budget what we can offer. 20:49:45 and move as many people to the hotel as possible. 20:50:01 lavamind: how feasible is reserving a lot of rooms right now and cancelling a buch of the later is? 20:50:06 and then come up with a plan to pick the right people without creating a two-class society. 20:50:32 pollo, lavamind: the contract is in french, but to my reading it says: free cancellations up until 120 days prior to arrival. 20:51:34 if we can do this, I agree it would be the way to go. What do others think? 20:51:51 madduck: up to 40% of cancellations, not 100% 20:52:19 but that's enough. So don't reserve more than 300% ;) 20:52:30 so we still need a degree of guesstimation 20:53:23 lavamind: can you get us a proposition for next meeting taking this in account? 20:53:43 taking what into account ? I have no more data 20:54:39 well guessing the number of rooms in total we will rent (inclusing non-sponsored) 20:54:45 how many rooms would you have us reserve ? 20:54:57 none of us do, lavamind; but we also don't know the number of people coming and are going with the lower bound, I think. 20:55:09 I'm sorry I don't know how to do that with any degree of reliability 20:55:14 lavamind: it's 3 people per room? 20:55:25 madduck: yes 20:55:31 lavamind: don't despair, this is hard, and buying us any flexibility is key. 20:55:43 madduck: the rooms can accomodate between 1 and 5 persons 20:55:48 we can come up with such a proposal together, if you want. 20:56:05 name a time that suits you and we'll work it out within a week, I hope. 20:56:06 can we agree to continue this discussion next meeting? 20:56:10 for sponsored accomodation, we settled on 3 per room as being most reasonable 20:56:17 we still need to talk about draft budget 20:56:33 pollo: can we have a green light on moving along on contract in a way that carries no risks? 20:57:11 madduck: well it seems that green light is not so green atm... 20:57:27 if we reserve X rooms at the hotel, and we end up needing Y 20:57:33 the contract proposal is far from risk free as I understand it 20:57:43 I think we can wait 2 more weeks before signing anything 20:57:46 I'm afraid of overbooking 20:57:56 and we guarantee that Y < 60% of X (i.e. no risk), can we just sign the contract? 20:57:59 pollo is right, we can wait 20:58:30 let's move on then and talk about this next meeting 20:58:37 okay, then we wait. lavamind, my offer stands. We might overbook a few rooms but that's not the end of the world. 40% cancellation for free 120 days in advance gives us quite a lot of freedom. 20:58:37 #fundraising 20:58:43 #topic fundraising 20:58:53 well things are moving! 20:58:58 madduck: lets work on our numbers some time soon 20:59:27 it bothers me this so present distinction between sponsored and non-sponsored accommodation. Just think we need some prudence on this. 20:59:27 #action lavamind & madduck to work on potential risk-free rooms to reserver at the hotel 20:59:27 libéo confirmed interest but wants us to poke them in january 20:59:43 lavamind: do you know what tier? 20:59:47 no 21:00:04 we need to follow up with Ubity 21:00:10 can we keep individual sponsor info in the right channel? 21:00:17 madduck, DLange how are we doing fundraising wise compared to other DC? 21:00:19 oh, sure 21:01:00 I have no experience on that side so I don't know if we are late or if it,s going ok 21:01:10 I've contacted two potential sponsors myself and I have a very high hope for one of them. 21:01:17 we're fine, pollo, rather an early start. But we do not have pre-commitments from large sponsors as we had for DC15 and DC16 (the ones that I particpated in funding) 21:01:43 to add to DLange, I feel like we really should make a big push soon though. 21:01:44 lets organize a sprint for these legacy sponsors right now 21:01:52 +1 21:02:04 anyone wants to plan a sprint? 21:02:39 how about next tuesday @ 20:oo EDT 21:03:06 tvaz: I understand where you're coming from re sponsored/non-sponsored, but it's the reality at play here. The only way out is to make it all sponsored and "expect" people to donate, if they can, then hope that budget somehow squares with how it'll turn out to be. It's nigh impossible. It's also not our primary task. 21:03:16 EDT? that's a little late for europe... 21:03:26 That would work for me but I think we'd need madduck if we want to sprint on legacy 21:03:30 And DLange 21:03:50 how about a morning sprint for Canadians? 21:03:55 for initial contacts I think we can be fine 21:03:57 I can take the lunch our off… 21:03:57 madduck, we're building this 'reality', quite artificially IMO, sorry 21:04:13 mornings are fine with me 21:04:18 anyway, I need to leave, can't stay after 5pm on thursdays 21:04:26 for me it all depends on the date 21:04:33 madduck: I had to schedule but I could make a morning work. 21:04:34 pollo: tuesday ? 21:04:35 tvaz: I'd be curious to read a proposal from you on how to make it happen differently. 21:05:09 lavamind: not next one. I have an exam at 9 21:05:21 I'm not against anybody sprinting. I hang around in -sponsors and whenever you have a question, just highlight me. When I'm awake, you'll get an answer. 21:05:34 pollo: wednesday? 21:05:37 madduck, you wont, and please let's not go further, you've been aware of how such insistent behavior has been toxic 21:06:11 lavamind: let's please not try to find a date rn 21:06:34 just call a sprint in at a somewhat reasonable hour and people will manage 21:06:34 fine fine, but I don't have time to organize a poll or whatever before next week 21:06:47 I could sprint async with DLange through -sponsorts, that would work for me. 21:07:17 heh, week-long sprint next week then 21:07:23 exactly 21:07:40 great. Let,s keep on working on sponsors in our free time 21:07:50 #topic Budget draft 21:07:53 As for tools, I've been updating the pything scruipt 21:07:55 I'll try to be around Tue 22:00 CEST as well but again, prod me whenever you feel like it. Should be faster. 21:08:06 "classrooms" option : https://paste.debian.net/plain/884164 21:08:14 "hotel" option: https://paste.debian.net/plain/884166/ 21:08:33 as you can see, it amounts to ~230-50K CAD we have to find 21:08:48 both look rather good to me. I added comments to the agenda 21:09:05 (infra and video sans shipping missing) 21:09:33 DLange: infra everything should be provided by Masonneuve I think 21:09:45 they won't cable our hacklabs... 21:09:46 videoteam will buy all new stuff this year, so no rental 21:10:04 insurance? 21:10:09 DLange: aviau said he had 5km of cables laying around 21:10:38 pollo: and 20 switches? 21:10:40 DLange: lavamind was supposed to look into it with the venue... 21:10:47 DLange: yeah 21:11:10 pollo: I don't recall but I can do that 21:11:12 then you probably want insurance for his gear, transcoding PCs and the new video gear 21:11:43 DLange: so it's insurances for our stuff, not for people breaking their legs and such? 21:12:13 pollo: the total budget is 350k minus income 100k simplified. What are these 100k, and are the 250k expected to be raised? 21:12:17 yeah, just our stuff and stuff given to us by uni or other nice people 21:12:44 lavamind: https://kanban.debian.net/project/2/task/51 21:13:06 #action pollo to find someone to look into private assurances for our stuff 21:13:18 well I guess that's it 21:13:40 anything else on that topic? 21:13:54 pollo: that item is done, the answer is we need a $5M insurance 21:14:12 that is a condition from venue management 21:14:21 which, btw, sent us their draft contract 21:14:36 well it's nice to know that. 21:14:38 the venue is quite costly ... and they want _us_ to insure? 21:14:55 that's odd. Usually the venue should have an insurance at that cost level. 21:15:14 A prendre et à maintenir en vigueur, pour la durée de l’événement, une police d’assurance 21:15:15 responsabilité civile de plus de cinq millions de dollars (5 000 000$) qui désigne le Collège de 21:15:15 Maisonneuve comme co-assuré ainsi qu’une police d’assurance couvrant les biens meubles du 21:15:15 locateur et du locataire. 21:15:33 arf 21:15:40 I have no idea what cost this can entail 21:16:10 #action pollo to find someone to find out how much a 5M$ insurance would cost us 21:16:29 5M event insurance? or accident liability? 21:16:34 a lot. $5m is much for a liability insurance 21:16:55 Haftpflicht, madduck 21:17:02 they also want to "approve" our sponsors 21:17:21 what does that mean? 21:17:21 err, wut? 21:17:25 smirk. Any requirements on our underwear? 21:17:39 they just want to be sure there is no nazi sponsoring us I guess 21:17:49 pollo: lol 21:17:51 no to hurt their image 21:17:52 I think you'll have some fun negotiating sane contractual terms with them. 21:17:52 DLange: Veranstalterhaftpflicht oder Haftpflicht? 21:17:59 madduck: the latter 21:18:46 well I think that gives us stuff to work on. Can we move? 21:18:56 aye 21:19:12 #topic New meeting time 21:19:17 I vote to keep this time 21:19:21 it kinda work 21:19:27 yes, keep 21:19:42 * h01ger waves 21:19:43 (sorry for the folks who can't make it) 21:20:04 but trying to find something else was not really successfull 21:20:37 anyone against it? 21:21:13 #agreed we will keep this meeting schedule 21:21:22 #topic misc 21:21:34 Misc things to add before we close! 21:21:47 #action pollo to write summary of the meeting on the wiki + ML 21:22:23 #endmeeting