A couple of comments from last night's meeting struck me: 21:39 < stockholm> vorlon: i was impressed by how different cutures are and thought that it would be interesting to see other cultures. instead we should all go to a mc donals or disny world
and 21:25 < gwolf> I do think that we carry growth to the FS movement wherever we hold Debconf. 21:26 < gwolf> moray_uk: ...Less developed countries have, IMHO, more need to be pushed a bit The first of these seems to imply that less "western" culture is a desired feature of a Debconf, and the second seems to imply that we should choose a location with less involvement in Debian in order to "sell" ourselves better. Do people feel that these are valid criteria? (Personal opinion follows) Firstly, let me stress that I'm not involved in the Edinburgh bid at all - for a variety of reasons, I'm unlikely to make Debconf next year even if it gets held in my house. These are my own opinions. Debian is, first and foremost, a distribution of free software. As the consitution puts it: The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system. Debconf should exist to support this. That is, the most important aim of Debconf should be to assist in the creation of a free operating system. This leads to the following conclusions: 1) Debconf should aim to provide the facilities necessary to aid in the creation of a free operating system (network connectivity, venues for talks, that sort of thing) 2) Debconf should aim to bring together the individuals involved in the creation of said free operating system (so should be accessible to as many people involved in Debian as possible, to the degree that this doesn't compromise the first conclusion) there's a third conclusion, which I think is somewhat less strong: 3) Debconf should aim to encourage interest in free software, in order to increase the number of people who may become involved in Debian in the future Firstly, I think the fact that point 3 depends upon a result that can't be guaranteed (ie, holding Debconf somewhere will increase the number of people involved in Debian in future) suggests that it should be held more weakly than the first two conclusions. That is to say, point 3 should not be at the expense of points 1 and 2. Secondly, I think the assumption that, say, Sarajevo fulfils point 3 more than Edinburgh does is not a well-founded argument. The number of factors involved is large and I'm not aware of any good research into whether advocacy events are more effective if held in areas with little to no prior interest in the field compared to areas where some awareness already exists. In conclusion, I don't think that point 3 should be a strong consideration in choosing the location of Debconf. I certainly don't buy the argument that the smaller amount of free software activity in Bosnia is an incentive to hold a conference there. I'd be interested to know what others think. (I think the idea that Debconf should attempt to expose developers to different cultures is entirely insane. It doesn't fit any of the goals of Debian. That isn't to say that I'm against Debconf being held in countries which don't have stereotypical "western" culture", merely against this being any sort of criterion in choosing the location. Brazil satisfied my criteria (1) and (2) perfectly well, and so I was happy to be there. The fact that I was in Brazil was a bonus. However, if there'd been another option that satisfied criteria (1) and (2) better than Brazil did, we should have chosen it *even if it was a city with a McDonalds on every corner*. We're here to create a free operating system, not to teach each other the value of different cultures) -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
