Hi, On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 05:17:27PM +0100, Richard Hartmann wrote: > On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 9:57 AM, Wouter Verhelst <wou...@debian.org> wrote: > > > I understand that the reason for the two German bids is that this would > > allow the team to negotiate better conditions from the two options if > > they win the bid. While that is true, there is no reason why these > > negotiations could not have happened before today; in fact, one could > > argue that the whole point of the bidding process is to have this kind > > of negotiations take place with the stick of a little competition behind > > the door; we have, in fact, been talking to some options with that as an > > added note of information. > > We obviously put venues into competing positions already, but please > keep in mind that due to the sheer size of our sample set[1] there's > an upper limit on effort. It's also hard to get anyone to commit if we > cannot commit ourselves, and for that we need to know whether our team > will host DC15 before entering negotiations. In our experience, > initial quotes based on what-if and finalized pricing tend to vary > wildly. > > We agreed from the start that only venue options which we considered > better than all other bids would make our short list and we pruned our > list aggressively. E.g. Nuremberg is as least as developed as either > Mechelen or Karlskrona, but we didn't include it on purpose to focus > on the very best of the best. > > > > As such, this strategy feels a bit like trying to game the system to me; > > by keeping their options open when winning the bid, the German team gets > > something of an unfair advantage -- I would be quite upset if debconf15 > > goes to Germany on the idea that one of the two bids is better than > > Mechelen, only to then find out that this one bid can't work out and we > > have to go to the other location. > > We are sorry if you feel this way and this is not our intention. We > are not trying to win a game; we want to make the best possible > DebConf15 happen and chose our strategy accordingly. > > We communicated our approach and status clearly, publically, and in > English on the DebConf wiki. It would have been possible for all other > teams to chose a multi-pronged approach as well, given time and > resources. > > That we did so, and that we managed to come up with more than one > option, is proof that our team is willing to invest a _lot_ of time > and effort into doing things early and thoroughly, and that we do not > take chances. Turning this around and making it a disadvantage does > feel arbitrary at best. > > > > By postponing the decision in this way, the German team is in effect > > bypassing the decision meeting's deadline; this feels especially acerbic > > in light of <20140121032028.ga23...@fishbowl.rw.madduck.net>, where > > Martin asked for a quick decision. > > From what we know, the only real deadline was to submit bids by the > end of 2013, and we submitted our bid in time. That we developed > several alternatives all along and submitted two of them does not bend > any rules we are aware of. > > By the deadline, there was only one valid bid. We deliberately avoided > calling attention to this to ensure that all bids could become the > best possible bids by the time a decision is made. > > > > I'm not asking to disqualify the German team, or anything of the sorts. > > However, I am asking the German team to reconsider their strategy; I > > understand their desire to keep their options open, but I think it's not > > the best strategy on the whole. > > We debated this extensively and we strongly feel that this is a valid > and, for us, the optimal approach. Matter of fact, we believe that our > approach is better than focusing on a single venue too early which > results in limited options, and we would wish that more teams should > use the same strategy. > > > > If the German team decides not to change their strategy, then I would > > like to reiterate Patty's question of last night, and ask the committee > > to please consider both options when deciding; that is, the German bids > > should only win if the committee considers that _both_ German options > > are superior to all other options. > > To be precise, one option should be better and the other one at least > as good as all other bids. > You could even argue that if all four venue options are considered > equal, having two options in one bid would be an advantage. > > If this is a concern that's shared by the committee, it is well within > their right to consider our bid as two separate bids which happen to > share the local team. We believe that this would not be a good choice, > but bow to it if that would make the difference between winning and > losing the bid. > > > > We would also like to point out that the venue is only part of the > bid. The ability to raise sponsor money and the size, redundancy, > dedication, timeliness, and commitment of the local team should be > taken into account as well. > All our answers to this list have been vetted, improved and > co-authoren by several people before being sent out. At all meetings, > several of us could make it somehow. > Contrary to that, the other bid teams seem to be spearheaded by one or > only a few people at this relatively early stage.
After giving more attention to the bid's pages and reading emails/meetings backlogs I'm blocked by my current preference: #1 Heidelberg #2 Mechelen #3 Munich So it's very clear that the 2-options bid strategy makes things difficult to me. Regards, -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .''`. Tiago Bortoletto Vaz GPG : 4096R/E4B6813D : :' : http://acaia.ca/~tiago XMPP : tiago at jabber.org `. `' tiago _at_ {acaia.ca, debian.org} IRC : tiago at OFTC `- Debian GNU/Linux - The Universal OS http://www.debian.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team