"Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13

[Ian Jackson]

I have heard some disturbing rumours regarding Debconf13, site choice
and funding. It seems to be difficult to find clear facts and of
course I don't want to be spreading unverified rumours.

What I have found out from public sources, for example this message
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121031.082232.2c9c4f00.en.html
is that apparently some "anonymous donors" proposed to give or loan
Debconf 13 CHF40K (~Eur33K).

I'm uncomfortable about the idea of such a sum of anonymous money
flowing towards Debconf. One natural worry would be that it would
come with strings attached.

Can the Debconf global team, and/or the DC13 local team, please answer
the following questions ?

1. Is it true that there was a proposal that anyone should make an
anonymous donation or loan to Debconf 13 ?

If so:

2. Exactly what was proposed, and when was it proposed ?

3. Were any conditions attached ? If so what were the conditions ?

4. How far did the discussions progress (so far) ?
Has the proposal now been abandoned and if so, when ?

5. Were the proposed donors individuals (if so how many?),
a company, a government, or an NGO ?

6. Were the proposed donors in positions of authority or governance in
relation to Debconf ? Examples of people in positions of authority
or governance in relation to Debconf include the DPL, the DPL
helpers tasked with Debconf-related tasks, people involved with
Debconf accounting on behalf of SPI or FFIS, and of course members
of the Debconf global or local teams.

7. Who initiated the proposal ? Was it
(a) the prospective donor; or
(b) a member of the DC global team; or
(c) a member of the DC13 local team; or
(d) some third party ?
If (b) or (c), which individual member(s) of the team ?

8. Was the existence of this proposal made formally known to the full
DC team (eg on the internal private mailing list) ?

I think these are the most critical questions the answers to which
might shed some light on the situation. I'm hoping the answers will
be prompt, full, and frank - and of course, reassuring.

Thanks,
Ian.


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[David Prévot]

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Hash: SHA256

Hi,

Le 30/11/2012 14:44, Ian Jackson a écrit :
> I have heard some disturbing rumours regarding Debconf13, site choice
> and funding. It seems to be difficult to find clear facts and of
> course I don't want to be spreading unverified rumours.

I fail to understand, if you really “don't want to be spreading
unverified rumours”, why are you posting this kind of questions to two
other wider mailing lists?

Hopefully, another message from the initial mailing list you just
quoted, sent two days later, with a pretty explicit subject
(“[Debconf-team] Correction of rumors and comments about anonymous
financial support for LeCamp”), may answer your questions the easy way.

http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html

Regards

David

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[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

On Freitag, 30. November 2012, David Prévot wrote:
> I fail to understand, if you really “don't want to be spreading
> unverified rumours”, why are you posting this kind of questions to two
> other wider mailing lists?

[...]
> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html

it's a dead horse. old, long dead.


cheers,
Holger

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[Daniel Pocock]

On 01/12/12 01:32, Holger Levsen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Freitag, 30. November 2012, David Prévot wrote:
>
>> I fail to understand, if you really “don't want to be spreading
>> unverified rumours”, why are you posting this kind of questions to two
>> other wider mailing lists?
>>
> [...]
>
>> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html
>>
> it's a dead horse. old, long dead.
>

No, it's not

I made two trips to evaluate an alternative venue

Feeling threatened by this competition, rather than working harder to
get a good deal, proponents of the original venue suddenly "secured" 40k
CHF of anonymous sponsorship, but with various strings attached,
including a condition that the original venue was used

Consequently, the other merits of the venues were not heavily discussed
and one of the DebConf chairs (yourself) suddenly started publicly
endorsing Le Camp with the original super-size budget

The fact that the 40k promise was taken away again a few days after your
epiphany doesn't change the fact that it was on the table while you were
in Switzerland doing the venue evaluation.

With this new found enthusiasm for Le Camp, much more time was then
wasted taking a fresh look at the Le Camp budget, valuable time that
could have been spent negotiating a better deal or looking at other
venues. In the end, when the figures didn't add up, DebCamp had to be
abolished, and many people now feel that is a bad thing for Debian overall.

Whether it was sponsorship or a loan or something else doesn't really
matter either: your communications from 28 October indicated that this
money was a key factor in your decision to endorse Le Camp.

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[Paul Tagliamonte]

On Sat, Dec 01, 2012 at 02:47:13PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> On 01/12/12 01:32, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Freitag, 30. November 2012, David Prévot wrote:
> >
> >> I fail to understand, if you really “don't want to be spreading
> >> unverified rumours”, why are you posting this kind of questions to two
> >> other wider mailing lists?
> >>
> > [...]
> >
> >> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html
> >>
> > it's a dead horse. old, long dead.
> >
>
> No, it's not

Regardless of it's current age or health, can y'all please do the horse
beating elsewhere?

>
> I made two trips to evaluate an alternative venue
>
> Feeling threatened by this competition, rather than working harder to
> get a good deal, proponents of the original venue suddenly "secured" 40k
> CHF of anonymous sponsorship, but with various strings attached,
> including a condition that the original venue was used
>
> Consequently, the other merits of the venues were not heavily discussed
> and one of the DebConf chairs (yourself) suddenly started publicly
> endorsing Le Camp with the original super-size budget
>
> The fact that the 40k promise was taken away again a few days after your
> epiphany doesn't change the fact that it was on the table while you were
> in Switzerland doing the venue evaluation.
>
> With this new found enthusiasm for Le Camp, much more time was then
> wasted taking a fresh look at the Le Camp budget, valuable time that
> could have been spent negotiating a better deal or looking at other
> venues. In the end, when the figures didn't add up, DebCamp had to be
> abolished, and many people now feel that is a bad thing for Debian overall.
>
> Whether it was sponsorship or a loan or something else doesn't really
> matter either: your communications from 28 October indicated that this
> money was a key factor in your decision to endorse Le Camp.
>
>
>
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>

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[Ian Jackson]

Ian Jackson writes (""Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):

> I have heard some disturbing rumours regarding Debconf13, site choice
> and funding. It seems to be difficult to find clear facts and of
> course I don't want to be spreading unverified rumours.

I have had private emails from various people on this topic. They
seem to me to confirm that there is something to worry about here.

Please would someone from the Debconf team answer my questions.
Needless to say these answers must come in public.

Ian.


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[Giacomo Catenazzi]

On 12/02/2012 04:02 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Ian Jackson writes (""Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):
>> I have heard some disturbing rumours regarding Debconf13, site choice
>> and funding. It seems to be difficult to find clear facts and of
>> course I don't want to be spreading unverified rumours.
>
> I have had private emails from various people on this topic. They
> seem to me to confirm that there is something to worry about here.
>
> Please would someone from the Debconf team answer my questions.
> Needless to say these answers must come in public.

AFAIK there was an offer of a huge "anonymous donation", which at the
end seemed more a loan, and IIRC to speed up the process and not let
discuss about lack of money. I don't know the source and I don't know if
there was string attached.
Anyway that offer endured only few days because debconf-team and
localteam declined such offer.

There was an other small anonymous donation (which was initially
classified as "anonymous sponsorship", but this was a small amount, not
very different to the other donations received by Debian. No strings
attached. You should see it as a small donation because our high value
in software (and it is also free as free beer!), but without going to
the full bureaucratic procedures of a big company and without a public
endorsement "Company A uses/support Debian".

I've not yet seen other anonymous donations.
But if I'm wrong, i encourage the other localteam/debconf-team members
to correct me.

ciao
cate

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[Daniel Pocock]

On 02/12/12 16:23, Giacomo Catenazzi wrote:
> On 12/02/2012 04:02 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
>> Ian Jackson writes (""Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):
>>> I have heard some disturbing rumours regarding Debconf13, site choice
>>> and funding. It seems to be difficult to find clear facts and of
>>> course I don't want to be spreading unverified rumours.
>>
>> I have had private emails from various people on this topic. They
>> seem to me to confirm that there is something to worry about here.
>>
>> Please would someone from the Debconf team answer my questions.
>> Needless to say these answers must come in public.
>
> AFAIK there was an offer of a huge "anonymous donation", which at the
> end seemed more a loan, and IIRC to speed up the process and not let
> discuss about lack of money. I don't know the source and I don't know if
> there was string attached.
> Anyway that offer endured only few days because debconf-team and
> localteam declined such offer.

Not quite: I believe Philipp said the money wasn't needed.

His email doesn't say whether the money was actually real in the sense
that DebConf would have definitely received the money if it was needed,
or if it was just a hypothetical discussion that the sponsor(s) hadn't
fully committed to anyway.

This distinction is significant because Holger was under the impression
that these funds were 'secured' at the time he considered and finally
decided Le Camp may not be financially impossible.

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[Philipp Hug]

Hi,

> AFAIK there was an offer of a huge "anonymous donation", which at the end
> seemed more a loan, and IIRC to speed up the process and not let discuss
> about lack of money. I don't know the source and I don't know if there was
> string attached.
> Anyway that offer endured only few days because debconf-team and localteam
> declined such offer.

This is correct. After this was mentioned on IRC I asked about the
details of this 'donation' and figured out it's just a loan, accepting
some risks though, but with strings attached: The venue would need to
be LeCamp.

This looked like a lot more problems to me than it would solve so I
proposed to cancel this ASAP and that's why I sent the email which was
already mentioned in this thread.

> There was an other small anonymous donation (which was initially classified
> as "anonymous sponsorship", but this was a small amount, not very different
> to the other donations received by Debian. No strings attached. You should
> see it as a small donation because our high value in software (and it is
> also free as free beer!), but without going to the full bureaucratic
> procedures of a big company and without a public endorsement "Company A
> uses/support Debian".

This is correct and this is quite usual. Some person X has his own
budget in a company which he can spend, but he's not allowed to
publicly use the name of his company in relation with an event without
going through the whole process.
This donation comes with no strings attached.

> I've not yet seen other anonymous donations.
> But if I'm wrong, i encourage the other localteam/debconf-team members to
> correct me.

regards,
Philipp Hug

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[Daniel Pocock]

On 02/12/12 18:31, Philipp Hug wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> AFAIK there was an offer of a huge "anonymous donation", which at the end
>> seemed more a loan, and IIRC to speed up the process and not let discuss
>> about lack of money. I don't know the source and I don't know if there was
>> string attached.
>> Anyway that offer endured only few days because debconf-team and localteam
>> declined such offer.
>
> This is correct. After this was mentioned on IRC I asked about the
> details of this 'donation' and figured out it's just a loan, accepting
> some risks though, but with strings attached: The venue would need to
> be LeCamp.

Can you just confirm: who proposed those conditions? Did this come from
somebody who was involved in the decision making (e.g. a committee
member or a negotiator)?

Or was the offer and the conditions from some third party outside the
debconf team?

Did you feel the offer was 100% genuine - had the lender/sponsor
committed in writing to pay the money if it was needed?

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[Philipp Hug]

Hi Daniel,

Can you just confirm: who proposed those conditions?  Did this come from
somebody who was involved in the decision making (e.g. a committee
member or a negotiator)?

Or was the offer and the conditions from some third party outside the
debconf team?

If you want to know more details you should ask h01ger.

 

Did you feel the offer was 100% genuine - had the lender/sponsor
committed in writing to pay the money if it was needed?

Well, I my plan was to have a written contract, but we cancelled it before we even drafted it.

So, I can't really tell you more about the offer.

Philipp

[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

I somewhat wonder why I have to write this mail. As I already wrote the mail
quoted below (which was also just repeating stuff said elsewhere)...

The "anonymous donations" we got offered were rejected (by us) on October 28th
(or 29th, not 101% sure about the exact date), I'm pretty sure Philipp did
this on debcon...@l.dc.o. They were not included in the budget the DPL was
asked to approve. As said, "dead horse".

On Samstag, 1. Dezember 2012, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html
>
> it's a dead horse. old, long dead.

can we please stop beating it?

DebConf13 will be held in Le Camp, Vaumarcus, Switzerland. The DebConf chairs
atm are preparing a message explaining why we (still ;) think this is a good
idea.

If you think DebConf is a total desaster and should be done "so and so",
please apply for DebConf14. Or 15. Thanks. For over a year, "debconf-team"
(which albeit is only a loosely bunch of people) have weighted several options
in Switzerland and yet three times we agreed to hold it in Le Camp, because
a.) it will be good and b.) other options have other (severe) downsides.
Please don't think we haven't considered $foo - we very very likely have.

cheers,
Holger




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[Ian Jackson]

Holger Levsen writes ("Re: [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):

> The "anonymous donations" we got offered were rejected (by us)

Why do you use scare quotes ?

> On Samstag, 1. Dezember 2012, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > > http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html
> > it's a dead horse. old, long dead.
>
> can we please stop beating it?

I'm sorry to keep making trouble, but strings-attached offers of
substantial amounts of money from anonymous donors are a serious
matter. Even if the decision for Debconf13 is already finalised, we
need to have transparency.

Your statement that these offers were rejected by the Debconf team
doesn't seem consistent with the story I heard which is (as far as I
can make out) that the donors got cold feet and downgraded their offer
from a donation to a loan, which latter obviously wasn't useful to
Debconf. See for example Philipp Hug's email:
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html
Philipp says "it's now clear that they only wanted to provide DebConf
with liquidity", which suggests that at some earlier point this wasn't
clear and the suggestion appeared to be a donation.


Please would you also answer the rest of my questions.
Particularly critical are:

6. Were the proposed donors in positions of authority or governance in
relation to Debconf ? Examples of people in positions of authority
or governance in relation to Debconf include the DPL, the DPL
helpers tasked with Debconf-related tasks, people involved with
Debconf accounting on behalf of SPI or FFIS, and of course members
of the Debconf global or local teams.

I have heard allegations that the answer to this question is "yes".
Please would you either deny this, or confirm it and explain.

And:

3. Were any conditions attached ? If so what were the conditions ?

It has been alleged that the conditions attached were that we hold
DC13 at Le Camp. Again, would you please confirm or deny.

I think the whole project is entitled to full and frank answers to all
of my questions.

Thanks,
Ian.

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[Josselin Mouette]

Le dimanche 02 décembre 2012 à 18:31 +0100, Philipp Hug a écrit :
> > AFAIK there was an offer of a huge "anonymous donation", which at the end
> > seemed more a loan, and IIRC to speed up the process and not let discuss
> > about lack of money. I don't know the source and I don't know if there was
> > string attached.
> > Anyway that offer endured only few days because debconf-team and localteam
> > declined such offer.
>
> This is correct. After this was mentioned on IRC I asked about the
> details of this 'donation' and figured out it's just a loan, accepting
> some risks though, but with strings attached: The venue would need to
> be LeCamp.

Is this anonymous-donation-which-is-not-a-donation story related to the
rumors of sponsorship from a large tobacco company?

It would worry me that it was even considered to accept money from a
murderer company.

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[Josselin Mouette]

Le dimanche 02 décembre 2012 à 20:22 +0100, Holger Levsen a écrit :
> DebConf13 will be held in Le Camp, Vaumarcus, Switzerland. The DebConf chairs
> atm are preparing a message explaining why we (still ;) think this is a good
> idea.
>
> If you think DebConf is a total desaster and should be done "so and so",
> please apply for DebConf14. Or 15. Thanks.

I couldn’t care less whether a gathering of geeks who feel like they’re
still 16, in the woods is a total disaster or not.

But if it is, I hope you do not count on the Debian project’s money to
fill in the budget gaps.

Cheers,

--
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[Daniel Pocock]

On 03/12/12 20:01, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Le dimanche 02 décembre 2012 à 18:31 +0100, Philipp Hug a écrit :
>>> AFAIK there was an offer of a huge "anonymous donation", which at the end
>>> seemed more a loan, and IIRC to speed up the process and not let discuss
>>> about lack of money. I don't know the source and I don't know if there was
>>> string attached.
>>> Anyway that offer endured only few days because debconf-team and localteam
>>> declined such offer.
>>
>> This is correct. After this was mentioned on IRC I asked about the
>> details of this 'donation' and figured out it's just a loan, accepting
>> some risks though, but with strings attached: The venue would need to
>> be LeCamp.
>
> Is this anonymous-donation-which-is-not-a-donation story related to the
> rumors of sponsorship from a large tobacco company?

In fact, it has nothing to do with the tobacco company. That is
completely independent. This thread is about probity (personal
involvement of team members in financial arrangements)

> It would worry me that it was even considered to accept money from a

It was discussed on this thread:

http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121115.112828.29ea0d12.en.html

It is really important to remember that there are many companies that
some people will have issues with (e.g. logging the Amazon, testing
drugs on animals, hacking voicemail to get news stories, even one of the
existing sponsors has been mentioned in various controversies concerning
privacy) and I would propose that people with views on this send their
comments to the sponsors team private list:

debconf-sp...@lists.debconf.org

Given the sensitive nature of individual sponsorship arrangements, if
people do express concerns to us privately, the sponsors team probably
needs to think of a way to consult the wider community on this without
wrongly focusing on just one company/industry because they happen to be
located near a proposed DebConf venue. Then some generic principals can
be developed to guide decisions about which sponsors are accepted.

But as pointed out above, the reason for this particular thread is not
directly related to the tobacco company. In fact, that is one reason
why this whole thing needs to be cleared up, so that such ambiguities
won't arise if there is some anonymous sponsor later on.

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[Moray Allan]

On 2012-11-30 18:44, Ian Jackson wrote:
> apparently some "anonymous donors" proposed to give or loan
> Debconf 13 CHF40K (~Eur33K).

> Can the Debconf global team, and/or the DC13 local team, please
> answer
> the following questions ?

Since your questions remain unanswered, I just want to say as one of
the DebConf Chairs that I think the questions are valid, but I
personally don't know any details about this that would help clear them
up.

> I'm uncomfortable about the idea of such a sum of anonymous money
> flowing towards Debconf. One natural worry would be that it would
> come with strings attached.

Certainly at the time many people within the DebConf team were
uncomfortable that this "anonymous donation" was used to argue that we
didn't need to worry about the high prices at Le Camp, and to argue that
we should definitely choose Le Camp since this money was only available
if we went there.

As has been stated already in this thread, after some questioning it
subsequently turned out that it wasn't really a donation anyway, but a
loan with the intention of providing liquidity at an early stage, and
the DebConf budget team decided it was not useful to accept the offer
since alternative and less mysterious liquidity sources were available.

--
Moray

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[Josselin Mouette]

Le lundi 03 décembre 2012 à 20:04 +0100, Josselin Mouette a écrit :
> I couldn’t care less whether a gathering of geeks who feel like they’re
> still 16, in the woods is a total disaster or not.

Since I was privately asked to clarify; I feel extremely unwelcome at a
place where basically the only way I could sleep correctly would be
bringing my own inflatable mattress – and from the photographs, I would
still be worrying about coming back with little friends in my hair and
asthma for weeks.

This is apparently the most comfortable place to sleep there: a room for
two.
http://www.groups.ch/images/haeuser/zusatz/K-0806-5487-7_20091202030934.jpg
Notice how nice you’ll feel if you are more than 1m80.

This is the “basic” place to sleep in Le Camp:
http://www.groups.ch/images/haeuser/zusatz/K-0806-5487-6_20091202024753.jpg
Yes, what you can see in the back is another layer of mattresses near
the ceiling.

Don’t forget these are photographs, probably made to look *nicer* than
reality.

But don’t worry, if you want to sleep very close in Château Vaumarcus,
it will only cost you 320 f***ing CHF, which after all, at current
rates, only means 256 EUR. Per night. More than twice the price of a
decent room in Paris, which is already an expensive city.
Or you could sleep 20 minutes away and come by car every morning (and
still pay very high hotel rates).

I could feel welcome in a place lost in the woods, near a lake, if I
wanted to go walk in the woods or have fun on the lake. But DebConf is
meant to be a conference with several hundred people, not a gathering of
youngsters who want to spend a week lost in the woods in close
promiscuity.

I feel sorry for those who are still trying to make DC13 great, but who
instead have to cope with such absurd proposals from the local team, and
with the debconf team’s petty requirements — for example, using a
dedicated infrastructure and FSM-knows-how-many servers for a wiki and a
pair of misconfigured mailing lists with unusable archive software.

Cheers,
--
.''`. Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'
`-


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[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

On Montag, 3. Dezember 2012, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > The "anonymous donations" we got offered were rejected (by us)
> Why do you use scare quotes ?

for two reasons: a.) because they are not anonymous to me and b.) because I'm
not as fluent in english writing as others.

> I'm sorry to keep making trouble, but strings-attached offers of
> substantial amounts of money from anonymous donors are a serious
> matter. Even if the decision for Debconf13 is already finalised, we
> need to have transparency.

and you seriously think, the only way to achieve transparency are some ad-hoc
mails to -project? Organizing DebConf has been done transparently and in the
open since years, this is nothing new to us. (And yet still, there are aspects
of organizing a conference which cannot be done as open as one wishes (mostly
due to time constraints)).

> Your statement that these offers were rejected by the Debconf team
> doesn't seem consistent with the story I heard which is

I'm sorry that your sources of stories are not correct all the time.
(Actual thats quite normal with stories though. Ask 2 people about 1 story and
you get 3 replies :)

> (as far as I
> can make out) that the donors got cold feet and downgraded their offer
> from a donation to a loan, which latter obviously wasn't useful to
> Debconf. See for example Philipp Hug's email:
> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121102.150947.08f4206c.en.html
> Philipp says "it's now clear that they only wanted to provide DebConf
> with liquidity", which suggests that at some earlier point this wasn't
> clear and the suggestion appeared to be a donation.

The donors offer was a mix of load and donation (and indeed not fully thought
to the end) and they withdraw it basically at the same time we rejected it.

And, we choose to reject their offer before we had the 2nd meeting confirming
Le Camp. (And when we decided for the 1st time to go to Le Camp, this offer
wasnt on the table.) So, despite contrary claims (from someone who claims to
be able to read my mind..) this anonymous load/donation was never a factor
when deciding about the best possible venue for DebConf13.

Reality is sometimes more complicated than stories tell.

>
> Please would you also answer the rest of my questions.
> Particularly critical are:
>
> 6. Were the proposed donors in positions of authority or governance in
> relation to Debconf ?

no

> 3. Were any conditions attached ? If so what were the conditions ?
>
> It has been alleged that the conditions attached were that we hold
> DC13 at Le Camp. Again, would you please confirm or deny.

yes they were attached to Le Camp. I dont see this particularily good or bad,
as every year we have sponsors who donate because its in "their" country and
we also do activly seek for local sponsors for a venue - before and after a
venue has decided.

> I think the whole project is entitled to full and frank answers to all
> of my questions.

I disagree (at least about anyone having the right to come along at any time
and asking whatever silly question based on some stories. Those doing DebConf
organisation are volunteers and can and must decide on their own how to spend
their time best. And yes these volunteers need to work within the project, but
that doesnt mean every question has to be answered immediatly).

But please, lets not have *this* discussion *now* *also*. There will still be
plenty of time for this - eg we do have regular DebConf/Debian workshops at
DebConf.


cheers,
Holger

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[Ian Jackson]

Moray Allan writes ("Re: "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):

> Since your questions remain unanswered, I just want to say as one of
> the DebConf Chairs that I think the questions are valid, but I
> personally don't know any details about this that would help clear them
> up.

Thanks very much for your reply.

It is disturbing that you don't have the details. It suggests that
not all of the global team have been kept fully informed.

> Certainly at the time many people within the DebConf team were
> uncomfortable that this "anonymous donation" was used to argue that we
> didn't need to worry about the high prices at Le Camp, and to argue that
> we should definitely choose Le Camp since this money was only available
> if we went there.

I find this unacceptable. I think we should be told who it was that
was arguing that we should choose Le Camp for that reason.

How does the timing of these arguments, and of the donation appearing
and then disappearing, relate to the timing of the final decision
about DC13 venue ?

> As has been stated already in this thread, after some questioning it
> subsequently turned out that it wasn't really a donation anyway, but a
> loan with the intention of providing liquidity at an early stage, and
> the DebConf budget team decided it was not useful to accept the offer
> since alternative and less mysterious liquidity sources were available.

Quite!

Ian.

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[Ian Jackson]

Holger Levsen writes ("Re: [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):

> On Montag, 3. Dezember 2012, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > I'm sorry to keep making trouble, but strings-attached offers of
> > substantial amounts of money from anonymous donors are a serious
> > matter. Even if the decision for Debconf13 is already finalised,
> > we need to have transparency.
>
> and you seriously think, the only way to achieve transparency are

> some ad-hoc mails to -project? [...]

Thanks for the answers you have given.

When a serious issue arises I think it's right to discuss it in a
public and open place. -project is I think the right place.

> > It has been alleged that the conditions attached were that we hold
> > DC13 at Le Camp. Again, would you please confirm or deny.
>
> yes they were attached to Le Camp. I dont see this particularily
> good or bad, as every year we have sponsors who donate because its
> in "their" country and we also do activly seek for local sponsors
> for a venue - before and after a venue has decided.

I don't think anonymous donations with strings attached are
acceptable. If our decisionmaking is being influenced by
strings-attached donations, the very minimum is that we should know
who is pulling the strings.

> > I think the whole project is entitled to full and frank answers to all
> > of my questions.
>
> I disagree (at least about anyone having the right to come along at
> any time and asking whatever silly question based on some
> stories.

The right thing to do with rumours is to quash them, not to complain
about people who ask questions.

Ian.

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[Ian Jackson]

Jose Luis Rivas writes ("Re: [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):
> I really thought people working on a project like Debian would understand
> the meaning of the "anonymous" word. Then we blame government and
> politicians.

I'm sorry, I don't follow your point. When politicians accept
anonymous loans/donations we rightly criticise them. When campaigning
organisations accept anonymous strings-attached donations we worry
that their independence is compromised.

> This is really annoying. Who would be up to give anonymous donations if
> they're not up to be "anonymous"? And anonymous should be it too for the
> people receiving it, BTW. There are ways.

At the very least any anonymous donation should be unconditional.

Everyone who is involved with dealing with such a proposal (which
definitely includes everyone on the Debconf global and local teams and
the sponsorship team) should know this, and should make it clear to
any donor.

According to Moray this proposed strings-attached donation was used as
an argument by some members of the Debconf team in favour of making
the decision favoured by the donor. That is wholly unacceptable. It
amounts exactly to the donors buying influence.

The fact that the money didn't change hands in the end doesn't help
very much if at all (and indeed in some ways it makes it worse - if
we're going to be bribed we should at least get to keep the money!)

Under these circumstances claims that the proposal evaporated before
the final decision was made are less than reassuring. Committee
deliberations of this kind are not so clear cut - for example a team
member who had been influenced by this donation and committed to a
particular point of view may find it difficult to change their
position later. It will be difficult to separate out the influence
that such a proposal had.

> "And what's if they're narcos giving out money to Debian?" Well, it is
> ANONYMOUS.
>
> If you guys are not OK with it then don't accept any kind of anonymous
> donations and make a law about it (a-la Debian way).

I would have hoped that not accepting anonymous string-attached
donations is a basic matter of ethics that everyone would understand
and follow.

These goings-on help me understand why my employer makes me sit
through tedious and absurd "compliance training" which tells us not to
give or accept bribes and not to bully people - matters which I again
would have hoped everyone would understand.

Ian.

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[Russ Allbery]

Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> According to Moray this proposed strings-attached donation was used as
> an argument by some members of the Debconf team in favour of making the
> decision favoured by the donor. That is wholly unacceptable. It
> amounts exactly to the donors buying influence.

> The fact that the money didn't change hands in the end doesn't help very
> much if at all (and indeed in some ways it makes it worse - if we're
> going to be bribed we should at least get to keep the money!)

The part that I'm missing here is what you felt should have been done
differently.

Let's assume that Debian has no control over the offering of the donation
(or loan) in the first place. I think that's a reasonable assumption.
What I would then expect is for the team to discuss the offer (since no
decision is ever going to be made out of hand), and then reject the offer
as being insufficiently transparent and posing other problems with
oversight and possible undue influence.

That seems to be exactly what happened. So unless I'm missing something,
the reaction indicated seems to be "well done, thank you for handling this
ethically and professionally." I'm not inclined to blame people for
temporarily discussing something, or even temporarily using it as an
argument, before thinking it through further. Asking people to not do
that seems to be an impossibly high standard to which to hold people. One
of the ways that high-functioning groups develop and maintain ethical
standards is to discuss ethical quandries in public.

I'm not seeing any evidence on this thread (and, indeed, directly
contrary assertions from people I think we all have reason to trust) that
the withdrawn offer had any material effect on the choice of venue.

--
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[Daniel Pocock]

Not quite...

What is now clear

a) Holger, a DebConf chair, was concerned about Le Camp's budget on 25
October (referring to it as GourmetConf) and unwilling to support it
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121025.200948.bca7a335.en.html
"100k for food is just insane. We are neither GourmetConf (*) nor
should we."

b) 26 October, Holger visits Interlaken, and 27+28, he visits Le Camp

c) on 28 October, Holger reports via IRC (and subsequently confirms in
email) that he has changed his views about Le Camp and that the money is
one of the factors that changed his mind
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121029.132401.59bef7b6.en.html
"we already have 46k secured for Le Camp, quite very probably 51k. Thats way
more then ever. (I do actually miss some applause here.) "

d) as confirmed in Holger's email today, "they withdraw it basically at
the same time we rejected it" - this implies the sponsor/lender
independently came to the conclusion not to offer the money, but only
after Holger's support for Le Camp had been won


Is it just co-incidence that the sponsor decided to withdraw the money?
Or was it someone involved in or monitoring our decision making processes?

On 04/12/12 13:39, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Montag, 3. Dezember 2012, Ian Jackson wrote:

>> 6. Were the proposed donors in positions of authority or governance in
>> relation to Debconf ?
>

> no

Today, Holger has told us that sponsors/lenders were not in positions of
authority or governance (in the past tense). Ian's complete question
specified: "Examples of people in positions of authority

or governance in relation to Debconf include the DPL, the DPL
helpers tasked with Debconf-related tasks, people involved with
Debconf accounting on behalf of SPI or FFIS, and of course members
of the Debconf global or local teams."

In a reply to Holger's email on 31 October, Richard mentioned:
"they want it back before _before_ travel sponsorship... so
even if we decide to use the money to fill a deficit, it can't be used
for travel sponsorship."
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121031.082232.2c9c4f00.en.html

which also suggests the sponsors/lenders know a little bit more than the
average person about the way a DebConf budget works.

I've been asked not to repeat things from IRC into a publicly archived
list, so as much as I feel Holger's answer is inaccurate, I'm not going
to copy and paste those things from IRC right now. To summarise the
impression I have though, it has been widely speculated on #debconf-team
in late October that this money was coming from members of the local
team or a family business or some other closely connected business. In
my mind, if somebody (or their family member) is in an executive role in
such a related business, then it is no different than if the money was
in their personal control, and the question should be answered again.

So, I would really like to hear Holger (or even better, the anonymous
sponsor themself) to give a thorough response about whether the sponsor
was so closely connected with the team, regardless of whether the
sponsor is in an official delegate of the DPL

As a substitute, if the sponsor is a private individual who wants to
remain private, I would personally be happy for this to be documented by
some independent third party who will then answer Ian's question for the
public benefit.

The answers to these questions don't prevent a DebConf at Le Camp. In
fact, if DebConf goes ahead at Le Camp, then transparency about this
issue is more important than ever. Just imagine if there is a deficit
for Debian or some bigger disaster in 6 months - do we want people to be
speculating about the role this "sponsor" played in bringing Debian to
Le Camp? The debate at that stage would be ferocious. So it is much
better for the full truth to come out now before the final signing of
any contract.

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[Russ Allbery]

Daniel Pocock <dan...@pocock.com.au> writes:

> a) Holger, a DebConf chair, was concerned about Le Camp's budget on 25
> October (referring to it as GourmetConf) and unwilling to support it
> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121025.200948.bca7a335.en.html
> "100k for food is just insane. We are neither GourmetConf (*) nor should
> we."

> b) 26 October, Holger visits Interlaken, and 27+28, he visits Le Camp

> c) on 28 October, Holger reports via IRC (and subsequently confirms in
> email) that he has changed his views about Le Camp and that the money is
> one of the factors that changed his mind
> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121029.132401.59bef7b6.en.html
> "we already have 46k secured for Le Camp, quite very probably 51k. Thats
> way more then ever. (I do actually miss some applause here.) "

This message doesn't say that money was part of what changed his mind, nor
does it say that this amount of money is related to the donation/loan that
we're discussing in this thread. Maybe this is all obvious with
additional context, but at least from what's mentioned on this thread, you
aren't connecting the dots.

> d) as confirmed in Holger's email today, "they withdraw it basically at
> the same time we rejected it" - this implies the sponsor/lender
> independently came to the conclusion not to offer the money, but only
> after Holger's support for Le Camp had been won

It's quite common for donations with ethical problems to be withdrawn
before or simultaneous with being rejected. The normal way that happens
is that subsequent discussion uncovers the ethical problems, and neither
the organization nor the doner wants to proceed for the same reasons.
This is all very typical for volunteer non-profits; there is nothing
inherently suspicious about that sort of event.

> Is it just co-incidence that the sponsor decided to withdraw the money?
> Or was it someone involved in or monitoring our decision making
> processes?

Good heavens, I hope that wouldn't be necessary! If there were ethical
problems with a donation, surely those problems would be expressed
directly to the doner!

> Today, Holger has told us that sponsors/lenders were not in positions of
> authority or governance (in the past tense). Ian's complete question
> specified: "Examples of people in positions of authority
> or governance in relation to Debconf include the DPL, the DPL
> helpers tasked with Debconf-related tasks, people involved with
> Debconf accounting on behalf of SPI or FFIS, and of course members
> of the Debconf global or local teams."

> In a reply to Holger's email on 31 October, Richard mentioned: "they
> want it back before _before_ travel sponsorship... so even if we decide
> to use the money to fill a deficit, it can't be used for travel
> sponsorship."
> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121031.082232.2c9c4f00.en.html

> which also suggests the sponsors/lenders know a little bit more than the
> average person about the way a DebConf budget works.

This all seems like quite a conspiracy theory. *I* know enough about how
the DebConf budget works to make such a statement, and I've never been
involved in organizing DebConf at all and have only attended two of them.

> I've been asked not to repeat things from IRC into a publicly archived
> list, so as much as I feel Holger's answer is inaccurate, I'm not going
> to copy and paste those things from IRC right now. To summarise the
> impression I have though, it has been widely speculated on #debconf-team
> in late October that this money was coming from members of the local
> team or a family business or some other closely connected business. In
> my mind, if somebody (or their family member) is in an executive role in
> such a related business, then it is no different than if the money was
> in their personal control, and the question should be answered again.

> So, I would really like to hear Holger (or even better, the anonymous
> sponsor themself) to give a thorough response about whether the sponsor
> was so closely connected with the team, regardless of whether the
> sponsor is in an official delegate of the DPL

The key point here is that *the donation didn't proceed*. So I'm having a
hard time seeing any motivation for an in-depth inquest into the exact
details of a donation that was not accepted. There were indeed problems
with it, so it didn't go forward. That's the desired outcome!

The rest of this seems to be speculation that a donation that never
actually happened still managed to exert so much influence over the
DebConf site selection team as to change the results of the process.
That's an extraordinary claim. I would want to see some extraordinary
evidence in order to entertain it.

> As a substitute, if the sponsor is a private individual who wants to
> remain private, I would personally be happy for this to be documented by
> some independent third party who will then answer Ian's question for the
> public benefit.

Asking that rejected donations be monitored to this degree is highly
unusual. I don't know of any organization that would perform that kind of
scrutiny on something that *never happened*.

> The answers to these questions don't prevent a DebConf at Le Camp. In
> fact, if DebConf goes ahead at Le Camp, then transparency about this
> issue is more important than ever. Just imagine if there is a deficit
> for Debian or some bigger disaster in 6 months - do we want people to be
> speculating about the role this "sponsor" played in bringing Debian to
> Le Camp?

This argument seems circular. I'm unimpressed by attempts to raise
concerns and then simultaneously using that raising of concerns as an
argument that the concerns are important.

--
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[Daniel Pocock]

On 04/12/12 18:02, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Daniel Pocock <dan...@pocock.com.au> writes:
>
>> a) Holger, a DebConf chair, was concerned about Le Camp's budget on 25
>> October (referring to it as GourmetConf) and unwilling to support it
>> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121025.200948.bca7a335.en.html
>> "100k for food is just insane. We are neither GourmetConf (*) nor should
>> we."
>
>> b) 26 October, Holger visits Interlaken, and 27+28, he visits Le Camp
>
>> c) on 28 October, Holger reports via IRC (and subsequently confirms in
>> email) that he has changed his views about Le Camp and that the money is
>> one of the factors that changed his mind
>> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121029.132401.59bef7b6.en.html
>> "we already have 46k secured for Le Camp, quite very probably 51k. Thats
>> way more then ever. (I do actually miss some applause here.) "
>
> This message doesn't say that money was part of what changed his mind, nor
> does it say that this amount of money is related to the donation/loan that
> we're discussing in this thread. Maybe this is all obvious with
> additional context, but at least from what's mentioned on this thread, you
> aren't connecting the dots.

More context appeared earlier in this thread
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121130.200617.d5c5db4b.en.html
e.g. discussions taking place on IRC at an unlogged meeting on 28 October

>> Today, Holger has told us that sponsors/lenders were not in positions of
>> authority or governance (in the past tense). Ian's complete question
>> specified: "Examples of people in positions of authority
>> or governance in relation to Debconf include the DPL, the DPL
>> helpers tasked with Debconf-related tasks, people involved with
>> Debconf accounting on behalf of SPI or FFIS, and of course members
>> of the Debconf global or local teams."
>
>> In a reply to Holger's email on 31 October, Richard mentioned: "they
>> want it back before _before_ travel sponsorship... so even if we decide
>> to use the money to fill a deficit, it can't be used for travel
>> sponsorship."
>> http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121031.082232.2c9c4f00.en.html
>
>> which also suggests the sponsors/lenders know a little bit more than the
>> average person about the way a DebConf budget works.
>
> This all seems like quite a conspiracy theory. *I* know enough about how
> the DebConf budget works to make such a statement, and I've never been
> involved in organizing DebConf at all and have only attended two of them.

I suspect conspiracy is too strong a word, and while I'm not suggesting
that here, such things do happen from time to time, and having
information disclosed more transparently allows everybody to rule out
the possibility of any conspiracy and quash all the rumors.

>> I've been asked not to repeat things from IRC into a publicly archived
>> list, so as much as I feel Holger's answer is inaccurate, I'm not going
>> to copy and paste those things from IRC right now. To summarise the
>> impression I have though, it has been widely speculated on #debconf-team
>> in late October that this money was coming from members of the local
>> team or a family business or some other closely connected business. In
>> my mind, if somebody (or their family member) is in an executive role in
>> such a related business, then it is no different than if the money was
>> in their personal control, and the question should be answered again.
>
>> So, I would really like to hear Holger (or even better, the anonymous
>> sponsor themself) to give a thorough response about whether the sponsor
>> was so closely connected with the team, regardless of whether the
>> sponsor is in an official delegate of the DPL
>
> The key point here is that *the donation didn't proceed*. So I'm having a
> hard time seeing any motivation for an in-depth inquest into the exact
> details of a donation that was not accepted. There were indeed problems
> with it, so it didn't go forward. That's the desired outcome!

Effectively the carrot was dangled before the horses at the moment when
people wanted the horses to run. Money was never paid/The horses never
got to eat their carrot, and maybe they would have run in the same
direction anyway. Maybe it was even the best direction that the horses
could have possibly run with or without a carrot to tempt them.

>From the email just sent by Darst, the final line concludes that whether
or not this carrot influenced the venue decision is "debatable"

I certainly feel the appearance of this offer the day after visiting
Interlaken undermined all the effort I put in to provide an alternative
venue for objective comparison.

However, I would agree that our democratic and distributed structure
stopped this issue in it's tracks. Holger did the right thing referring
it to Philipp (the treasurer of the local debconf committee) to analyse.
Philipp appears to have quickly recognised the faults with the issue.
Philipp sent an email informing people that something had happened and
that it had been stopped in it's tracks. I agree these are all good
things. It is sad that Philipp and Holger then become the people who
have to explain when it doesn't seem likely that they were the ones who
instigated the sponsorship/loan discussion.

> The rest of this seems to be speculation that a donation that never
> actually happened still managed to exert so much influence over the
> DebConf site selection team as to change the results of the process.
> That's an extraordinary claim. I would want to see some extraordinary
> evidence in order to entertain it.

If you follow all of Holger's emails in the week before and after 27/28
October, you will notice

a) a significant improvement in his confidence about Le Camp

b) the improved financial position (based on these figures) is mentioned
several times before the money was withdrawn on 2 November

>> The answers to these questions don't prevent a DebConf at Le Camp. In
>> fact, if DebConf goes ahead at Le Camp, then transparency about this
>> issue is more important than ever. Just imagine if there is a deficit
>> for Debian or some bigger disaster in 6 months - do we want people to be
>> speculating about the role this "sponsor" played in bringing Debian to
>> Le Camp?
>
> This argument seems circular. I'm unimpressed by attempts to raise
> concerns and then simultaneously using that raising of concerns as an
> argument that the concerns are important.

Not exactly - we have already seen speculation in the last 24 hours that
this issue originated with sponsorship from a company that some people
find controversial. It is quite possible such speculation (maybe about
other companies too) will surface again if the issue isn't closed more
comprehensively.

Just to be clear, this thread is NOT about asking people to change the
venue (there are other active threads on debconf-discuss/debconf-team
for that). It is just about making sure this issue is documented before
anything serious like a contract signing takes place.

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[Holger Levsen]

Hi,

I'm sick and saddened to read these mails and will not participate in any
further of this.

Also, I cannot stop thinking "gigantic bikeshedding (mostly from people who
never build one). And based on rumors of what the bikeshed is supposed to
look, while not listening to the people who actually have seen this and other
possible construction sites." - but sadly, DebConf is not a bikeshed (its
slightly more complicated than that, cough) and Switzerland is not an easy
place to hold a DebConf. Which we knew and took into consideration. Now
basically claiming we are stupid is not only borderline insulting. But keep
on... the greatest possible low has not yet been reached. We surely can do
worse than this!

(And I'm not saying/thinking/wanting to imply every concern is equal to claim
we are stupid. By far not.)

And, think what you want, you'll do this anyway.


sad,
Holger


P.S.: and about the accomodation post from Joss: a.) those are _not_ balanced
examples for Le Camp, Le Camp is actually a pretty nice place compared to eg a
youth hostel. (It's not a 4 star hotel though.) b.) you havent seen the you
youth hostel (and its tent village (and the showers there...!)) of our
"alternative" in Interlaken, have you? and c.) are you aware that another
alternative were/are bomb shelters? Switzerland is ridiculous expensive,
that's *why* we choose Le Camp and why we did this so early.

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[Ian Jackson]

Russ Allbery writes ("Re: [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13"):

> The part that I'm missing here is what you felt should have been done
> differently.

This is a reasonable question.

> Let's assume that Debian has no control over the offering of the donation
> (or loan) in the first place. I think that's a reasonable assumption.
> What I would then expect is for the team to discuss the offer (since no
> decision is ever going to be made out of hand), and then reject the offer
> as being insufficiently transparent and posing other problems with
> oversight and possible undue influence.

Indeed.

> That seems to be exactly what happened.

No. My reading of Moray's message is that some members of the Debconf
teams used the existence of the donation as an argument in favour of
selecting Le Camp as the site.

> I'm not seeing any evidence on this thread (and, indeed, directly
> contrary assertions from people I think we all have reason to trust) that
> the withdrawn offer had any material effect on the choice of venue.

Moray writes:

Certainly at the time many people within the DebConf team were
uncomfortable that this "anonymous donation" was used to argue
that we didn't need to worry about the high prices at Le Camp, and
to argue that we should definitely choose Le Camp since this money
was only available if we went there.

I read Moray's "used to argue" as referring to arguments from people
within Debian or Debconf. Obviously it would be entirely
inappropriate for anyone within Debian or Debconf's decisionmaking
structures to argue that we should make a particular decision because
an anonymous donor makes it a condition that we do so.

In
http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121029.132401.59bef7b6.en.html
Holger uses the "46k secured for Le Camp" as an argument in favour of
Le Camp as a venue. This can surely only refer to conditional
donations and AIUI this includes the anonymous "donation".

Ian.


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[Paul Tagliamonte]

Look, I'm super into this stuff (really), so much so that my day job is
in government transparency. I care a lot about money's role in politics,
and this isn't too different.

Let's stop this thread, this horse is very (VERY) dead.

I feel like I'm reading a really tragic version of ancient aliens, with
all these conjectures and question marks.

Let's set up guidelines on what sort of donations we should accept and
be done with it. Personally, I think anything over 250 USD should never
be anonymous. We can bikeshead that mess later.

Let's lay off and let the team in charge do their job. No rules were
broken this time.

>
> Ian.
>
>
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>

Seriously, </thread>, please.

Cheers,
Paul

[Leandro Gómez]

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Holger Levsen <hol...@layer-acht.org> wrote:

Hi,

I'm sick and saddened to read these mails and will not participate in any
further of this.

Also, I cannot stop thinking "gigantic bikeshedding (mostly from people who
never build one). And based on rumors of what the bikeshed is supposed to
look, while not listening to the people who actually have seen this and other
possible construction sites." - but sadly, DebConf is not a bikeshed (its
slightly more complicated than that, cough) and Switzerland is not an easy
place to hold a DebConf. Which we knew and took into consideration. Now
basically claiming we are stupid is not only borderline insulting. But keep
on... the greatest possible low has not yet been reached. We surely can do
worse than this!

Yes, please stop this nonsense!

If you haven't been part of local team organizing a DebConf, you don't know how frustrating and demoralizing this kind of discussion is. The local team is working really hard on solving tons of issues, trying to organize a nice and productive DebConf for us all, and when some people just throw shit at the fan, the only thing you want to do is to give up and run away.

No money (loan or donation) has been accepted on behalf of DebConf. I think this kind of discussion (about transparency) is important. But it can wait. Please use your time and energy on something more productive and urgent. Like helping the local team to make DebConf13 a success. 

 

 

(And I'm not saying/thinking/wanting to imply every concern is equal to claim
we are stupid. By far not.)

And, think what you want, you'll do this anyway.


sad,
        Holger


P.S.: and about the accomodation post from Joss: a.) those are _not_ balanced
examples for Le Camp, Le Camp is actually a pretty nice place compared to eg a
youth hostel. (It's not a 4 star hotel though.)  b.) you havent seen the you
youth hostel (and its tent village (and the showers there...!)) of our
"alternative" in Interlaken, have you? and c.) are you aware that another
alternative were/are bomb shelters? Switzerland is ridiculous expensive,
that's *why* we choose Le Camp and why we did this so early.

_______________________________________________
Debconf-discuss mailing list
Debconf...@lists.debconf.org
http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss

[Russ Allbery]

Ian Jackson <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> Russ Allbery writes:

>> That seems to be exactly what happened.

> No. My reading of Moray's message is that some members of the Debconf
> teams used the existence of the donation as an argument in favour of
> selecting Le Camp as the site.

At least for some period of time, assuming that the 46K refers to this
donation, I can see where you're seeing that. However, Holger has already
said directly that this was not conclusive and has stated a number of
other reasons for favoring Le Camp, which seems like the important part.

> Moray writes:

> Certainly at the time many people within the DebConf team were
> uncomfortable that this "anonymous donation" was used to argue
> that we didn't need to worry about the high prices at Le Camp, and
> to argue that we should definitely choose Le Camp since this money
> was only available if we went there.

> I read Moray's "used to argue" as referring to arguments from people
> within Debian or Debconf. Obviously it would be entirely inappropriate
> for anyone within Debian or Debconf's decisionmaking structures to argue
> that we should make a particular decision because an anonymous donor
> makes it a condition that we do so.

Which is why, when the situation became clear, everyone stopped, no?

What remedy or action are you looking for here? I don't think breaking
the anonymity of a donation that never happened really makes sense. Are
you looking for site selection to be re-opened? Further reassurance that
the selection of the site was not influenced by the donation that didn't
happen?

I guess I'm still not seeing the correctable impropriety. I understand
that you're unhappy that this donation was ever used as an argument, but
to me that seems like a solved problem going forward, and we've already
had some reassurance that the site selection decision was not influenced
by that donation even though it temporarily surfaced as an argument in
favor of Le Camp. Do you want more reassurance on that score?

Given the fallout and the understanding shared among the DebConf committee
expressed here, it seems very likely to me that people will be even more
sensitive about this sort of donation in the future.

I guess the other possibility is that people might be concerned someone
involved in governance arranged this whole thing in a deliberately
manipulative way and has not been uncovered, and therefore may continue to
do so in the future. Certainly, that would prompt a high level of
concern. But I'm not really seeing signs of that in the discussion so
far. Also, at least from the outside, that strikes me as much less
plausible than most alternative explanations. It would require assuming a
lot of malice in a situation that can be adequately explained by
well-intentioned but misguided offers by excited people.

I guess where I'm coming from here is that at some point one has to trust
the process. I've been in governance situations with conflicts of
interest before, and they're very hard to avoid entirely. That's *why*
there's a process so that there are lots of checks and balances along the
way.

Please note: as difficult as this sort of discussion is, I actually agree
with Ian that this sort of discussion is valuable and helps keep a
volunteer organization healthy. Ethics are hard. They're tricky and
complicated, and they can always, *always*, be handled better. There's no
perfect way of handling situations, and always possible improvements, and
the way that one works out those improvements is through public
discussion. Having this sort of public discussion of one's decisions is
really painful, since it can feel personal and feel like an attack on
one's honor, but I really don't think it is. Rather, it's an
acknowledgement that this stuff is really hard, and lots of brains
together are sometimes required to find the best ways of handling various
situations, particularly unprecedented ones.

That said, the flipside of that observation is that it's almost impossible
to achieve a perfect decision-making process. Every process is going to
have some flaws in retrospect, but that doesn't mean the process is
invalid. That's exactly why it's so important to have a process with a
variety of steps that tend to fail independently.

--
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[Josselin Mouette]

Le mardi 04 décembre 2012 à 15:02 +0100, Andreas Tille a écrit :
> If these people
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh-Morpork_Assassins%27_Guild
>
> would use Debian it is perfectl in line with our social contract.
> Thus I can't see a reason why they should not sponsor DebConf.

There’s a huge difference between letting anyone using our software and
accepting money from anyone. “The hand that gives is over the hand that
receives.”

> So far for trying to make something out of your troll posting and I do
> not really want to feed you but it would be great if you would start
> sticking to a single relevant mailing list rather than also spoiling
> debian-project.

These sponsorship arrangements affect the project as a whole, and are
definitely relevant to the project as a whole.

--
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: :' :
`. `'
`-


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[Gunnar Wolf]

Russ Allbery dijo [Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 10:42:47AM -0800]:
> (... big snip ...)

> What remedy or action are you looking for here? I don't think breaking
> the anonymity of a donation that never happened really makes sense. Are
> you looking for site selection to be re-opened? Further reassurance that
> the selection of the site was not influenced by the donation that didn't
> happen?

Right now, this is only bringing in unneeded (and much to the
contrary, much counterproductive) noise in a very hard to reach
agreement that AIUI had mostly been reached by the people
involved. Yes, we might have to come to this general discussion later
on. As Paul said, we might have to set guidelines on maximum anonymous
amounts later on — I guess they had not been set because we just
didn't envision this possibility. We might now have to discuss whether
or not we accept pressure (and how much of it) from green little men
coming out from flying saucers demanding us to take them to our
leader, just because there is a possibility that in the future we
might experience an alien invasion during DebConf, and then people
will start bickering on why did we choose DebConf to be held at an
alien landing site.

This was an unforseen event, that was dealt with the best way we could
(note that by "we" I mean the group — I keep out every year of the
sponsor team, as I know it's not where my energies are most
effective). The Huge Anonymous Donation^WLoan didn't take place. Can
further details be made available? I have no idea. But having this
discussion right now is really harming. Not only us as a project, but
the mental health of the people most involved in the bid and the
organization, that have invested long time in it. You are all welcome
to be a part of the DebConf team, but please, work in it for a while
before making life miserable for the rest.

> Please note: as difficult as this sort of discussion is, I actually agree
> with Ian that this sort of discussion is valuable and helps keep a
> volunteer organization healthy. Ethics are hard. They're tricky and
> complicated, and they can always, *always*, be handled better. There's no
> perfect way of handling situations, and always possible improvements, and
> the way that one works out those improvements is through public
> discussion. Having this sort of public discussion of one's decisions is
> really painful, since it can feel personal and feel like an attack on
> one's honor, but I really don't think it is. Rather, it's an
> acknowledgement that this stuff is really hard, and lots of brains
> together are sometimes required to find the best ways of handling various
> situations, particularly unprecedented ones.

Right. We have had very hard decision processes over the years. And
after all, we have come out with better policies. So, yes, we should
have a talk about this kind of topics. Maybe as a DebConf session,
maybe as a mail thread during a quieter period. Maybe something more
ample (i.e. not just regarding DebConf but as handling funds in Debian
in general). But, please, this is a very hard circumstance to bring up
the point.

[Gunnar Wolf]

TL;DR ⇒ I'm sick of this discussion. I'm calling the DebConf chairs to
vote _NOW_ to sign or repeal the contract. I'm voting to
sign. (Do we need consensus between the three? Can we vote?)

I will probably do some netiquette breaches in this post... So,
apologies to all, but I think we are reaching a low record in the
quality of the discussion, and I don't want to risk this going even
worse. And yes, I'm keeping the quite offtopic d-project list in.

Holger Levsen dijo [Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 07:11:19PM +0100]:

> Hi,
>
> I'm sick and saddened to read these mails and will not participate in any
> further of this.

In IRC, Holger asked me what did I think of this mail in the light of
the current mood of the whole team. And yes, since the shit-slinging
began (anew) some days ago, you might find it shocking that relatively
so few messages have been written by the people involved in the
organization and in the (so much attacked) LeCamp bid.

People, (most of) the Swiss team is pissed with the lack of trust and
lack of respect we have been showing for months already, and that now
some very vocal outsiders (i.e. Debian people who are not involved in
this year's DebConf organization) are showing.

Holger is not the first person that sends an "I'm sick and
saddened...will not participate in any further..." message. Several
people have done it, with varying levels of meaning in the "will not
participate" part (from "I'm quitting this thread" to "fuck off,
organizing DebConf is for retards").

A while ago, my main argument for supporting to hold DebConf at LeCamp
instead of the several alternative venues that have been offered is
the social one. The level of mistrust of a very committed group of
long-term Debian developers, who have come up with a great proposal
for having a *different* venue, is really saddening.

And then comes this nonsense about the veto. Were there an explicit
veto or not by the local team, I think the effect is obvious. Would
you expect any of them to work their asses off for organizing DebConf
for the next 8 months (plus the "cleanup phase", preparing the report,
and a big etcetera) if we decide to discard the proposals they
initially pushed, since the very presentation of the Swiss bid? Of
course not. And we cannot commit to having a DebConf organized by a
half-assed local team complaining that things would have been better
if we had listened to them all over.

There is people contributing lots of information that can lead to a
different venue/organization/setting. At first, we thanked them. And
yes, that information led to getting some things better WRT what we
are to get. But right now, just sending quotes of some random places
that might be OK for us to work in are no longer helping — to the
contrary, they are hurting. A lot.

We have got the LeCamp owners a good extension of time to sign a
contract. We have achieved several important modifications to the
contract. Most of the organizers agree we reached a decent compromise
and we were quite happy about this achievement during our last meeting
(or non-meeting, or whatever you want to call it), just before the
shit-slinging. What else do we need? We have only until this Friday to
hand in a signed contract. And I'm more than happy to approve it.

Many things are not as perfect as we would like. No DebConf will ever
be perfect. It is what it is, and sorry, if you don't like the setting
the Swiss team is proposing, maybe this is a good DebConf for you to
watch over the very nice video stream.

The DebConf chairs delegation was (much correctly IMO) split over
three people precisely to give more chance to arguments to be
weighed and more viewpoints to be listened to. And I think my two
co-chairs (and very good friends on a personal level) are great for
the task (and I'm also very happy I was chosen, and hope I am as good
for DebConf as they are). Moray has been very busy with non-DebConf
stuff during the past days, which is completely understandable... But
we cannot hold this much longer.

So, to reach a decision, we sometimes have to resort to voting. I am
very happy that in the Debian culture voting is given very low
precedence and consensus building is always prefered. But I think we
have reached that point.

So, lets stop hearing nonsense. My vote is an unambiguous and full
"yes" to signing the contract as it is now. We don't need any more
noise regarding alternative venues.

I know another point we have not decided as clearly as we should (as
the secret non-donation thing) is how should the chairs vote. Does
66% mean we can sign? Moray, I know you have some opposition, but I
feel it's not a general, all-out opposition. Please respond to this —
I don't want this to continue snowballing (thus keeping the insult to
the involved people). Many things still deserve our attention and can
be made better. But IMO if we choose not to sign, it will amount to
not having a DebConf this year. Or, at least, losing some very
important, very hard-working contributors to the team.

[Josselin Mouette]

Le mardi 04 décembre 2012 à 13:38 -0600, Gunnar Wolf a écrit :
> People, (most of) the Swiss team is pissed with the lack of trust and
> lack of respect we have been showing for months already, and that now
> some very vocal outsiders (i.e. Debian people who are not involved in
> this year's DebConf organization) are showing.

Is the “outsiders” word also meaning to describe people who were asked
for sponsorship and discovered later that the brochure they were sent
had almost nothing to do with what’s actually going on?

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: :' :
`. `'
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[MJ Ray]

Leandro Gómez <leo.t...@gmail.com>

> Yes, please stop this nonsense!

OK, sure, but could everyone also please stop this sort of nonsense:

> If you haven't been part of local team organizing a DebConf, you don't know

> how frustrating and demoralizing this kind of discussion is. [...]

and (quoting Gunnar Wolf):

> we should
> have a talk about this kind of topics. Maybe as a DebConf session,

Both of those are rather bizarre concepts which will probably lead to
a feedback loop, because mainly people who agree with how DebConf is
currently organised will help organise one; and mainly people who
DebConf currently serves will attend one.

This is a far better idea and I commend it to everyone:

> maybe as a mail thread during a quieter period.

Anyone like to suggest when that quieter period might be?

(back to quoting Leandro):

> Please use your time and energy on something more productive and urgent.
> Like helping the local team to make DebConf13 a success.

I think I disagree with the current organisation processes but this
isn't the time for specifics. So I wish you all the best in making
the event a success and hope that all those involved find it
rewarding, but I'm going to work on other things instead. (This is
sometimes called a yellow light, or stand-aside.)

Regards,
--
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My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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[Giacomo A. Catenazzi]

On 12/04/2012 10:36 PM, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> Le mardi 04 décembre 2012 à 13:38 -0600, Gunnar Wolf a écrit :
>> People, (most of) the Swiss team is pissed with the lack of trust and
>> lack of respect we have been showing for months already, and that now
>> some very vocal outsiders (i.e. Debian people who are not involved in
>> this year's DebConf organization) are showing.
>
> Is the “outsiders” word also meaning to describe people who were asked
> for sponsorship and discovered later that the brochure they were sent
> had almost nothing to do with what’s actually going on?

For a lot of people, your writing seems out of context.
The sponsorship brochure is linked in:
http://debconf13.debconf.org/helpus.xhtml

If other people find that it *had almost nothing to do* with DebConf,
please tell us.

BTW: someone noticed me that I did a single-list-reply on my answer to
your previous mail. Here my reply:
<http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121204.130912.539d5f32.en.html>.

Personally I see many of your *attacks* are not founded. Possibly
DebConf13 is not a DebConf for you (anyway we have a fantastic Video
Team), but we need such kind of DebConf every few years, which fits
better other DDs. It seems that you are entering in the Linus mode.

If people doesn't like next DebConf, it suffices to tell the world that
you don't like it (and the reasons), not to construct artificial critics.

And at the end the DebConf is done by DDs, so generic critics to DebConf
will cause less bids for next DebConfs so less choice. We win the bid
for only *one vote* (IIRC) and a lot of discussion, again *only one*
other candidate. I fear that the discussion of last days could force to
give up teams for next DebConf (which is IMO again /classic/ DebConf).
What was the last non-govern-sponsored DebConf without financial
troubles? DC7? So people: don't make a difficult job impossible

*Help us: sponsoring DebConf13 and biding for DebConf in 2014 and 2015*

ciao
cate


PS: Josselin: at the beginning of the mail I referred to you, but then
it was more generic. Don't take it too personal.

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[Josselin Mouette]

Le mercredi 05 décembre 2012 à 08:27 +0100, Giacomo A. Catenazzi a
écrit :

> For a lot of people, your writing seems out of context.
> The sponsorship brochure is linked in:
> http://debconf13.debconf.org/helpus.xhtml
>
> If other people find that it *had almost nothing to do* with DebConf,
> please tell us.

As currently planned, Debconf 13 has nothing to do with a conference you
would ask sponsorship to a fortune 500 company for.

> BTW: someone noticed me that I did a single-list-reply on my answer to
> your previous mail. Here my reply:
> <http://lists.debconf.org/lurker/message/20121204.130912.539d5f32.en.html>.

I’m aware of this reply, and I’m glad you mention it. I invite everyone
at large to read it, it is very insightful – although probably not in
the way you meant it to be.

--
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: :' :
`. `'
`-

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[Andreas Tille]

Dear Giacomo,

On Wed, Dec 05, 2012 at 08:27:18AM +0100, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote:
> On 12/04/2012 10:36 PM, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > Is the “outsiders” word also meaning to describe people who were asked
> > for sponsorship and discovered later that the brochure they were sent
> > had almost nothing to do with what’s actually going on?
>
> For a lot of people, your writing seems out of context.

Sure it is. Josselin was refering to outsiders as people who neither
read the brochure nor have visited the location and neither were
involved deeply in the organisation of a DebConf (so people as himself).
There is no point in answering such mails if the subject implies we
should try to finish the discussion.

Kind regards

Andreas.

--
http://fam-tille.de

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[Joerg Jaspert]

On 13051 March 1977, MJ Ray wrote:
>> maybe as a mail thread during a quieter period.
> Anyone like to suggest when that quieter period might be?

About a month after a DebConf ended.

--
bye, Joerg
Ubuntu: An ancient african word meaning "I can't configure Debian"

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[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2012 at 08:38:42AM +0100, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > If other people find that it *had almost nothing to do* with DebConf,
> > please tell us.
>
> As currently planned, Debconf 13 has nothing to do with a conference you
> would ask sponsorship to a fortune 500 company for.

You mean those companies that from time to time send their managers and
teams to spend time in the woods, sleeping in tents, because it's so
good for "team building"? :-) </joke>

Jokes aside, over the past years I've spoken with representatives of
those companies, discussing their interests in supporting financially
Debian --- by sponsoring DebConf or by donating to Debian over the
year. My personal bottom line is that the kind of "gain" they look for
when sponsoring us is different than the usual "advertisement to get new
customers" gain that you often find at technology conferences.

Several of those companies asked me, at the time of evaluating whether
to sponsor Debian or not, questions like "how can we turn our money into
code?". Companies that ask those usually rely on the well being of
Debian and want to make sure their money help volunteers having fun
improving our OS. It's some sort of strategic investment. Or, for the
more cynical, they simply have an already approved budget for "FOSS
sponsoring" and they need to distribute it among well reputed FOSS
projects.

Granted, the choice of DebConf venue (and way more so the choice of
country) will have an impact on companies that do hope to get new
customers by sponsoring a conference. We might lose some of them. But at
the end of the day, what we should care about money-wise is whether the
conference budget is sustainable or not. If it is, I wouldn't care much
about whether it has been assembled by a handful of fortune 500
companies, a long tail of small-ish companies, or funding by public
administrations.

Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . za...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o
Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o .
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »

[Josselin Mouette]

Le mercredi 05 décembre 2012 à 08:50 +0100, Andreas Tille a écrit :
> Sure it is. Josselin was refering to outsiders as people who neither
> read the brochure nor have visited the location and neither were
> involved deeply in the organisation of a DebConf (so people as himself).

Thanks for confirming that “outsiders” is a term for people whom you
actively dragged into your shit first.

Sometimes I’m ashamed just participating in the same project as a person
with such behavior.

--
.''`. Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'
`-

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