DebConf/DebConf/Bid

Planning a Debconf is a year-round activity. Before making the bid, the team should be clear as to what they are able to offer and bring to Debconf. Have a look-see at the [Bid process] document and the [Priority List] . There may or may not be a considerable overlap between the documents and what has been shared.

At times there may be more than one bid so in this unlike a software which you can over-engineer, you cannot over-prepare a bid. Having stronger bids also raises health and bench-strength of Debian to hold a conference next year if both are strong bids and one bid wins the bid.

1. The bid should at least have 5-7 people who can take the various roles and commit time, money and efforts necessary to document as much as to why Debconf should be held in the country. There could be a range of factors, right from having an already high number of Debian contributors who would like to showcase and share Debian as an opportunity to Governments, Social Organizations and the public at large.

2. The bid should have a venue or multiple venues which can host anywhere between 300-550 international attendees from all the over the world so it should be accomodate a large part of it on-site or if on-site is not possible than some nearby hostel/hotel etc. Having multiple venues makes it easier to change the venue if needed. If possible have one or more commitment letters in advance so the committee knows the seriousness of the bid.

3. Debconfs are usually held in University Campuses and require at the very least 4-5 big rooms, 2-3 rooms for smaller tracks or presentations and an equal number of smaller rooms for the administrative part of holding Debconf.

4. Debconfs are run on sponsorship from a mix of local and International Companies. The bid itself should itself have few permutations and combinations which give an idea to the Committee which evaluates the bid as to the preparedness of the team and how much they can actually realize.

5. How much sponsorship can be raised depends upon a number of things. A good way perhaps might be to look at previous Debconfs and see what sort of budgets previous Debconfs shared for a similar sized economy, number of visitors expected, the exchange rate, cost of living for a week-10 days x number of people being targetted x 3 meals x accomodation + travel expenses of around 1/3 sponsored attendees + perhaps 20~25% for not thought of expenses and overheads. Debconf is usually held between July-August historically so mention whether it is tourist on-season or off-season as well as the weather an attendee can expect to have during the time.

Some governments may also provide some funds as it enhances technical competence and some attendees may live after as a tourist advertising the country as a potential tourist destination to people from their own country. Also countries and places having conferences also generate business off-shoots of themselves as people may come to know of work opportunities which they didn't know before. The sponsors themselves who support the conference is already a good indicator for potential job-seekers or short off-shore or onshore employment contracts

6. Make the bid too small and the Debconf committee may cancel it unrealistic. Exceptions do happen but you have to be explicit about the reasons for the bid to be small and be in a position to back it up with documentary evidence so it can be screened by members of the Debconf Committee.

Many of the people who sit on the Committee have and may have opportunity to network with conferences of similar nature so getting such information might be not hard. Make it too high and both the local team and Debconf may be left holding the bag with nobody being happy. The idea of the Initial bid is to realize the local team's own limitations.

7. Pepper your bid with photographic evidence and maybe a rough floor plan, venue and places of interest in and around city, means of transport, places to eat and kind of eating that you can get. Some of the community members eat non-veg, some are vegetarian, some lacto-vegetarian, some are vegan and some are gluten-free. Having more than one place to eat frees attendees to try different places than the 'official one' .

8. As far as possible, it is nice if you have a high-quality caterer who understands both local and international cuisine and can cater to both. Its preferable if 2 or 3 people go, taste the food and get quotes and see if they can provide catering on the spot or need to have food bought from outside, a sort of parcel service and served hot using kitchen on-promises if possible.

9. If the organizations have held several Debian Minidebconfs, Sprints which at times can also be part of Debcamp which is held before debconf for hacking or/and held international conferences on free software that holds you in good stead.

10. Most Debconf meetings happen on IRC. It is in your interest to attend IRC meetings on #debconf-team on irc.oftc.net using either an IRC clients available in Debian or something like riot-web. In the initial months, there is usually once a month IRC meeting where who is supposed to do what and who was able to achieve what is shared. I would share about the Fundraising in another wiki post altogether.

11. You can look at the Debconf19 Curibita bid as to how a good bid should be structured. Have a look at the history to see if the bid is refused due to one reason or the other but that necessarily doesn't mean the end of the road as can be seen from the bid selected.

12. At least 80% of the local team should be available to go to the Debconf held before to see how Debconf is held, the everyday admin. meetings (as an observer) which are done on-site and be available to contribute to make the Debconf being held be successful.

13. A point to remember is there a difference between Debian Committee and Debcon-team. While both may or may not have same members its important to realize the difference between them. The Debconf-Comittee is a recentish creation which tries to work out the larger picture of Debconf while Debconf-team tries to get the nitty-gritty things done in order to have a successful debconf. In this, both the teams serve as a complement to each other.

14. One of the nicest things about Debian is lot of bureaucracy is minimized as Debian Contributors themselves do most of the documentation. This means that turn-around time for specific questions asked provided they are not of confidential nature are usually answered within a short time-frame.

15. Last but not the least, one of the guiding principles is 'assume good faith in other' while communicating in both public and private conversations.