DebConf7/Meetings/Minutes/2007-01-29

These minutes are a work in progress.

Attendance (in no particular order):

Jon, mhy, Ganneff, bureado, moray, h0lger, sgran, psn, gwolf, Maulkin, alerios, sapphire, pixelgirl, nattie, marga, Sledge, anibal

Minuted by: Jon

Teviot networking report

proposed room layouts

Proposed room layouts have been circulated. Moray suggests the hacklabs should be adjacent (At the top of Teviot). General consensus. An argument in favour of the basement (another option) is ease of wiring: however the room has many drawbacks (e.g. lack of windows).

Sledge asks if the top floor is accessible: Moray confirms. Sgran informs that there are toilets at every level; mhy believes that there is lift access to all levels too.

Ganneff wondered if the talks could be labelled with final locations. Mhy responds, it would be better to give the locations generic names (e.g. "Hacklab 1") and then this is independent of mapping these name to real places.

Action h0lger: update XCF files with the hacklab locations decided. Talk room 2 and hacklab 2 need to be swapped.

upstream link

There's no news on the upstream link: the team will try the University (although various people feel that will be unlikely), then UKFSN. Moray notes that several ISPs have expressed interested in sponsoring the networking.

cabling infrastructure

In short: power great; networking, non-existent.

Power distribution etc. will be helped by Union Ents.

With networking at least, there is fibre into the University and plenty of copper around, so there'll be no need to dig up the streets.

anibal asks if people are asked to supply their own APs. H0lger responds, we are asking sponsor(s) to provide those.

Action network team: calculate rough networking equipment requirements

Action sponsor team: investigate network equipment sponsorship

Some off-topic discussion about server requirements has been minuted in AOB.

Accommodation team report

hostel #1: budget backpackers

budget backpackers: maulkin has looked at the invoice and requested more details: specifically, are the prices inclusive of VAT; what is the company's VAT number; a copy of the Terms and Conditions. Jon has contacted BB for these on friday/saturday, no response so far. He will contact them again tomorrow midday if he hasn't heard anything.

The first deposit is due on thursday. Jon has had assurances from Maulkin that this can be paid on time.

Action Jon: chase up BB for VAT clarification, VAT number, terms and conditions

hostel #2: cowgate hostel

Jon has been chased up (on 23rd Jan) to clarify whether we want to adjust the booking. However the specific size of the bookings is inconsistent across correspondence.

Concerns had been raised about this hostel due to universally bad writeups on travel websites. The team's personal experiences correlate with the complaints.

Jon has mailed for clarification (on 28th Jan), and has also stipulated our requirements regarding cleaning etc., as a result of the concerns raised. There has been no response so far. This mail is in SVN for those curious.

gwolf notes that no change of linen for any stay greater than 8 days would be unpleasant (i.e. for attendees of debianday/debcamp).

action jon/gwolf: to discuss issues about cleanliness for stays longer than the 8 for debconf

hostel(s) #3: castle rock / high st hostel

Castle rock have stated that the maximum number of beds available would be 50. HSH offered 30. We were informed last week that bookings were not available until tuesday (day after this meeting) due to a computer failure. The team are waiting on the outcome of the next actions for the two bookings above before persuing this any further.

mixing company sponsored accommodation and others

h0lger asks if it's possible to mix people who are being sponsored to attend by their companies with those who are not. That way, the companies would give us the sponsorship money, rather than the hostel.

There is no way for attendees' to specify this on their application at present (they are either "hostel sponsored" or "hostel unsponsored").

figures

At the time of the meeting (or in reality, the day after, when I wrote the minutes up), there were

• 212 hostel sponsored requests
• 34 hostel unsponsored requests
• 12 hotel requests
• 70 "arrange own"

The accommodation team have been working on the assumption that 350 beds at 10pppn was the goal; adjusting for our quotes at 12pppn that gives 290 beds. The bookings #1 and #2 above will cover 280. Demand at present is 246.

Moray notes that on 1 Feb we can have final/maximum sponsorship numbers. We must assume that a percentage will not turn up. But we can almost certainly fill those spaces with others.

hotels

Jon notes that he has personally done nothing wrt Hotels. He believes kevc has done some initial ground work based on moray's document. Moray notes that people have been asking for a hotel to book with for a while, so we should choose one arbitrarily if necessary, soon. Moray notes it would be nice if someone could phone around for prices, but we could fall back on web figures. For informing people which to book, linking to the hotel's web form would suffice.

action Jon: Look at hotel progress and work needed this weekend.

Sponsorship team report

bank account

The coop screwed us around so we don't have a bank account yet. Negotiations with other banks are underway.

Debian-uk can receive sponsorship money and pay stuff. Note though that debian-uk has no capital to use for now: it can only pay stuff with money that has been received.

chasing sponsors

Sponsorship team has not been active enough recently. H0lger notes that a "full time chaser" role, like Stockholm occupied, would perhaps be ideal. Sledge notes that we have taken on a few more team members recently.

We have had positive responses from most of the past sponsors, but we are having to push quickly now as there weren't the expected contacts earlier.

We have a small number of confirmed sponsors: Google; HP; BlackCat networks.

outstanding deposits

The pledges from these three are enough to cover the required initial deposits. The difficult issue is getting the money quickly.

HP/Google go to SPI first, it'll take time to get it from there to here: ETA minimum of a week.

We can also use Debian money from SPI to cover cash flow against expected incoming money. ETA for this is still a while.

fil can cover the initial BB deposit whilst we wait for the money to come through. This deposit is 5399.50GBP. This will go in as a Director's loan.

Jon notes that although we don't have a deposit amount for cowgate, once the issues are worked out we will and payment will be due imminently.

action Jon: liase with fil to get the deposit paid

action Sledge: chase AJ/SPI for money to pay (back) BB deposit

planning around money

On thursday we will know the maximum amount of requested sponsorship, which will help with setting targets.

We need to know how much we can afford and break it down, e.g. how much can we allocate for food? How much for travel sponsorship? etc.

action Maulkin: update estimates and costs in sql-ledger

action Maulkin: add BB invoice to balance sheet

Press team report

nattie has sent out a press team report. Newsforge and the register have picked it up so far.

• http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/01/18/debian_conf/

h0lger notes that such links are very useful for negotiations with sponsors. Nattie will collate such links when she is made aware of them.

Action all: If you spot a news agency picking up the debconf news, let nattie know.

Local press should be prodded.

A draft spanish translation of this report is in the works.

Moray notes that the attendence registration figure could be used in such reports.

Visa report

The issue here is writing a *good* sponsorship letter. Maulking is working with sapphire on the letter, it will be in SVN shortly. It has been reviewed by sapphire, maulkin, moray, and h-lger so far.

Action sapphire: get the draft into SVN

The address visa@debconf.org has been setup for people to send requests for sponsorship letters.

The plan is to send letters at the start of march. The application process should only take a few days.

Moray notes that it would be very good if the letter could be checked over by an immigration lawyer/expert. We can't afford one, and nobody knows of someone who can do it for free. Maulkin states that we can probably run this past the immigration service.

Action Maulkin: run the draft past the immigration service, or pass the buck

Action Jon: prod Maulkin about this on wednesday

Action someone: announce visa@debconf.org now.

decide a date for the dc8 decision meeting

The dc8 decision meeting will take place on 11th Feb at 20UTC. It will be chaired by Maulkin and h0lger.

Any other business

website and other graphics

pixelgirl asked about helping with website and other gfx. She was informed to read the debconf-website mailing list archives for some previous thoughts and opinions, and to liase with ana and Maulkin.

cleaning in teviot

Bureado asked about 24h cleaning in Teviot, based on experiences in debconf6. There is currently no plan for any 24h staff apart from security. h0lger notes that people making a mess should clean it up themselves. It was agreed that keeping cleaning equipment to hand would be wise.

server requirements

This discussion actually took place in cabling infrastructure.

Ganneff requests at least two servers: one central one (High Availability if possible) and at least one for the video team. However he will take as many as he can get.

h0lger notes that the video team would like 4-5 machines.

Sledge notes that a local mirror would be good if we have bandwidth issues.

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