Re: [ANNOUNCE] Git Merge Contributors Summit, April 8th, Paris

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 11:24 PM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Christian Couder [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 11:09 PM, Jeff King [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

I wanted to make one more announcement about this, since a few more
details have been posted at:

  http://git-merge.com/

since my last announcement. Specifically, I wanted to call attention to
the contributor's summit on the 8th. Basically, there will be a space
that can hold up to 50 people, it's open only to git (and JGit and
libgit2) devs, and there isn't a planned agenda. So I want to:

  1. Encourage developers to come. You might meet some folks in person
...
  2. Get people thinking about what they would like to talk about.  In
...
If you are a git dev and want to come, please RSVP to Chris Kelly
[off-list ref] who is organizing the event. If you would like
to come, but finances make it hard (either for travel, or for the
conference fee), please talk to me off-list, and we may be able to help.

I'd like the Git project to set up a more organized way to pay back
the travel costs and the conference fee to the developers who come.
For example the Git project could say that it will at least pay back:

- all the travel costs to the 5 most important Git developers who come and ask,
- half the travel costs to the 5 next most important Git developers
who come and ask,
- all the conference fee to the 15 most important Git developers who
come and ask,

I think it could help developers decide to come, and it looks like
enough funding could be available, thanks to GitHub and the GSoC
money. What do you think?

I personally perfer things to be kept informal---it would keep
things simpler for everybody.  You do not have to wonder what you
should do when you think you are among the five most important
people and you also know your employer will pay for the conference
if you asked, for example.

It feels to me that the suggestion Peff gave in his announce to ask
privately for case-by-case arrangement strikes the balance much
better.

My opinion is that it is good to give developers who could come an
idea of what the Git project should at least be able and willing to
fund, because most developers might have no idea about that.

For example many developers who contributed say less than 50 patches
to Git may think that they have no chance of being payed back anything
which might not be true at all. And by the way to make that clear, it
would be nice if the Git project could say for example every few weeks
how many people have asked for something.

I don't think there is a perfect way to do this kind of thing, but I
think being more transparent and upfront while still taking care of
privacy issues and leaving some room for discussion, can only help.

quoted

Apart from that it's also possible to find ways to accommodate some
developers for free, if they don't mind crashing in someone's spare
room.

So please don't hesitate to ask if you would like to come.

These five lines, by not explicitly saying something like "the first
2 people who ask can crash in Christian's spare bedroom", is doing
exactly the same thing as Peff did by saying "please talk to me
off-list", it seems to me at least.  Both keep things informal and
simple, and both arrange things on case-by-case basis as needed.

I must say that it is quite different, because in case of my spare
bedroom I am the only one who decides according to my own priorities.
For example if too many people ask to be accommodated and one of them
helped me personally in the past, I will be much more likely to chose
him regardless of his importance for the Git project.

And I think that is better than setting a seemingly hard rules
upfront, and causing more problems unnecessarily (e.g. who decides
who are the 5 most important, for example?).

First the rules are not so hardly set, especially because they say "at
least this amount", so in case of doubt there is room for paying back
more to more people than initially planned.

And anyway in the "case-by-case as needed basis", you still have the
problem to decide how much to pay back each one, in case people ask
for more than what is available. In this case it could be seen as very
unfair that rules are defined or negociated on the fly. (Though I
agree that in the past it went very well, but then I think it can only
improve things to have some rules defined at the beginning.)