On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 8:42 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
It's not double edged. It's exactly how we say the
conference funding
works. We fund people coming to provide the content of the
conference. Speakers first, then if there are funds left over, we
fund non-speakers. Which, aside from the lower number of non-speaker
registrations anyway, is why the majority of the conference is
attended by speakers.
I think that when you say "we" fund, you mean the Council and the
Premier Fedora Events budget. I think that Stephen was referring to
something broader. Lots of people's $DAYJOB doesn't see the value of
attending Flock (either as a speaker or not, actually) and forces them
to take vacation in order to do it. I suspect that this is equally
true for (some) Red Hatters that attend, but particularly for those
that are not speakers. Their $DAYJOB doesn't fund it as a business
trip (I suspect that I may be able to convince mine to at least not
make me take vacation now that I'm a member of the Server WG,
something that has demonstrable value, even if I am self-funding the
trip - though hopefully they'd pay for that as well!) .
This speaks to my specific situation, but I'm certain that there are
many others in the same situation - self-funding an expensive trip (at
least when it's on the opposite continent that they are) and taking
vacation time in order to better Fedora. Inspiring, but not exactly
fair in my mind.
That said, I don't think that the conference itself should fund more
folks, except to the extent that it is possible without compromising
other things - venue, etc. However, we should make it *much* easier
for folks to do a business justification to their employer of the time
that they spend working on Fedora, to include attending Flock. I so
happen to have a manager that "gets it" - not everyone is so lucky.