Prospective board members: travel sponsoring.

[Rob Clark]

On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 7:55 AM Luc Verhaegen <libv at skynet.be> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 07:24:48AM -0400, Rob Clark wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 7:25 PM Luc Verhaegen <libv at skynet.be> wrote:
> > >
> > > The board meeting log of august 16th says the following:
> > > (https://www.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors/MeetingSummaries/2018/08-16/)
> > >
> > > "Since the paper committee had to reject lots of talks this year (35
> > > submissions for 18 slots) board discussed how to still make it possible
> > > for anyone to attend with modest means - travel sponsoring is coupled to
> > > accepted talks. Board decides to extend offering travel sponsoring to
> > > anyone who submits a talk proposal."
> > >
> > > This seemed to have happened well _after_ the deadline for talk
> > > submission occured, precluding a lot of people from applying for such a
> > > generous offer.
> >
> > The intention was to allow people to attend XDC even if the only
> > reason their talk was not accepted was that there were not enough
> > slots relative to the # of submissions.  It wasn't intended as a
> > freebee, ie. submit a crap talk that wouldn't be accepted anyways, yet
> > still get travel sponsorship.
> >
> > So the fact the decision was taken after the CFP deadline is
> > immaterial.  In fact, it would have been weird to make it before we
> > had too many talk submissions.
>
> True, but then the question there becomes, was anyone sponsored after
> the fact, after the rules have changed?

I'm not sure why that becomes "the question"..

>
> >
> > > And it is generous; i will now definitely submit a talk for 2019, as i
> > > am bound to find something tiny to code that i can give a talk on.
> > >
> > > I also think that i have not seen who has benefitted from this
> > > sponsorship money that was spent, or the companies that they work for (i
> > > trust that the answer to the latter is "none"). Have i missed or
> > > overlooked this?
> >
> > We vote on travel approvals, it should all be in the meeting minutes.
>
> There is surprisingly little detail in both:
> https://www.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors/MeetingSummaries/2018/08-16/
> and
> https://www.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors/IrcLogs/2018/08-16/
>
> The question of transparency comes up again here...
>
> "<danvet> the small extension to include all who proposed a talk (not
> just accepted), with the wildcard to let us reject as we see fit"
>
> and
>
> "<danvet> tlwoerner, includes a "at the board's discretion" or similar
> lingo"
>
> Everything of that seems to be on board@ and amazingly little of that
> seems visible to members.

I'm not sure how you conclude that.. all I see on board@ is logistical
related stuff (ie. submitting receipts and that sort of thing), no
decision making.

It looks like in the end (and the treasurer can correct me if I'm
wrong, I don't have access to the ledger), we approved travel for 6
speakers and jake (lwn).  And we did not approve any additional travel
sponsorship for XDC2018 after extending the travel policy[1].  This is
all in the IRC logs and meeting minutes.


[1] Although we might in future years if we have a similar situation
of having more qualified talk submissions than slots.  And, IMHO, this
is a good thing.. if someone has been doing some interesting work, but
we don't have enough slots for them to present, they are still likely
to contribute to the hallway track.

BR,
-R

>
> Luc Verhaegen.