[OSDC Israel] Pricing for OSDC::Israel::2007

[Steph Fox]

Hi Gabor, all,

> 2006/6/15, Gabor Szabo <szabgab at gmail.com>:
>> So what do you think what should be the pricing?
>> - Company/individual prices?
>
> Company/personal - in 2006 i payed for one day from my own pocket,
> even though i have a job and my company sent some people. I payed
> myself, because at the time i was very new at the company and because
> my position has little to do with Open Source (the servers are Red
> Hat, and i do some Perl scripting, but a lot of people do that). The
> next time i might consider asking the company to pay for me.

Same here. My contract with Zend is on a freelance basis, so I paid my own 
way. Despite that fact I arrived, was given a nametag with the company name 
on it and subsequently asked to help distribute the company's CD ROMs...

> As for the "tricks" you mentioned that companies did to save costs -
> it's not nice, but i don't know how to avoid it.

I suspect you're seeing more 'tricks' than there actually were, given the 
above :)

>> - Do we need 1 day passes?
>
> I bought a 1-day pass the last time - unfortunately i was too busy to
> attend the other two days. So i'd like to see the 1-day passes stay.

I agree, 1-day passes are better for those who know in advance that they 
aren't going to be able to take 3 days out from work. Having the earlybird 
option on the 3-day pass was a good move from my perspective, too.

>> - What should be the prices?
>
> The price was not cheap, but the experience was good and for the most
> part i didn't feel ripped off (but see below). I do hope that it
> doesn't get higher (at least if i'll be paying my own money :) ).

Actually it was pretty cheap in European terms (sorry Amir!), but obviously 
if you can keep prices low it would be for the best.

A
> possibility to get a tax return for individuals would be nice, too.
> Even though it is non-profit, donation to Hamakor is not recognized by
> Mas Hachnasa as tax-deductible (last time i checked).
>
> I've got one important thing to say about the last conference, and it
> is not off-topic, because it is related to price. I'm talking about
> the food. There are two issues:
>
> 1. The individual passes didn't include lunch. Someone was nice enough
> to give me his own, because he wasn't going to use it.

I didn't think this was really a problem thanks to the 'munchies' available, 
which _were_ veggie (at least the ones I tried were). But it'd probably be 
good to offer a lunch 'option' for individuals - it's not like the college 
is in the middle of the high street and there are a lot of obvious options 
available.

- Steph

> 2. The vegetarian options were very narrow. For vegetarians like me (i
> do eat milk and eggs) there was little except cheese toast and rice
> and for vegans who don't eat milk and eggs there was almost nothing to
> eat. The Open Source community should be open to those lifestyles too
> :)
>
> -- 
> Amir Elisha Aharoni, http://aharoni.blogspot.com/
> "We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace." - Thurston Moore
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