Gregory's Server@ariadne "I understand that putting on these events is very costly, but when indie OSS maintainers are given the option of paying nearly $1000 or having to go ask someone for a "hobbyist" discount code, it seems very disrespectful to the maintainers who are building the actual software that this summit is about."
So, is it the residual cost out of pocket, or the terminology under which those discounts are granted, which you take-issue with? I.e., if LF went with more respectful wording, would the ~75% discount off commercial-face-pricing be acceptable?
Having spent a bit of time on the Con Exec side of things (entirely unrelated convention), they're stupefyingly expensive to run, if in-person at a commercial facility. Someone has to cover the costs, either by declaring sponsorships (overt cost-shifting), or categorization (with hidden cost-shifting).
@Phyxis it is three things:
1. the cost for non-corporate attendees being $949 by default, especially when many corporate attendees have significantly discounted tickets because their corporate employer is a sponsor of LF
2. if you are an indie OSS maintainer, then you can in theory get a discount code as a “hobbyist” if you go and ask for one, this is demeaning to OSS maintainers
3. referring to private individuals who are involved in open source as maintainers as “hobbyists” is also just directly insulting
but hey, this is the same organization who issued a policy that everyone has to have a badge with their government ID name on it during COVID because it had to match their health records, despite this being harmful to transgender people and others who go by names other than their government one.
@Phyxis it is three things:
1. the cost for non-corporate attendees being $949 by default, especially when many corporate attendees have significantly discounted tickets because their corporate employer is a sponsor of LF
2. if you are an indie OSS maintainer, then you can in theory get a discount code as a “hobbyist” if you go and ask for one, this is demeaning to OSS maintainers
3. referring to private individuals who are involved in open source as maintainers as “hobbyists” is also just directly insulting