[pp.int.general] PPI GA Prague / Video Conference System for remote delegates

[Pat Mächler]

look...I'm a bit tired of this discussion.
this was discussion which was about discussing solutions, not about
the general issue.
but anyway I present my perspective here which I admit would not have
wrote by myself, but which I originally wrote because someone asked me
directly about this issue.

-pat

so here we go:

the issue here is that I certainly won't accept a non-free system if
it's something for everyone. that is the streaming and that had not
ever been really a problem AFAIK.

concerning the issue with the remote participation there are several
things to note
(1) probably there are further restrictions which would even apply to
certain free solutions because of security concerns (e.g. certain
kinds of network traffic from a country where free speech is rather
repressed).
(2) remote participation will never give the same qualitative degree
of possibilities as physical participation (at least with current
technologies; it begins with the time-zones and ends with the
socialising)

from (1) and (2) I derive:
that I would rather not strive for enforcing a one-fits-it-all (be it
free or non-free) solution to anyone that would clearly prefer or need
for something else, but rather for individual solutions if needed. we
can't get rid of the qualitative difference between physical and
remote delegates anyway, so why not ensure that everyone gets the
solution that best fits hir needs?

(3) remote participation is boiled down to a clearly and very narrow
defined group, namely each member delegate that wants to participate
remotely (+ organizations that want to applicate for membership). we
will need to ask all of them what they want and possibly need to come
up with individual solutions, which includes that if they insist on
free software, limiting ourselves to free software [1]. they should
say what they need and it should be the best (possibly individual)
solution we can get; it can't be a majority decision there.
I hope that we will get as less remote delegates as possible, as I
enforced that there shall be either a fund for non-European delegates
or that there will be a per-capita-GDP-fee with travel refunding for
all delegates (the scout movement uses this for the international
camps).

(4) I'm positive that we can find a good free software solution for
the remote participation, even if no participant would insist on using
a free software system. I rather would pay a programmer for creating a
good, free solution than in a shady service-contractor that uses a
proprietary system, where the pirates would have to pay each usage or
similar.

---footnotes---
[1] it's in the very interest of the board to allow each remote
delegate the most suitable option. it's in the interest of the board
as we got very harsh criticism from remote participants last year;
usually remote participants have been outside Europe and ppi is often
accused of beeing to euro-centric, why we have even a further interest
to include everyone as best as we can and we don't shove anyone to use
a non-free system if ze does wish to use a free system.