Travel rules [LWN.net]

Travel rules

Posted Feb 22, 2007 4:25 UTC (Thu) by tseaver (subscriber, #1544)
In reply to: Unprofessional and Childish by yootis
Parent article: ESR's goodbye note

Actually, I don't think his travel rules are obnoxious: he makes very
explicit what folks need to do who want him to come speak, and even says
why. Anybody who doesn't want to meet his conditions should be grateful
for the advance notice, and move on.

FWIW, his rules seem to boil down to:

- "I'm doing this for free, so *you* make it easy for me". As somebody
who has learned *never* to let anyone else make travel arrangements
for me, I can sympathise (from the opposite end of the spectrum).

- "I don't have, nor want to be asked for, a credit card". He claims
this as a matter of principle, up front. While I don't share the
principle, I can understand the frustration. I *have* been in the
position of waiting for months to get reimbursed for expenses from
conference organizers, while having already had to pay the credit
card bills: even one conference like that is enough to make me
wary.

If the demand for his appearances is high enough, those requirements should
ensure that the folks who *do* book his time are going to value it (people
tend not to do that for things which are "free").

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Travel rules

Posted Feb 22, 2007 4:51 UTC (Thu) by yootis (subscriber, #4762) [Link]

I was referring more to these parts:

"If you want me to be in the air for longer than four hours, you have to pay for business or first class no matter who you are."

and

"...I expect you to pony up for business class or first class..."

His requests may or may not be reasonable. That isn't the point. It is the obnoxious, childish way that he states it.

In any case, this was the most minor of my examples.

Travel rules

Posted Feb 22, 2007 6:09 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

> He claims this as a matter of principle, up front. While I don't share the principle, I can understand the frustration. I *have* been in the position of waiting for months to get reimbursed for expenses from conference organizers, while having already had to pay the credit card bills: even one conference like that is enough to make me wary.

That's not the reason he states in the text. He states that: "Also please bear in mind that I do not have a credit card. This is deliberate; I value my privacy."

PS. When Fedora developers told him that they only want to ship free software, as a matter of principle, he got all cranky and declared them detached from reality and what not. Go figure...

Travel rules

Posted Feb 22, 2007 7:02 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Please disregard my comment. I think I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

Sorry :-(

Travel rules

Posted Mar 1, 2007 23:02 UTC (Thu) by mikesalib (guest, #17162) [Link]

Actually, he is not clear with his rules at all. I once worked on a conference that invited him to speak (along with many others). Shortly before the conference started, he sent me an angry flame complaining about the fact that we had not set up the trip to his exacting specifications. He pointed to that same damn travel requirements document.

I checked my email and politely explained to him that he *never* *told* us about his requirements. Furthermore, none of the other 30 attendees were so demanding. He acted churlish, but showed up anyway.

Apparently, I erred in not reading everything on his website. Regardless of the rules, the arrogance and self importance of expecting everyone to know them is mind boggling.