[pypy-dev] iceland sprint canceled

[holger krekel]

Hi folks, 

as some of you have heard our PyPy Iceland sprint is canceled.
There is a chain of events that lead up to this cancelation
which is not easy to comprehend or to describe.  What it probably
boils down to: expectation mismatches and communication problems.  

A month ago we were asked by a sponsor to freely and quickly 
select 8 people and work on what we find suitable for PyPy.  
We planned on this basis and matched it with our 0.9 release
goals and explicitely communicated both our goals and
participant list to the sprint organizer.  We got an OK for it
and proceeded with our plannings. 

Last week it turned out that this OK was not reflecting what
the CEO of the sponsoring company thought for the whole sprint
event and he was very upset at the situation.  This put us
into a very unfortunate situation although we had clearly
communicated our intentions and had gotten confirmation.  We
then decided last friday to adapt to the new situation,
shifted our sprint goals, planned for explaining the EU some
delays and told the sponsor that we were ready to withdraw 4
of the originally intended 8 participants of the sprint.  But
the CEO somehow perceived our moves as asking "for more" and
canceled his funding offer.  He had apparently expected us to
silently drop the people. Bummer. 

Of course, we talked a lot yesterday about what went wrong and
i (holger) asked myself that even more because of being
involved in presenting the modification and "retraction offer"
towards the sponsor and probably not hitting the right tone
given the situation on the sponsors side.  

We also think there were misconceptions at play which are based 
on the difficulties of bringing commercial interests and open source
projects together.  And certainly some cultural differences.  It's
interesting to discuss this further, also with respect to possible 
further endeavours.  But maybe not right now. 

We now are bound to decide soon about an alternative venue
for our next PyPy sprint.  We'd be happy if the iceland 
participants and many more can show up. 

best and a bientot, 

    Holger and Armin