<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I intend to wait till Nottingham have
time to comment before making my final vote. (I'll give them until
midday in the UK in ~ 12 hours).<br>
<br>
It would really help if someone could pull together a quick
spreadsheet which shows the exposure of each conference by month,
summing up to the total exposure to OSGeo by month.<br>
<br>
Things I'm hoping we can address within the next 12 hours is:<br>
* A reduced statement regarding the 50% of sponsorship to North
America. I'm concerned that:<br>
1. The statement as it stands is too vague, which will lead to
misinterpretation causing bad blood in future.<br>
2. It may be perceived as US interests receiving special favours
at the expense of the rest of the world, (getting a motion pushed
through without allowing time for the rest of the world to
comment).<br>
3. Can we please get this statement reworded to be less committing
... discussion continuing on IRC. ...<br>
<br>
I should point out that I see OSGeo board's loyalties being to the
global foss4g in the first instance, very closely followed by
FOSS4G-NA. <br>
<br>
<br>
On 22/08/2012 7:48 AM, David William Bitner wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAEqvsZtyRSHUsZitwKRMpcmaQHsxkSX6emrtFR_9eGCjoCwvYQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Looking from another perspective, the FOSS4G North
America conference has already been widely publicized (see <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://foss4g-na.org/save-the-date-foss4g-north-america-2013/"
target="_blank">http://foss4g-na.org/save-the-date-foss4g-north-america-2013/</a>,
widely reposted elsewhere). If we choose not to provide this
support then the team will have to cancel the event, which I
think will be seen to reflect very negatively on OSGeo.
Canceling one major planned event (Beijing) is bad enough,
canceling two within the space of a few months would really
damage our credibility.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You can argue various points about whether it should have
been "announced" before getting everything agreed, but we
are where we are and I think no matter how you spin it, many
people would see it as another significant setback for OSGeo
if we didn't go ahead.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I just want to take a minute to make clear (from my
perspective) how we got to where we are. From the attempted
formation of the North American Chapter last year to support
the NA event in DC, it was made clear that the Conference
Committee did not have the bandwidth to deal with other
conferences. The DC event was fortunate in that it was able to
secure the event through the initial sponsors of the event
OpenGeo and Radiant Blue. It is with the assumption that the
Conference Committee did not want a hand in vetting these
regional events that, as the only people who expressed an
interest in hosting this conference on the North America
mailing list that we took on the mantle from the DC crew where
a preliminary announcement was made that MSP would host the
next event. The event in the Twin Cities is being hosted by
the Twin Cities Local Chapter of OSGeo which is not a legal
entity and as such does not have any ability to underwrite
this conference. This is why I first approached the Board
rather than the Conference Committee to seek assistance for
the financial backstop role. The Board then directed me to put
the issue to the Conference Committee first.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I do not think that losing this commitment from OSGeo will
scuttle our event completely. I do think it will cause OSGeo
to miss out on an opportunity to take on an activity that 1)
strongly supports the mission and 2) has a strong likelihood
of creating a profit for our chapter's "parent organization".
If OSGeo cannot fulfill this role, it will be a <b>major </b>setback
for us and we will likely need to create a relationship with
someone else where we would lose all that revenue from our
community.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>David</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
</pre>
</body>
</html>