<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">​​Hi Andreas,</div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><span class=""><div style="font-size:small"><br></div><div style="font-size:small">On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 8:24 AM, Andreas Neumann <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:andreas@qgis.org" target="_blank">andreas@qgis.org</a>></span> wrote:<br></div></span><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div>Hi OSGEO board / officers,<br></div>I would like to investigate about the OSGEO sponsors policy. Especially in the light that we had and have similar requests from "dubious" sponsors in the QGIS project. Also maybe to align our policies.<br></div>I am relating to the bronze sponsors listed at <a href="http://www.osgeo.org/content/sponsorship/sponsors.html" target="_blank">http://www.osgeo.org/content/s<wbr>ponsorship/sponsors.html</a><br></div><ul><li>ChameleonJohn</li><li>Apps4Rent</li><li>Dealslands</li></ul>These companies are not active in the geospatial domain. The sole purpose of their sponsorship is to get search engine optimizations by getting increased trust from a popular Open Source project. They are willing to pay such small sponsorships and get an awful lot of value from it. It is simply advertising for their business that has nothing to do with "geo".<br><br></div>I would suggest the OSGEO board to not accept such sponsorships in the future and remove the existing "dubious" ones completely, once they expire. Since they are 2016 sponsors - maybe they can be removed already?<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div><div style="font-size:small">​Thank you for reminding us about this issue! You'll be happy to know that the OSGeo board already voted to not accept this kind of sponsors anymore, see <a href="https://www.loomio.org/d/RmDdysre/update-sponsorship-instructions-to-restrict-search-engine-optimization-companies" target="_blank">https://www.loomio.org/d/<wbr>RmDdysre/update-sponsorship-<wbr>instructions-to-restrict-<wbr>search-engine-optimization-<wbr>companies</a></div><div style="font-size:small"><br></div><div style="font-size:small">Concerning removing 2016's questionable sponsors, maybe Jody knows if removal now is ok with our agreements.</div><div style="font-size:small"><br></div><div style="font-size:small">Best wishes,</div><div style="font-size:small">Anita</div><div style="font-size:small"><br></div><div style="font-size:small"><br></div><div style="font-size:small"><br></div><div style="font-size:small">​</div><br></div></div></div></div>
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