[Board] In-kind sponsorships

[Frank Warmerdam]

Robert Bray wrote:
> I agree with everything said so far, Howard may have summed it up best.
> Let's not go down this path...

Folks,

My position is the same.  I do not believe that we should be recognising
in-kind contributions using the sponsorship mechanism due to dilution of
the sponsorship "value", and because it puts a huge weight on us to
recognise all the in-kind contributors who are legion.

The one exception, I think, would be when there is a priority that the
foundation wants done and that we are prepared to pay for and that someone
offers to provide as an in-kind contribution.  For instance, if we decided
we needed to contract a part time sys-admin and allocated money for it, and
then DM Solution stepped up and offered Shawns time for that role on a
professional service basis then that might be suitable to treat as an
in-kind sponsorship.   They key in a case like this is that the in-kind
contribution is filling a priority role that we were already planning
to spend hard cash on.

Ari wrote:
 > IMO it would be foolish to turn down their offer only because "our
 > system does not understand you" (very softwareish, though). Sponsoring
 > is not just giving money. We just need an appropriate category for
 > sponsors of this kind.

I do agree that we need to work on better recognition for in-kind
contributions.  One approach I could imagine to that is a sort of
"volunteer of the month" award with a profile in the "Community
Spotlights" on www.osgeo.org.  Unfortunately, the community spotlights
effort has faltered for lack of volunteer editors. :-(

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent