[Board] foss4g marketing [was: facilitating FOSS4G continuity]

[Arnulf Christl (OSGeo)]

> Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:
>> Why has the conference committee never requested to have a budget for
>> this
>> kind of thing (hint hint...)?
>>
>
> very short answer: because I just assumed there was no money in the
> budget for this

>From all that I know the world works the other way round here. If you need
money to get something done then make a budget and post it for discussion.
The committees should propose the budget not the board. I try to remove
the notion that the board has any special capabilities in deciding where
to spend money. The board needs to formally approve the budget and to
watch out that it can actually be funded. This is a bit like crystal ball
reading but hey, that's business.

> The conference committee can come up with a budget request for what we
> need to "facilitate FOSS4G continuity".  If you say there are funds
> available for this then we can definitely proceed with that.
>
> -jeff

He - I never said that there are funds. But if there is a need to have a
budget for FOSS4G up front (which to me makes a lot of sense) then the
conference committee should discuss it and estimate how much that would
be.

By default OSGeo has no money at all. Every single penny has to be
collected from sponsors. If there is no need for money then we would not
need to have any sponsors. The current budget is what OSGeo needs to keep
things running. Fortunately we had a soft start with Autodesk kindly
sponsoring a lot but we cannot expect this to go on forever.

As FOSS4G is a major source of income for OSGeo it is just natural to
request some funds to organize the next.

Best regards,
Arnulf.


-- 
Arnulf Christl
President OSGeo
http://www.osgeo.org