[Board] Re: [OSGeo-Conf] facilitating FOSS4G continuity

[Frank Warmerdam]

Lorenzo Becchi wrote:
> I've been chatting with Cameron, asking if there were some facilities to 
> let a person of Barcelona 2010 team to enter the conference in Sidney 
> (ex: one free entrance pass).
> He honestly admitted that this kind of things are out of budget and I 
> can't blame him because I have my budget in front and it would be 
> complicated to me too to do the same without a previous plan.
> 
> Talking with Tyler we talked about the possibility to put in the RFP 
> something about facilities for the next conference (this could not apply 
> to Sidney or Barcelona as bids are already closed).
> The idea is that FOSS4G should support its continuity and brand in some 
> way.
> 
> It will be not easy to me to afford expenses to go to Sidney, I'm not 
> representing a company that is trying to sell something or working for 
> an institution that has some kind of budget for conferences.
> Anyway I'm supposed to present FOSS4G2010 at Sidney.
> Am I wrong?
> does my presence in Sidney worth?

Conference Committee Folks,

We discussed this somewhat in the board meeting today, and the conclusion was
that we felt OSGeo ought to provide seed funding to each new conference LOC
very shortly after the site is selected.  An amount of perhaps around $15K.

This would make it more practical for conference LOCs to make some preliminary
expenditures (deposits, etc) before the first sponsors have paid into their
working money.  It would also give them some money they could use to send a
LOC member to the preceeding conference for the important experience gains
and continuity aspects.

The board chose to turn this issue back to the conference committee to
propose details.  The issues I'd like to address are:

  1) An amount of seed funding that would be adequate.

  2) Some potential guidelines on the "send a LOC member to the preceeding
     conference".  Basically, I'm thinking LOCs should be encouraged to do
     this if they have relatively little experience with hosting FOSS4G
     amoung the key local people.  Furthermore that the person who gets sent
     would be expected to act as a conference volunteer as much as practical
     so that they get to see the maximum amount of nitty gritty internals of
     how things work.

  3) I think we need to turn around the current governance approach.  Currently
     after site selection we expect the LOC to prepare a budget and submit it
     to OSGeo for approval along with a document describing their governance
     approach and relationship to OSGeo (like
     http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Governance).  Only after the board
     has approved the budget (which is often many many months later) do we
     consider the relationship finalized and are we willing to make a financial
     commitment.  I think we need instead to provide a standard governance
     document to the proposed LOC, get agreement, and then be prepared to
     release the seed funding and make other financial commitments (within
     reason) before a final budget is prepared for approval by the board.

I would like to see the conference committee prepare and approve a
"LOC Startup RFC" or similar addressing the above points in time for
approval at the next board meeting (in roughly 4 weeks).  Once done we
would aim to apply this to FOSS4G 2010 and to release funds to the 2010
team as soon as they need them and have a mechanism to receive them.
(They may find they need to select a PCO first as the PCO normally
manages the funds on behalf of the LOC).

Comments?  Thoughts?  Is there anyone else who would like to prepare
a policy document (aka RFC) on this topic for discussion and approval?
If not, I'd be willing to do it but I'm pretty slack, so I'd rather
someone else lead the effort if practical.

Note that the proposed seed funding is expected to be repaid back to
OSGeo at the end of the conference activity along with the hoped for
profit.  So this isn't exactly an expenditure on OSGeo's part.  It is
just a provision of bridge funding for the LOC.

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