[Board] Fwd: [Foss4g2010] subscriptions

[Frank Warmerdam]

Geoff Zeiss wrote:
> Paul has identified an important issue, at least in my mind.
> 
> A strawman
> 
> Just to get the conversation going, could I suggest that to continue to be
> financially secure OSGEO needs at least two repeatable sources of
> significant revenue.  At this point I believe these are the annual FOSS4G
> conference and sponsorship.  If we are going to eliminate or significantly
> reduce the revenue from one of them, for whatever reason, could I suggest
> that we need to identify a replacement.  If we can't then I don't think we
> can responsibly reduce the potential revenue of FOSS4G, and actually should
> be considering increasing it, because hard times tend to reduce sponsorship.

Folks,

In my zealousness to protect the prerogatives of the 2010 LOC, I neglected
the obvious statement that this is an excellent time to discuss alterations
to the expected profit level for the 2011 conference.  The RFP is likely to
go out soon so if we want to make adjustments, now is the time to discuss
them.

I would be reasonably supportive of a conservatively budgetted goal of
$40K USD profit on FOSS4G's in Europe and North America, and $20K on
FOSS4G's in other locales.

That said, I am generally not keen on treating FOSS4G as a cash cow.  I
prefer to see it as one of the substantial services we provide to the
community and to aim at conservatively budgeted break even.  But I understand
this has not been the majority view in the past, and I don't feel strongly
about it as long as we don't screw up FOSS4G by milking it too zealously.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent