[Board] A possible view of the world

[Frank Warmerdam]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Michael P. Gerlek <mpg at flaxen.com> wrote:
> Funding and sponsorship opportunities would devolve down to the chapters aligned with the specific funder/sponsor mission and objectives.


Michael,

I still believe that at least some fundraising is best accomplished at
the OSGeo wide level.

> A percentage of the proceeds from each of the chapters would return to the OSGeo parent organization, to support hosting services, etc. (only if the chapter's proceeds are greater than a certain amount).

I am personally not at all keen on us trying to treat projects,
chapters and conferences as revenue sources.  There is a
great danger of alienating parts of our community if they get
to feel we are shaking them down.  I know the "25% overhead"
to OSGeo has been a barrier to some projects participating in
the project sponsorship program which is why I've never tried
to push projects into this mechanism if they would prefer to
do things themselves and keep all their collected funds.

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 Software Developer