[Board] 2012 FOSS4G Decision

[Michael P. Gerlek]

I thought about the culture/lang/lack-of-experience issue too... I think
Beijing will be a *very* different conference than what we're used to, and
will likely be smaller... but I really like the idea of trying to "crack
open" the Chinese market.  I was really impressed by the heavy-hitters they
lined up to welcome their new chapter some years ago, so I think the
organizers can get the formal support they'll need... but yeah, this won't
make OSGeo the $ that Denver will.

I'm +0 on hiring out Jeff for this.  It's a great idea, actually, but I'd
need to think about how it would work in practice.

-mpg


-----Original Message-----
From: board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org]
On Behalf Of Seven (aka Arnulf)
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 7:42 AM
To: board at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Board] 2012 FOSS4G Decision

On 09/12/2011 11:13 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Board,
> 
> We (the OSGeo Conference Committee) finally has a strong decision on 
> the
> 2012 FOSS4G host: Beijing. The final vote was 9 to 5 for Beijing.
> 
> (background: the initial vote was a tie, 7-7, and we did not have a 
> tie-breaker established, so we did a re-vote over a week)
> 
> As quickly as possible I would like approval from the Board on this 
> decision.  There is a 10 minute slot in the final plenary on Friday 
> (at FOSS4G Denver) to announce/invite everyone to 2012.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -jeff

Board,
it took me long to take this hard decision but my vote on Beijing as
conference venue for 2012 is -1. This is not lack of trust in the Beijing
team but instead - lack of trust in OSGeo and the board and most of all lack
of trust in myself (because I seem to not be doing a good job as president).
The board has a history of not following through with decisions which is why
I feel I have to take this route.

Rationale for veto:
Every single FOSS4G so far has been in "our" cultural context, China is very
different to what we are used to. This single reason alone is responsible
for many broken businesses and there is not reason why we should be an
exception. FOSS4G is currently our single only source of revenue.

Lausanne had Claude as a chair, even then a well versed Open Source leader.
Victoria with Paul was beyond doubt the first event of the new large scale
FOSS4G we now see happen every year. South Africa was a big risk - but
worked out great in the end - even if it took more than a year after the
conference until the cash was wired to the OSGeo account (which we could not
afford in our current situation). But even in Cape Town the core language
was English and communication was straight forward.

Sydney was again beyond doubt from an organizing perspective with Cameron in
the lead - but as it was half way round the nice, blue side of the world we
did have less attendees than we would have had elsewhere.

Barcelona was the first time that the Local chaps spoke a different language
and I can assure you it was a massive pain until we even got the contracts
done - and this even although we had Lorenzo, a highly capable local fluent
in Eglish, Spanish, Catalan and Italian - and me backing things up who also
speaks Spanish. None of you took much notice of this constant back channel
issue about language.

Now in Denver it is a home rum - and looks like it will be the greatest
FOSS4G ever.

Now on to Bejing: We have no representative here as we did with Lorenzo in
Barcelona, Gavin and Peter Batty in Victoria - the first missing link. The
official Chinese Local Chapter is very much invisible to me and has no
record of experience with FOSS4G events as far as I can tell.
Again - this is not to criticize the Beijing offer or the people involved -
it may well be my massive ignorance only. So please do not feel offended.

Next thing is that 70% and more revenue generated by FOSS4G conferences is
generated within the local hosting country. I am simply anxious that we will
not be able to generate enough monetary interest in China to pay our bills.
Additionally Beijing is far off so that - just like in Australia - many of
the regular attendees may well not be able to come at all.

Solution to resolve veto:
It is a very simple proposal: Allocate 20k US$ budget to fund our conference
chair Jeff McKenna to help organize the Beijing FOSSG conference. With him
in the backbone of the conference I feel safe to go ahead with a +1 for
FOSS4G 2012 in Beijing. Ideally this money comes right back with the
conference - but we will have to back it up as a foundation with a vote -
now!

Jeff,
I know that you will not be able to support FOSS4G in Beijing for free
without hurting your business, so please do not step up and say anything at
all - you are out and should probably abstain from saying anything until we
have taken this decision (unless you do not accept this offer at all).


Board,
one reason why I take this painful route is because I can still not believe
that we were too miserly to back up 12k for a code sprint.
FOSS4G means we will be backing up several 100k - and with all of the above
said in mind the risk we take is a lot higher than we would have done with
that comparatively small sprint.


Motion:
Arnulf Christl motions to allocate 20k funding for the conference chair to
co-organize FOSS4G 2012 in Beijing, to be paid within the next year to the
account of Jeff McKenna.


Please let us have a discussion here - if necessary, then we need someone to
second this motion and votes.


Please refrain from physically hurting me until I am done with my keynote,
after that feel free to do whatever you deem appropriate.

:-)

Thank you for you consideration,
Arnulf

--
Exploring Space, Time and Mind
http://arnulf.us
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